ARTIST STATEMENT

What is real? What can be real? Should we trust our Mind? Should we trust photography?

My works are concepts of perception. In our Mind a hallucination triggers the same areas as a real perception, telling the mind there is no difference between the real and the “not real”.  Photography used to be an indicator of something “real”. Today both cannot be trusted. We know too much about the mind and the possible technics in photo manipulation.

These are the topics that interest me. Working with the mind, with hallucinations, with disorders in the brain. To see what is happening when the mind works differently from “the norm” when it shows us a parallel world. Or even tells us to do something really bad for our surrounding.

This I try to accomplish trough photography. Without any manipulation of the image after it has been taken. Often I use old cameras, sometimes brand new ones. The Camera has to fit the project and not the other way around.

 

The combination of Production Design, Photography and the Fine Arts are essential. Only all the parts together make my work and my mind a complete system. For me, these pieces belong together, like the human body can't work in a right way with an organ missing. I believe neither of these elements can work well without one another.

BIOGRAPHY

1982                         born in Cologne

2003 – 2004            Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Physics

2004 – 2005            Berliner Technische Kunstschule, Graphic-Design

2008 – 2013            Study of Fine Art, Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee, The Berlin Weissensee School of Art

2013                          Gradutated from the Berlin Weissensee School of Art.

                                    Class of Prof. Friederike Feldmann

 

                                    Merlin Ortner lives und works in Berlin