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David Weber-Krebs and Jan-Philipp Posmann

In 1967 the art critic Michael Fried made the “strongly disquieting experience of coming upon a literal object”. Fried unexpectedly entered into a theater, the theater of objecthood. The object was one of several black cubes of perfectly symmetrical proportions that appeared on the art scene like alien timeless travelers of our cultural history: From the Egyptian temple of Leto across the Muslim Kaaba to Tony Smith’s sculpture Die from 1962. This lecture performance is an effort in tracing the dialectics of these peculiar apparitions and making the encounter with one of them immediate. „These works are black and they might also be evil minded.“ (Tony Smith 1966)

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1988 NEXT cube computer

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A Flow chart explaining how i would like the viewer to engage with the concept 

And What images egage with each part with this

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First ideas of which images i could use in my final installation

Wall 1, The natural and the Artificial 

This should depict natural forms which are easily recognisable, however recognise the act of photographing as an imposing technological process.

Wall 2, Technology expanded 

Low key images starting with pairing what the viewer thinks of technology (circuit board), then moving onto a different idea of technology which is the binding of the flowers 

Wall 3, Primitive technology and removing context 

These two large images show a large dried plant, which has been preserved through drying by unnatural means, then inverted to de contextualise.

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Above showing an installation shot at the MoMA

Joan Fontcuberta - Fauna, 1987

This work serves as an inspiration to my project and installation. Exhibited in 1989 at The Museum of Modern Art, but was also shown in England, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the United States. 

Displaying artificial creations of new animal species that have been both physically and photographically edited to make these images seem very real. The approach to these photographs was very serious and scientifically strict with X-rays included as well as dissection drawings and in once case an actual stuffed specimen. 

The photographs are named scientifically according to their descriptions in Lattin, something which I feel would work well if incorporated into my exhibition.

Made by a Spanish photographer and curator, this exhibition features a fiction backstory in the official press release, which states that the images are from a found archive of a german photographer. This is an idea of a backstory which I could incorporate into my work.  

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Early diagrams depicting evolutionary paths

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Darwin's Illustrations of flora

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Illustrations from a journal published by Dawin

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Looking into how the brain contextualises spaces

Relevent extracts from a journal published on Sciencedirect.com

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811920305310?dgcid=rss_sd_all

“ In the occipital place area and after 200 ​ms of vision, representations of scene fragments were organized by their typical vertical location in the world. For instance, fragments that typically appear in the upper part of a scene (e.g., a house roof or the ceiling of a room) were represented more similarly to each other than to fragments that typically appear in the lower part of a scene (e.g., a lawn or a room’s floor). No such organization was found for the fragments’ horizontal location, for which clear schemata are missing “ 

Above shows the examples of the test 

Below are results from the test, showing the importance of different information.

The importance of vertical location information is prioritized by the brain over horizontal data. This information is then processed by the brain in 200-300 milliseconds.

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Top - Moma exhibition featuring Andy Warhol 

Middle - Andy Warhol Banana

Bottome - Andy Warhol Skulls

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My selection of successful images from my outdoor shoot.

For this I used a digital Hasselblad and portable profoto lighting kit.

My aim was to experiment with planting technology in the natural environment rather than to manipulate the natural in the technological environment.

This shoot was worthwhile to explore this avenue of conceptual application in my photography, however I feel that these images lack a quality that is found in my other studio shots. In the natural environment the images are very busy with the technological element hiding amongst the busy rather than being exclaimed in the minimal studio space.

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Inverting and manipulating colour to remove the viewer's ability to detain contextual information from the image.

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Experiments 

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Best edits from new low key shoot, exploring the binding of flowers as an imposed technological process. This process not in any way benefiting the already dying plant but making it more aesthetically pleasing for the viewers pleasure. 

The top image was edited for viewing on a screen or light box as an experiment, and the bottom two edited for an inkjet printer. With slightly lighter tones then my final test print from my pilot project. 

The 16bit tiff files have much less colour compression, then these uploads.

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Evaluating the currnet state of my concept

Knowledge is power

Accepting Darwinism as a concept accepts an acknowledgment of life to self preserve thorough adaptation. In the case of evolution this adaptation is not from a conscious understanding, but rather through the survival of beneficial genes that have passed to the next generation. As life gains awareness through intelligence, applying Darwinistic logic to this intelligence will have a hard wired bias towards self preservation.

Using the sense of sight humans can extrapolate an intelligent understanding of their perceived surroundings. With understanding, intelligent responses are made from the ability to process information that our senses detail from the three dimensional world that we inhabit. No matter the level of intelligence these responses will always favour that of self preservation as it is this that has allowed a single celled organism to evolve into every living creature that inhabits the world today.

Inevitably as humans gained intelligence and understanding of the natural world we would then apply this understanding in the form of technology, in order to harness benefits from what we deemed resourceful. The progression of which started with our fundentail needs for survival food, water and warmth. This technological progression started to fulfill our needs however has not stopped, but rather been applied to our wants. Something which will never be met as the development and expansion of society continues.

This project engages with the notion of a disconnect between modern technological society and where technology began. In this installation of photographs, I hope that the viewer fails to fully understand and contextualise the natural subjects depicted. This is achieved by restricting visual information, through low key exposures working with the two dimensionality of the printed image. This restriction of context puts the power dynamic between man and nature in juxtaposition, as the viewer's power over the subject is lost when they fail to detain understanding.

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::Understanding, understanding.

This an extract from the book 'Heidegger's Roots:Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks'.

Here Heidegger dicusses the will that one has of self preservation. This deeply rooted in darwinism which is realtive to all life.

Here Heidegger discusses the will that one has of self preservation. This is deeply rooted in darwinism which is relative to all life. From this it can be said that any decision conscious or subconscious will be biased towards self preservation.