Attempting a Survey as an artistic genre, are still links.4 The viewer can thereby accept considered as an important stage in the offered instructions, but need SANDRA KRIŽIĆ ROBAN Interruption, incoherence, its evolution, and it is to its recent not necessarily follow them. surprise are the ordinary conditions echoes that we have dedicated of our life. the exhibition Archives, Re- Photography has become a sort of Paul Valéry Assemblances, and Surveys. The coordinate that functions like an starting point for our research are echo of some event or an absent not documents that serve as records artwork, like a channel 5 used to Many experimental, processual, of events, but photography as a mediate the conceptualisation and so-called “non-representative” separate element of an artwork,1 and realisation of a speci∫c idea. procedures, most commonly something that has become a According to Peter Weibel, it associated with conceptual artistic challenge to the “illiterate” (Walter exists divided into four major strategies, use photography as Benjamin), who must prepare groups: photographs as evidence their typical feature. One should for understanding the future: of irritation, as liberation of the recall the ontological research that photography as an autonomous photographic mechanism, as seeks to ∫nd out what photography work of art, as its own subject.2 appropriation, and as triggers of is, approaches that cultivate an associations.6 They motivate the analytical attitude towards the New and innovative working viewer to extend his or her view and medium, practices that result strategies—self-representation, to develop critical awareness, with from the wish to name the essence processuality, personal manifestoes, an eventual impact in the form of an of the medium as such (noema), body art, happenings; experiments acceleration of the cognitive process. artworks that emphasise the aiming at analytically exploring tautological nature of photography, the medium, detachment from Owing to the many years of Camera transformations from two- the representative status of the Austria’s activity, it is now possible dimensional surfaces into bodies— artwork, and the use of anonymous to explore and continue the objects and books—radical rebellions photographs appropriated from photographic concepts that rest against the photographic canon, and the printed media, from private or on the constitutive foundations eventually the non-photographed, public archives—characterise many of conceptual art, among which elementary photography created by of these artistic strategies that have one may include analytical direct interventions on photo paper. emerged in recent decades. Their actions, research on positions, Since the 1960s, the medium has “∫nal result” has been, among meanings, and relations, subjective proven suitable for transmitting other things, photography whose statements, conceptual registers, thoughts and ideas, whereby theory task is no longer to draw attention and archives of indirect references. and criticism have been increasingly on something that someone has The “meaningless” and seemingly using terms such as generative, non- seen, but which operates as a absurd information becomes part representational, performative, and speci∫c way of activating other and of complex artistic statements that even inadequate photography. different aspects of the remnants subtract or transform the identity of its aesthetic value. Based on of the reality. From a serious, well- Photography has become an the conceptual impetus that ∫rst guarded building as the repository exceptionally important element emerged in the 1960s, contemporary of what has been written, spoken, in understanding the nature of practice does not consist in creating or created, whose structure testi∫es artworks that involve text, as well objects, but in liberating itself from (also) of the status of the community as various types of “constructions” them. The artists’ interest is now that has established it, to individual and “enactments”. In this way, the directed at meanings behind the “collections” whose structures focus has been shifted beyond the objects, as they no longer focus cannot be clearly de∫ned as they common, representative character primarily on materialisation. depend on various individual of the medium, while its extension Artistic procedure can also consist decisions, often inaccessible to the to the processes of thought has in providing instructions on how users—archives have become subject contributed to achieving important to create the artwork, information to numerous re-assemblances and change in the perception of on what it is comprised of and what surveys. Without their existence, it photography. The aspect of meaning happened to it during and after would be impossible to understand could not be retained within the the performance. Establishing the events, memory, and even history; actual photographic frame. In image has become a challenge in and yet, their practice is disturbing. the gap between the seen and the the era of innovations characteristic The archival material offered for understood, photography could of the “history of the present.”3 The consultation to the users can be no longer maintain its nature of role of the observer has changed as seemingly organised as a permanent visual evidence. Thus, changes well: the introduction of sequence form, but can one really trust the brought about by the emergence of has activated the viewing mode, narrative encountered there? Are conceptual art, which to a certain which now explores the similarities the archives genuine, or are they extent “liberated” photography and unhindered, comparing what