* Caspar David
Friedrich: View from the studio of the artistVindauga
* Caspar David
Friedrich: View from the studio of the artist
A series of window views, photographs taken at my own different temporal homes during the last few years: On a basic narrative level the window scenery, the 'looking out', could be said to be talking about a desire to be somwhere else, a longing for leaving.
Sie sahen in dem sehr einfachen, aber hübschen und lichten Raume, dessen Fenster auf den Neckar gingen, die hohe Gestalt des Unglücklichen in ein Fenster gelehnt, auf den unmittelbar unter dem Erker dahinströmenden Fluß blickend. (Hermann Hesse: "Im Presselschen Gartenhaus. Eine Geschichte aus dem alten Tübingen." Edition J. J. Heckenhauer, Tübingen, 1998.) |
But to me the more substantial thematic background of these photographs is the literal reflexivity of the images, the kind of split view, one eye directed towards the maker of the pictures. And in this sense they are self-portraits showing a curiosity about the 'dark' side of the photographic image, contents obscured by the photograph's obvious references to the world ‘out there’ as it was during the moment of exposure of the light sensitive material.
This background owes its philosophical view to the photo-critical writing of Vilém Flusser (especially the book: "Towards a Philosophy of Photography"). He considers the basic ‘problem’ of a contemporary usage of photographs (or "technical pictures" in general) to be a kind of confusion: A photograph is likely to be taken for a window through which one could see the world 'out there' rather than the complex display of symbolic content it should, according to the character of the apparatus involved in its production, be seen as.
