parallel vienna, artist statements, 2018
I observe the space, shut my eyes briefly, and look at the space afresh. If anything has changed could it be ascertained with certainty whether in the space or in my view of the space? Furthermore: if nothing appears to have changed, where does this consistency stem from? Is it a quality of the space or the product of my own perception?
(Saccades: rapid involuntary movements of the eye between fixation points. This causes light to keep falling on new receptors, preventing them from growing accustomed to consistent stimulation. As experiments show, when a head is held in position and eye movement prevented the result is temporary blindness. The capacity to recognise requires movement! ...)
My work engages with the conditions and possibilities of recognition, memory, perception, and so with issues of participation. I pursue many approaches in doing this that are interlinked with one another on a conceptual level. The common denominator is the overlapping of versi- ons of perception. This is usually combined with multi-stage production processes that remain clearly legible. The aspect of spatialization is another result of this basic idea.
The works begin with photographs, casts of givens in the working and spatial environment. The approach I select for the overlaying of different versions of an image frequently produces results that defy imagination and memory.
Folds: Folding is spatialization, a multiplication of possible perceptions. Folds are the result of an event, and manifestations of its memory. Folds are language and text when the unfolded media are sounds and letters, so folds are always only an inside, not an outside. Even as (most imme- diate and most valid) documentation, the fold behaves as if it were not, as if any assertion of objectivity were alien to it.
The procedure in an approach of analogue photography is paradigmatic: in here I am extending the topus of
multiple exposure photography by adding an inverted, also back-to-front or reflected, double — referencing the concept of the film negative, and in an exclusively analogue process. The superimposed double introduces a moment of alienation into the space, its textures are overwritten with itself. Volumes, spaces and sensory apparatuses are inscribed in one another.
This kind of overlap, in particular, not only reminds the recipient of the prerequisites of the medium but also subsequently alludes to all of the other factors and elements involved in the process of perception: light, subject, camera, film — but also: eyeball, optic nerve, brain.
The term space has a fundamental and diverse importance in these concepts: space is the most constant and immediate perception object, reference to bodily action and presence and metaphor for mental, physical and social conditions.
Herbert Hofer, September 2018
www.herberthofer.at
Foto: Elodie Gretchen
Erwähnung in:
https://freight.cargo.site/m/V2443746040654089781500092739013/1809_wienerzeitung.pdf