has subject to manipulation? allowed it to evolve independently been seen, and creating possible Exploring and discovering, documenting and organising—the image, followed by a landscape of representation.11 It explores the a way, we seem to look at a danse it actually means as one of the reduced to—accused the Viennese form of the archive shows itself covered in snow, with a one-storey relations between the real and macabre that took place decades seven fundamental categories. on the one hand of snobbism, pliable in the hands of an artist. house in the background. Its wide, the true (M. Ammer quoting Peter ago, since the sequence merges it His interpretation of history is an while on the other, as a convinced Sometimes it is a repository of two-winged door is painted white Geimer) by using the traces of one’s all—the discarded and the archived. autonomous organism in which socialist humanist, he attached too personal decisions, the organisation and the windows to the right are memory, “accidentally” discovered The historically documented and the biological and historical data, much signi∫cance to pure form. of which destabilises the four-fold, divided into a series of by the artist, which can be irrelevant dance here hand in hand. accompanied by spatial depictions For Frank, form was a gesture foundations on which the usual small frames, whereas to the left understood in the recording process. of real space, coexist in space-time. that could serve to reveal complex understanding of the content relies. their form is different. A small, yet Her record is a photographic The notion of time capsule is usually They are elements in the strategy human interactions in a simple Can we ∫nd our way in these, often imposing chimney rises above the sequence, the narrative of associated with world exhibitions or of preservation that functioned way. Eighty years later, the tenants parallel events, and understand house: it seems uncanny. I do not which depends on the degree of space travel, when mankind comes in some previous time, but in this speak about the buildings, referring the decisions that preceded their feel comfortable while watching intervention into the medium. The to the idea of sending a selection isolated and displaced selection from their personal perspectives arrangement? Fluid passage through the scene: I dislike staged scenes observed person is in a precarious of data about our civilisation on con∫rm the precarious position to the expected harmony between time is a feature of contemporary from World War II, that appearance position; he or she feels the planet Earth. Occasionally time of the person who has dared to nature and the geometrical forms of art, “disloyal to the sanctities” of of normal life, in the background consequences of the photographer’s capsules have been built into the introduce them into our own time. architecture. earlier times, which used to obstruct of which, behind the closed door, hands, which document the foundations of important buildings, More than a thousand-years old and prevent movement. But modern there is a pulsating feeling of fear, perceived with trembling hands. expressing the hope that once they organisms that scientists use to The ∫lm lasts an hour and has the times are characterised by another hopelessness, the Final Solution. But that movement is an almost are demolished, the inhabitants cultivate plants today, trunks unique quality of a long, almost sort of inertia, which depends on For whom? absurd way of creating meaning in (or perhaps space travellers) may preserved in peat bogs for hundreds uninterrupted sequence, although the economic situation that blocks the psycho-geographic landscape in ∫nd some interesting information and thousands of years, an almost scenes shot in various buildings many choices. The new systems are The sequence continues with an which everything seems static. there. One tends to interpret the extinct language that reminds alternate with interviews made rigid precisely owing to the “loose almost identical scene, and yet, capsules in terms of archaeology of of bird calls and is spoken only with several of the tenants. Without by a few persons on one of the breaks” and the exaggerated Ωuidity it seems that the hand of the The archival “method” is even more knowledge, as archives that would attempting to reinterpret the well- Canary Islands, beautiful fabric or liquidity (Zygmunt Bauman); the cameraman trembled seriously, manifest in the series of slides once help reconstruct knowledge known facts about this interesting wallpapers from the nineteenth buildings are missing in which the thus making it inadequate, while called Positions at El Alamein. A on the past. However, they consist architectural exhibition, one century with the pattern of Les control desks of the system were in the next frame an older and Montage (2012). The starting point merely of selected information, of those that were organised in Vues du Brésil (Scenes from Brazil) once lodged.7 Can one ∫nd comfort obviously more experienced soldier was a series of slides that the artist same as any other archive, and various European cities during the all belong to Mayer’s poeticism in individual archives, is it possible steps before the young man. He is found in a waste container for old outline only a segment of reality. 