Okay, hey there. It’s been a liiiiittle while. (My last post was in October 2017. I mean, only 3.5 years. That’s no thaaat much of a while, right???! My habit of posting to the blog still falls into the category ‘once in a while’, right?!???!)
So, I get to take part in the project Kunst im Coworking. Different creative people from different fields talking about art, sharing their projects and wanting to learn from each other.
As of today only swiss people are participating in the project, so I could totally write in german. But I’m choosing to write in english because a) I want my international friends to be able to take part in this and b) - more importantly - everything and anything just sounds THAT much more legit in english. So here we go, english it is. (Okay, the ‘international friends’ thing is a bit of a #humblebrag, let’s be honest. But I actually DO have international friends :)
The topic of the current project is “Block” (international people: imagine a (swiss)german speaking person saying bloCK. ckckckck FTW, hey ;)
Tons of things come to mind when I’m thinking of the word “block”: Writers block, Jenny from the block, blockbuster, blockchain… just to name a few.
Here is my photographic interpretation of the “block”-topic. I will share some thoughts on the how’s/ when’s and why’s below.
Some thoughts on the topic ‚block’ and my visual interpretation of it:
Well, there are obviously many, many layers to it (duh… we all know that nothing in life in simple, don’t we?!). I initially started out thinking ‚I want to approach this project in a very literal sense and take photos of actual blocks.‘ And I wanted to take the photos of the blocks the way I see things. My vision is currently messed up (aka. „blocked“ ;) because I am having an oculomotor nerve palsy. Hence I’m seeing double. Constantly. That quickly added another layer to my visual interpretation. So here I was, photographing blocks with blocked vision. (*Insert Alanis Morisette singing: ‚well, isn’t it ironic?!‘*) At this point I figured I might as well not only take photos of literal blocks, but just take pictures of anything and everything that catches my blocked eye(s). To add yet another layer, I kept running into „COVID-blocks“ while taking photos. Places, benches and other things that were blocked.
But: I also discovered a lot of beauty in the mundane. And beauty in double vision.
All in all, what you’re seeing here is what caught my eye (put the way it caught my eye.) I’m seeing double, but depending on the angle and direction, the „second“ layer is sometimes more to the left, sometimes more to the right. But - left or right - the second layer it’s always tilted. (I mean because im seeing double my visual world is suuuuper busy already. I’d want at least all the lines to be straight. But no: not happening. Tilted it is… Well, life isn’t always straight lines, huh?!)
And maybe a quick note on the more practical side: I started out using a prism for taking the photos with my digital camera. But I soon switched to double exposure, because that’s a lot more accurately picturing how I’m seeing things. Among the photos here there are some taken with double exposure and some with a prism.
Okay, that’s all I have to say for now. Wow, this turned out kinda long… I mean, I used to do blogposts with just ONE sentence and lots of photos. But I guess my one-liners turned into one-hundred-liners… I’m making the wording match my current visual situation… (Double portion FTW ;)
If you made it this far: good job and thanks for reading, I appreciate it!
Word. ↑
P.S. The very initial inspiration for the photography project was the following: I came across a photo of Baptiste Hauville in THIS series. When I saw the photo, I was struck by how that expresses the way I see things. From that point on I used that specific photo (no. 5 in the series) to show people what it‘s like. And I later on thought: ‚I know how to take those kinds of photos, too!‘
Double exposure seems to be a thing lately (at least in my IG world). Ever since I started being more aware I keep seeing photos of that kind. So I now have good reason to tell myself: „It‘s not a defect! It‘s ART!!!!“ Plus: I‘m obviously kinda ahead of time, since I started the double exposure thing in mid 2020. #earlyadopter *pats herself on the back* ;)