According to the Pictures. Construction and Reality (Nach den Bildern. Konstruktion und Wirklichkeit)
Norbert Artner
Research Grantee University of Art and Design Linz | Dissertation Completion Fellowship 2015/16
Abstract
My work Nach den Bildern. Konstruktion und Wirklichkeit [According to the Pictures. Construction and Reality] focuses on processes during the course of which photographic images are created. The technological developments of image production exert a decisive influence on the artistic and aesthetic possibilities of pictures, whereby art as a process of formation, as an aesthetic discourse, is substantially interrelated with the possibilities of image generation and postproduction. As an artist, I am interested in what can—and what cannot—be ascertained in an image. “Nach den Bildern” is also an inquiry into temporality in the process of production and thus also into the various levels of reality inherent in images. How decisively the technology determines the artistic process is also manifested by the issues that arise in the image formation process: what properties do the apparatuses impart; what are the effects of details (sectoral excerpts); what happens in the case of movement; what impact do lenses have on the depicted objects; what does the eye correct that the camera cannot correct, and, conversely, what does the apparatus see that the eye cannot see? Building upon an initial phase in which questions having to do with creating images, technique and the perception of images are examined, this inquiry proceeds to take an artistic-experimental approach to production practices whereby the emphasis is on examining image formation processes with respect to the artistic qualities they bring out.