1930s (Stuttgart, Berlin, Prague, of waste, that particular burden and desirable? And how is visual seen only from the back, while he paper. The photographs were shot The rest has “disappeared” or has etc.), where a distant land plot destined to be sunk in speci∫c content classi∫ed there with regard energetically yet tenderly adjusts during the 1960s at the beach of been left to interpretation, which belonging to the city was used to cases.12 The “noble savages” from to all other content? the hand of the young soldier in El Alamein, which had been the functions as a combination of build new projects by architects historiography and storytelling. the Brazilian forests surrounded by order to teach him how to hold site of two important World War II Biedermeier furniture, are gracious such as Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, Constructing Memory his gun properly. The scenes then battles in which the German and André Lurçat, Richard Neutra, Gerrit For his series Putting in Time (2014), and colouristically impressive alternate while simulating the Italian troops, joined in the so-called Rietveld, and Margarethe Schütte- Christian Mayer has collected hints at the colonial relations and Are historical situations constructed continuity of a negative: sharp then Panzerarmee Afrika, fought against Lihotzky as the only woman among objects from Ωea markets, searching our “being there.” It gives us the ∫rmly enough, or does their Ωuid dimmed, out of focus owing to some the Allies in the Egyptian territory in them, this video speaks about the for newspaper photographs that feeling of security as we, armed with nature make it easier to “spill out” imaginary detonations or perhaps 1942. The topography of the battle, advantages and disadvantages of show motives related to the notion knowledge, are those who are here, latent fear, despite the whiteness with shots of airplanes and Rommel a housing development whose their content within time? Is the of time capsule. The structure of his abandoned to the synchronising knowledge we have of the past inert of the landscape and the young with a camera in his hands, as well research has thus been thoroughly experiences transmitted by Mayer’s “poverty” was considered manifest and insensitive to movement, and man incapable of holding his gun as maps witnessing war strategies, de∫ned, guided by systems and procedures of archivation and in the fact that the buildings had does the stability of events from properly. are combined here with personal values that form part of our social personal mapping. Ωat roofs. In the meantime, this previous periods make us change holiday photos, created in an erotic relations. This has made it possible minimised living space has been things in order to understand and The second piece from the same atmosphere. In a uni∫ed rhythm, for him to write his own version Vienna’s Werkbundsiedlung is somewhat embellished by green adapt them, in order to reach the series represents both soldiers—the the slides alternate scenes — against of history, which hardly allows for a product of a real utopia, an surfaces, which have softened the stage of lasting solidity that one young one, who is now “∫nally” a green background, there is a hand any conclusions. He has chosen articulation of hope, although rigidity of its prismatic forms, while 8 could trust and rely upon? May holding the gun in an appropriate holding the photograph at its lower newspaper photographs such as the its foundations were seriously interventions by some of the tenants we conclude that the past was, or manner, and the older one, dressed right corner. There are only a few one showing three women holding threatened at the time of its testify of their lack of understanding has been, here around us—owing in a darker uniform, with his right photographs lying Ωat, without a drawing in their hands that has construction. It was built not as for an architecture that Josef Frank, to nothing else but archiving? Is it hand stuck in his jacket. A dense being touched. meanwhile been buried under an a sign of the times, but primarily the settlement’s designer, did not possible to achieve that in the future row of trees in the background has assembly hall in the United States. with the intention of achieving consider to be merely symbolic. as well, depending on the relocation its trunks stripped completely bare; Two realities combined in an The photograph is provided with detachment from the “naïve pathos The camera of Heidrun Holzfeind of content that will be preserved (or behind them, barely visible, the sky impossible mission? Owing to their a note made by the archivist and of Viennese communal housing.”13 is perfectly discrete; her shots are re-assembled) in some of the future indicates no perspective. visual “frugality”, their date is glued to the reverse, with several Thereby it should be noted that its long and somewhat inert, without archives? dif∫cult to discern at ∫rst, and the keywords, while a short newspaper initiator, Josef Frank—about whom revealing too much information “In order to know, we must imagine thought that someone may have text explains the somewhat one of the collocutors of Heidrun about the space. The artist Three photographs found on a ourselves.”10 We learn about the found time for erotic encounters irrational decision that someone Holzfeind, the author of forms in documents an isolated position Ωea market feature in the series past from the material remnants, on hot sand between the battles once made in circumstances that relation to life. Filmische Fragmente without insisting on narration, Stills by Tatiana Lecomte.9 A young including those found in the may not be entirely unimaginable. remain obscure to us. über die Wiener Werkbundsiedlung, building up the structure of her man dressed in a Wehrmacht garbage. The unsolicited knowledge, The personal archive has been said that he would be “turning in video like a photographic sequence. uniform stands in the middle of owing to the intervention of complemented with shots of soldiers