RESEARCH 01

The self-directed research brings together various thought and disciplines. The concept of identity, fixity and fluidity are explored through photographic practices. Reconsider the practice of image making / image recording / identity recording

1. I explore image making by using the whole surface of the photographic film. To use the whole film as one photograph I am rewinding the film in front of the lens with the shutter open. In my first trials I used and old minolta srt101 because it allows me to control the rewinding and the shutter manually. As expected, there is a lot of blur. More precisely motion blur, because the rewinding gesture transform the still photography camera into a moving-image camera. I am therefore taking photographs with a moving image camera. The resulting image is a representation of the displacement of things in time and space. It is also a direct representation of the movement of my body and the gesture attached to it.

The first trials were made with black and white films but I quickly move to use color films. In a process where abstraction and motion blur can dominate, color films seem to bring a balance by allowing more details to be visible or even recognizable. One could say that the images are a combination of both abstract and figurative elements melted together by motion blur. In fact, during a public presentation where I remained silent, someone described a series of those images as a dream like melted landscape. An atmosphere both contemplative and disturbing: a moment before a storm during monsoon, a forest fire with surreal waves of smokes, a personal view of someone panicking. For some participants, the images were full of sounds, the sound of a storm, of breath and of noise. The image presented was a reversed photograph of medium format films I putted together on a lightbox table. Films are 56*720mm. The neon lighting of the box resulted in a strong blue hue and uneven lighting of the original photograph that had a strong impact on the way images were read and interpreted. Nonetheless, the vocabulary deployed to describe the images fits my underlining concept of Liquidity: Monsoon, Humididty, Storm, Rain, Gas, Fire, Waves, Breath, Noise, Dissolved movement.

2 The medium format experiments: not being afraid of breaking and mistreating the clean and technical imagery. I built a medium format camera with a diy lens made of three glass elements. The camera doesn't have a shutter. On previous experiment I remarked that the shutter played an important role in the selective process of the subject. I am interested in this flower therefore I frame and press the shutter to capture the image. But what is happening when the camera doesn't have a shutter? The process of selection is transferred to another technical gesture, in my case rewinding.

3 Body Techniques and gesture: 3 Texts on REWINDING - MOVEMENT WITHIN SPACE - STILL OBJECT RELATION Moving Shifting Transient Velocity Dynamism Displacement Gesture

Techniques of the body vs Techniques of instruments Photography "habitus"

4 Fixity in photography and the impact on defining reality, identity as a fix and certain concept. Breaking the idea of a static use of photography and reality.

Fixity & Certainty of the past Fluidity & Uncertainty of the future

RANDOM: "Camera-made images erase the marks of their making these images are made of marks and nothing else". Ulrich Baer - Spectral Evidence: the photography of trauma p7 MIT

My axes of research are now:

How do we experience time in photography?

How do we explore the transformation from fixity to movement?

The precise instant when still image become motion-picture? (Marker, C. (1962). La Jetée) How do we represent, interpret or record the fluid character of time and space?

REFERENCES: Zygmunt BAUMAN Marteen VANVOLSEM John TAGG Paul VERHAEGHE