prints and videos


The photographic picture is – amongst other things – used as memory aid. But as such it is, as Roland Barthes says in “Camera Lucida”, “by its very nature never memory,
it rather blocks memory, it becomes counter-memory very fast.

[...]

I treat the prints with sulfuric acid. The image dissolves into its component parts. The gray passport photography ― just a few seconds recognizable ― first explodes into colors before the chemical dissolution process ends on the resistant white titanium oxide surface of the photo paper. In addition, the gelatin can be seen, in which the color pigments are bound. The dissolution of material often takes place so slow, that one is not able to notice it. In using the acid I accelerate the dissolution.

The bond of material and memory is destroyed to investigate the painful process of letting go.

Sohn: Versuch dich mal zu erinnern
Vater: Woran soll ich mich erinnern?
Sohn: An einen Tag wie jeden anderen