Time is a category that shapes his grave” if he could see what his The documentary character of a scene: the sequence starts with Tatiana Lecomte, combines what whose suffering alternates with the Mayer’s artworks, although it may housing development has been her approach results from the a dimmed, almost indiscernible is represented with the medium naked bodies, male and female. In be dif∫cult to say precisely what wish to show what the decision of one person can do to another, current discourse on the politics depends on architectural structure, over the Munich Olympic Stadium Strasser worked at a studio that to do something with the exhibition. and may be eventually seen in the of education, which has provoked which has, however, been erased. or the Multihalle in Mannheim (an would be renovated soon afterwards. One of the rare and controversial context of her multiple surveys reactions that cannot be dismissed The seemingly ∫rm institutional experience that is still important In that abandoned space, he interpolations in the historical of space. Thus, she has explored as a series of isolated events. framework has thus disappeared, in structural mathematics), served gradually removed the layers of Upper Town (and to be honest, most the idealised yet also minimised which is additionally emphasised as a starting point for the formally the Ωoor until a materic black-and- interpolations in Zagreb are more spatial proportions by ∫lming her The two series by Sabine Bitter & by the mobility of the exhibition restrained work of the artist duo white surface appeared under the or less controversial) was perceived body in various yoga positions in a Helmut Weber primarily function panels. Krüger & Pardeller. Even though mosaic panels. Scraps of material as a possibility, an excuse for “it house built by Rudolph Schindler as a framework for the remnants The authors’ interventions in these containing references to social that served as a base for many years can” and “it should”. The fact that in Los Angeles in the late 1930s, of a happening. Events Are artworks are not merely a re- interactions—balance, fragility, suddenly changed the character of this space was neglected is rather paying homage to the art of Valie Always Original (2010) and The visualisation of events, supported tension15 —it also contains echoes the room. In its centre, there are symptomatic; after all, Zagreb has Export (Körperkon∫gurationen). Templeton Five Affair, March 1967 by the development of the medium. of rational and constructivist the former mosaic panels, arranged given up even more valuable spaces By inscribing the body (her own as (2010) are dedicated to a schism Their research is complex and based structures that emerged in art around the chair that is barely and left them to rot, some of which well as those of her interlocutors) caused by the differences between on experience rather than mere during the 1960s. visible in the photographic series— have survived as if by miracle. into space, Heidrun Holzfeind university education and the so- archivation of spatial and other That coexistence is speci∫c for the the only “document” witnessing For Strasser, spaces where he has tackled various forms of called professional training, with elements testifying of a particular period of a ∫rmly de∫ned theoretical the author’s intervention—as it temporarily stays, exploring them remembrance, creating an archive of an emphasis on the fact that it is event. They are far more than that— framework of modernism, to is completely buried under the for his projects, are human and positions that cannot be repeated, a the latter that brings economic signi∫ers of the binary machines 14 which Krüger & Pardeller also heap that eventually reached up at the same time historical. These database of circumstances that have prosperity and enables one to determining our existence, although refer in their other artworks, often to the ceiling. Illuminated by fresh are places which make one change inΩuenced other people’s lives, their gain competences needed for the we may not have necessarily agreed exploring scienti∫c experiences. It sunlight, it is a materialisation of one’s attitude, as their displacement material remnants now serving as neoliberal economy and the labour to that. Bitter / Weber perceive is the period that gave birth to the time in space; an empirical archive (which is in some cases only mental) containers for her artistic archive market. architecture as a site of social information theory and assigned with segments that do not tell us does not mean their disappearance. (in her piece Strictly Private, she The series Events Are Always interaction (Henri Lefebvre), while a progressive role to science in anything important. We perceive They are not necessarily sites of has intervened into the interiors Original consists of photographs the procedures of erasing the ∫rm the society. Three-dimensional this space in its bareness; it is no historical traumas, but rather designed by Ernst Schwadron, who showing empty rooms after the traces of architecture redirect our phenomena and visual research longer a place, as a place is always potential urban archives that can was forced to emigrate to the United debates that took place at the Simon attention to the agents of events. originating in the climate of pro- linked to events. But the traces be redistributed (regardless of how States because of his Jewish origins). Fraser University in Vancouver; With the disappearance of the scienti∫c work, which also contain of these events are gone; they short-lived the project is). Thereby As in many other cases, these these are documents of the 1968 common rooms of the