2016
vessels
unique silver gelatin prints
photography | video | object
while reading one of the first articles on photography by louis daguerre, published only shortly after its invention, i came across a passage that left a big impression on me: "photography is a process which gives nature the ability to reproduce itself." which can be interpreted as, photography is not about the creator; the creator plays no other part than facilitating the camera.
this quote by daguerre became the starting point for a quest to understanding love, nature, chance, accuracy and systems in photography as a physical medium. vases focuses on the nature of photography and its special features that allow us to capture unique and transient moments. here i explore time, light and photographic materials in an indirect and poetic way, exposing them directly on photo paper and creating unique imprints of unstable matter that only leave their traces on the surface of the paper.
vessels is an investigation of the notion of time and illusion that photography can create. i constructed a structure made out of light-emitting shoelaces that, while turning, appears on the photograph as a vase. so what appears as volume is actually a body made solely by light and has no material structure underneath. i made a series of 25 unique photographs that all exist in a particularly depicted form and only in the picture. it is a process that can never be exactly repeated, as once you change a small detail about the shape of the light-emitting shoelace or adjust the shutter time of the camera, the shape will form entirely different.