university, a spiritual dimension, expressed are—if at all existing—arranged in the method used is not supposed to interiors seem laden with questions occupation, when the students to which we attribute the feature primarily through achromatism and a “database” to which we have no be healing; it neither offers comfort that render the archive’s structure voiced their demand to appropriate of being public, they direct our “movable con∫gurations,” has been access. nor abolishes the actual state. precarious. the university rooms in order to attention to the construction of complemented in their work by Strasser merely creates a path that self-organise and use them for their private relations. The representative references to societal processes. In a speci∫c way, it is accessed only marks the distance between before Translating the Experience speci∫c needs. The photographs have architecture is gone, shifting Spatial events interpreted in the by the artist (which is implied by and now, a continued direction of been “archived” together with the the focus to the constellation of medium of photography (one should the lucid subtitle Mapping and the crisis of remembrance (Benjamin Several years ago, there was a numeral data on contact copies and circumstances that has brought note that Frei Otto developed the Visualization of the Foreign 16), who Buchloh) by which he separates (and major student protest in Croatia, a brief note written in the typeset together people of similar photographic procedure in order explores the allegedly foreign also links) subjects and objects. with the basic demand of ensuring of an old typewriter. The scene is worldviews and interests. to document his experiences and features of the setting in which free education. Even though dominated by the remnants of a insights) react to various types of he is temporarily active. The Do We Know What the Void Looks Like? the authorities claimed that meeting—discarded clothes and The two roles of photo paper, placed impetus; these are concepts whose experience that he has gathered in university education was free scattered papers describing the at the same height and of identical abstractness is a methodological the so-called exotic lands (whereby How should we reach the distance and accessible to all, the changes speci∫c activation of that space. The proportions, contain black square rather than a visual fact. The this characterisation is primarily and inaccessibility, “translate” them that we witnessed proved that the more or less recognisable modernist ∫elds. The left one bears several series of information processed due to the Western dominance) is and decode them for the viewers? Is conditions under which the Croats architecture is not essential for the lines, with diagonals that create the by Krüger & Pardeller has been not directed at “people who look it possible to visualise the void that lived and obtained their education events, although the rooms are—in central square; to the right, their subjected to structural changes (in strange.”17 Among other things, they emerges when setting one’s foot into were completely different. If one the manner of many universities more or less regular arrangement, colour, surface, sound, elements have served his site-speci∫c project a distant, rarely visited ∫eld? The adds the implementation of the built in various parts of the world— slightly reminiscent of some room of performative and participative realised in the context of this photographic sequences of Michael Bologna Process in education, conceived as free and open, often in perspective, turns into four procedures) that are very dif∫cult to exhibition. Höpfner have been accumulating where knowledge production has interconnected in order to satisfy parables whose tops meet with an categorise. Their practice consists for years, and a Ωeeting glance largely been supplemented by quick the vision of providing unhindered unidenti∫ed object, “extending” in translating and interpreting The empirical method of Michael may give the impression they seminars, often to the detriment of and accessible Ωow of knowledge, at into space. The visual language an object that is essentially Strasser was activated at the resembled each other. The voids of the students, whereas the faculty, least in one of its segments. in the artwork called Altering instable. The activity of that object, moment he entered the space of the the landscape may seem similar to including the teaching assistants, The large, movable panels placed Conditions (2009) by Doris Krüger depending on one’s wish—of the gallery, trying to shift the borders, to an untrained eye as they continue in has become an assembly line where in the atrium of KloviÊevi dvori and Walter Pardeller is based on the artist, the architect, the scientist, see beyond, where all was neglected, an almost uninterrupted cinematic competences are acquired in an Gallery belong to the installation experience of Frei Otto, a young man and even the society—results in dirty, and partly burned, spaces that gaze that mediates neither event inadequate way, it is no wonder The Templeton Five Affair, March who was interned in France after a particular consequence. This, had existed for years enveloped in nor content. Henri Michaux’s that the struggle for student rights 1967. Protagonists of the events in World War II, where he began to again, results in a tensed structure that notorious stance of “cannot verse “Movements of quartering has been so persistent and joined by question have been reduced to white explore cheap and easily accessible that accepts that consequence, be done.” The working title of his and of inner exasperation more many academic workers as well. silhouettes, which additionally materials that could serve to build simulating complex social relations intervention was A group show with than the movements of walking,” These “unrests” were not a Croatian emphasise the austere rhythm of temporary shelters. The intriguing at least on the conceptual level. the past. Whose past? The place that borrowed for the title of one of speci∫city. Vancouver, Vienna, the modernist buildings. In the fate of the German architect who was foreign or rather unfamiliar to the photographic series based on Kuala Lumpur, Zurich—the list second case, the swarming students has invented expansible membrane While being an artist in residence in him triggered some processes which walking, serves to keep detachment, is rather long and speaks of the form groups whose arrangement structures, such as those spanning New York a few years ago, Michael suddenly involved all of us who had as what is seen while walking cannot be narrated anyway. then. All subsequent information the artists transformed the action Perspectives of the Visible corporate urbanism, especially and con∫rming each other. The interior monologue is part of necessarily introduces new into a drive on a moped along a during McCarthyism, and the the artist’s nature, sensitive towards interpretations. Faced with the deserted racing course located in Many things that de∫ne a place present state of the housing estate Many of the hallucinating scenes the perceived—the contours of a non- traces of ecological catastrophes, Spain, on the Zero Meridian. The are determined by a meaning testi∫es of the public attitude presented by Anita Witek cannot existing dwelling between whose which are in distant places probably course shaped as a Möbius loop that can have huge impact on the towards this socially engaged be unambiguously linked to shreds, disentangled by wind, there experienced much more drastically sustained their numerous rounds environment, regardless of whether concept, which has been gradually reality. Her spatial installation are said to be ghosts of a Far-Eastern than in densely populated urban that lasted for weeks, documented a particular image shows precisely devastated. The utopian attempts Surface Treatment consists of people. Left in the form of contact environments, Höpfner shares in photographs and notes used to what the artist wanted to indicate to change the world by means posters that the artist has been copies, their dimensions making a certain level of utopism with mark the number of circles until with his or her work. Photographs of architecture have resulted in collecting for quite a while. They it dif∫cult to discern the details, Henry David Thoreau, author of they have reached the number of of urban places, as well as those that a derelict housing estate, as the are mostly advertising campaigns these photographs function as a an essay on Walking, likewise kilometres equal to the length of the “merely” remind of them, often rely socially deprived tenants did not of famous brands, but the speci∫c note on the inner restlessness that guided by the idea that the world equator—around 40,070. They had on complex and well-known insights invest in it or generate new housing and imposing colour gamut forces the artist to keep moving. remains preserved in wilderness divided the racing course in twelve on social spaces, including the way options, at their disposal at least in will hardly allow the viewer to Even though we may want to reach and that all living is in the present. segments, marking the spots where they intertwine, multiply, and thus theory. discern any recognisable details. for a glossary of cinematic terms Walking is here a metaphor for to place the camera. By using a 24- generate new meanings. The artist has, namely, used the (and a magnifying glass) in order real time, the need of movement. hour exposure, they documented The series Index of Livability (2011) As in some of her earlier series, “surrounding space” of the poster, to understand them, primarily Between the horizon and a state optical sensations and condensed by Karina Nimmerfall speaks of a Nimmerfall has treated the the non-advertising zone, the owing to the feeling of movement, of precariousness, Höpfner marks each day into a single photograph, project of modernist urban renewal. photographs as a visually uni∫ed colour of which has been carefully enhanced by the exhibition of various points in the landscape; many times in a row. Some of the Unlike the urban planning based on set of data, complemented with selected by marketing experts after numerous contact copies bound into their topographic arrangement bleaker days resulted in darker industrialisation as one of the main information on the construction exhaustive research. Intended for sheets or slides laid in light boxes, is arbitrary, appropriated only in images, dutifully supplied with drives of progress after World War and the present-day condition of the large surfaces, the potential scenes one should see them as artworks on isolated moments of orientation ordinal numbers. For everything has II, which determined the evolution estate, as well as a list of references are often pixelated, which makes it the borderline between photography that the author has subjected to his been documented: each round, each of cities in economic, social, that may serve as a basis for further additionally dif∫cult to relate them and ∫lm, taking into account all the photographic gaze. change of drivers, who had to use communicational, and aesthetical research. The colour chart on the in any way to the “real” world. And similarities and differences between three mopeds to cover the distance terms, the artist has focused here left margin is a sort of link between that world is changeable, ∫ckle; it these two media. The archive implies, among other (it should be noted that they had on a less renowned project of the archivistically treated, almost wants to satisfy everyone and to be progressive, different yet casual. things, appropriation; its procedures purposefully chosen the weakest Richard Neutra in Los Angeles. The documentary black-and-white In this utterly chaotic setting (which Is there a stable feeling of place are sometimes accidental, while at vehicles in order to make the drive Austrian architect emigrated to photographs and that which we we may recall without any problem in case of Höpfner, as everything other times they depend on complex as long and exhausting as possible). the United States in 1923 and is expect to see. It functions as the if we think of the indescribable has been subjected to movement? events, and their “preliminary work” This journey “around the world” mostly remembered as the author of stabile part of the archive/album, quantity of “promises” lined along The longing to reach the horizon is often inaccessible to the viewer. may have been originally conceived brilliant modernist villas in which almost hinting at the procedure of the traf∫c routes and above the equals an attempt at understanding The artistic practice of Nicole Six & as a wish to travel through cities, he achieved a perfect combination cataloguing that helps structure handrails in trams), Witek expresses the life of the nomads. Both are Paul Petritsch is poetic and radical wastelands, deserts, and seas, to of spatiality and conciseness. He the viewing experience. It may herself in a way that few would unfeasible, and his photographs are at the same time; it consists of the reach places that no human eye has explored the features of Californian be interpreted as a remnant of the montage procedure, which relate to the images that preceded primarily perceived as a continued procedures of surveying space in ever seen. But like in Paul Auster’s architecture and used these insights her interventions. series of viewpoints. For one should relation to their bodies, as well as poetry,19 that sort of inaccessibility in order to design houses that would the artist often uses in her work, “complicating” the process of seeing not see these photographs as an in “occupying” the exhibition room eventually lost its meaning, or show a perfect fusion of interior and A step out into space is necessary archive of places that the artist has with a whole assortment of objects perhaps the initial enthusiasm. exterior space. Socially engaged, and understanding by constructing architectural models and spatial to convince the viewer about the visited; instead, he is in constant they use in their private lives, neatly Finally it was reduced to incessant he also endorsed healthy housing, role of the social body, which one movement and, in a way, staying in ordered and archived in the form and exhausting driving until Six introducing to the US certain ideas installations that help achieve the perspective of the visible. is doomed to play, often without one place makes no sense for him. of a catalogue. Their intervention, / Petritsch reached the desired that were characteristic of European even being aware of it. Or is it Instead of speaking a language, he performed in the magazine Camera number of kilometres. A notebook architecture and urban planning Squeezed between the archival data about detaching oneself from that communicates by recognising scents Austria International in 2013, with scribbled “documentation” between the two World Wars. and the colour chart, the actual role? It is not easy to orientate in and feeling the distance,18 and consisted in shooting at the pages on the covered distances speaks This was the basis on which the scene brings a touch of mistrust in Witek’s montages. However, the these categories are Ωuid, evasive. intended for their work: they both of the existential structure of Californian housing estates were what we see. Perhaps it is because multitude of elements she builds In the landscapes he traverses, shot a bullet each, from opposite uni∫ed rhythm, made of driving, designed. They were intended for of knowing her photographs from into her installations and collages traces of human interventions are sides, into the empty sheets of rain, sunshine, and the smell of poorer populations, as Neutra did one of the previous series, Substitute is not associated with the surrealist rare; photographs of people whom paper. Each copy was therefore a gasoline: a structure that depends not want them to be deprived of Locations, which she treated as an current. Witek complicates and he occasionally stumbles upon unique work of art. The magazine on the built and then disused good and healthy housing because “‘objective’ documentation”20 of multiplies the gazes; she de∫nes primarily speak of interpersonal served them to explore the politics construction, a place that used to of their material standing. These are something non-existent, a mere places as manifold, simultaneous detachment. of representation (Reinhard function according to the rules mostly housing estates consisting stage set offering an appearance spaces that, among other things, Braun), while the weapon, as an of surveillance and control, its of one-storey and two-storey of life, place, and space. Both cases reΩect her reading experience, The photographed landscapes ideologically motivated tool, was “abstractness” of today largely due houses surrounded by gardens, are potential (spatial) aporias, her setting books aside and taking belong to the artist’s mental map used to create a performative event to its emptiness. But even this sort orthogonally arranged between whose status may at ∫rst seem them up again. That experience has and an identity based on difference with complex implications. of condition depends on existence, pedestrian lanes, even though autonomous, yet actually depends helped her construct her artwork and its preservation. Exhibited in even if con∫rmed by mere “notches” in some cases he also designed on other people’s interests. like a text, in which, same as in large numbers, his photographs The enterprise with the seemingly made by pencil in passing, as there apartment towers. Communal Nimmerfall’s photographs reading, she inserts concepts such as and slides do not merely document simple title Atlas (2010) consists was no time to add a comment on spaces and facilities, including a document parallel spaces that, everyday life, dialogue, another read the fact that he was in a particular in multiplied movement. With an the experience or anything else. school, a nursery, a supermarket, like heterotopias, function or heard narrative. place at a particular moment. For intention to cover the whole planet Merely duration. and a cultural centre, did not meet simultaneously, both questioning him, what matters is there and by travelling (or rather by moving), with enthusiasm at the times of In one of these dialogues,21 she 1 Peter Weibel, “Zur Geschichte der 18 “News from no-mans-land / Nachrichten refers to Aminadab by Maurice Künstlerfotogra∫e als ein Motor der aus dem Niemandsland,” in Michael Höpfner: Fotogra∫egeschichte — II. Teil: (Bildende) Kunst Unsettled Conditions (Vienna: Kunstraum Blanchot. She has experienced the und Fotogra∫e,” Camera Austria 6 (1981), 59. Niederösterreich, 2008), unpaginated. text as a sort of deconstruction and reconstruction in which the author 2 Ibid., p. 60. 19 Quoted from the artist booklet Atlas, 2010, guides the protagonist through private publication, p. 16. various simultaneous spaces. Using 3 A thesis of M. Foucault; cf. Douglas Fogle, “The Last Picture Show,” in idem (ed.), The Last 20 Raimar Stange, “Preface,” in Karina the method of reassembling the Picture Show: Artists Using Photography 1960- Nimmerfall: Cinematic Maps (Graz: Camera found material, which she then 1982 (Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, Austria, 2007), unpaginated. appropriated and transformed 2003), p. 11. (often by using rather simple 21 http://anitawitek.net/AnitaWitek_ “techniques”), Witek has opted for 4 Weibel quoting Georg F. Schwarzbauer in publications.pdf (last accessed on February 12, “Zur Geschichte der Künstlerfotogra∫e” 2014). 22 the strategy of “becoming visible.” (as in n. 1), p. 60. In her created and emerging spaces, 22 “Anita Witek. Ein Gespräch mit / a she perceives the ways in which 5 Terminology of Max Bense quoted in conversation with Barbara Clause,” Camera the body reacts—depending on the Lawrence Alloway, “Artists and Photographs Austria 94 (2006), p. 37. place where it is creative, as well as (1970)” in Fogle, The Last Picture (as in n. 3), its role in the historical, cultural, p. 20. and even economic context. She has 6 Weibel, “Zur Geschichte der merged various procedures into a Künstlerfotogra∫e” (as in n. 1), p. 60. unique archive, which has thus been activated as a unique experience. 7 Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), p. 5.

By transforming the two- 8 Ibid., p. 3. dimensional medium activated in space, whereby she has achieved its 9 The series consists of six photographs. materialisation, the artist explores 10 Georges Didi-Huberman, Images in Spite of complex processes in social space. All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz (Chicago Thereby she also transforms the & London: The University of Chicago Press, medium as such, since it cannot 2012), I. be experienced merely in its 11 Manuela Ammer, “Entzugs-Erscheinungen — function as mediating the visual Zu den fotogra∫schen Investigationen Tatiana content. Traces of tearing, cutting Lecomtes,” in Tatiana Lecomte: Dissolution with a knife, constituting a three- (Graz: Camera Austria, 2011), unpaginated. dimensional body, understanding 12 the viewing process (active or I am referring here to the title of the series and to the publication of the same name: passive), continuing the “scene” in Ωotsam and jetsam. a sort of cinematic excerpt, are only some of the procedures included in 13 Adolf Krischanitz and Otto Kap∫nger, Die her approach. Even though it may Wiener Werkbundsiedlung. Dokumentation einer Erneuerung (Düsseldorf: Beton Verlag, seem to the viewer that Witek’s 1989), p. 7. gaze simply wanders about, and that her introduction of numerous 14 Reference to the quotation of Gilles details and tonal layers implies Deleuze in Reinhard Braun, “Machines of a sort of uncertainty in the ∫nal Transparency,” in Sabine Bitter / Helmut Weber. Right, to the City (Salzburg: Fotohof, construction, all is carefully planned 2009), p. 51. and has a speci∫c meaning. Her archive consists of a multitude of 15 Quoted from: Johan Frederik Hartle, simultaneous elements, and their “ReΩection and Permeable System: ReΩections of the Social in Krüger & Pardeller’s Work,” synchronisation creates not only the in Krüger & Pardeller (eds.), Aesthetic Basic feeling of space, but also that Chronicle, Vol. 1 (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014). of time. 16 Christian Reder, “‘In other times and different spaces’ — Kartogra∫eren und Visualisieren von Fremden,” in Michael Strasser. Exotic Strings a Compilation (Nuremberg: Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2010), pp. 20-33.

17 Ibid., p. 32.