skin flats

skin flats is a series of 60 image montages consisting of a series of self-portraits – close-ups, taken randomly in chronological order, showing the skin of the artist Alexandra Reill from an abstracting perspective …; images that ultimately transform into movement and, in combination with the installation of the video loop skin flats 0 and its parts I, II, and III, may culminate in a meditative experience …


alexandra reill, 2022 / 2023 / 2024
skin flats
photo-video loop installation
consisting of 60 edited image montages and the video loops skin flats 0 and its parts I, II, and III

production: kanonmedia / vie / a / 22 / 23 / 24


The images forming skin flats represent a quasi self-generated meditative line of self-viewing perspective, created through Subconscious Image Writing. Although the image montages are self-portraits, they ultimately see themselves as “empty” works, elaborated from an aspiration of the artist to let “non-individual”, “non-designed” works emerge that has accompanied her since 2019 at the latest – in a questioning of the artist as “genius”.


THE VIDEO LOOPS

Probably not least due to the unexpected occurrence of a life-threatening illness and equally threatening accompanying circumstances, the theme of sensing “emptiness between things” changed from one day to the next into sensing “fullness in emptiness”. The dramaturgical framework for this development was now formed by the five phases of dealing with suffering according to Kübler-Ross.


skin flats part I

skin flats part I
4K [3840 x 2160 px, 30 fps]: 16:09
video loop duration: 00:05:03:23


skin flats part II

skin flats part II
4K [3840 x 2160 px, 30 fps]: 16:09
video loop duration: 00:04:59:03


skin flats part III

skin flats part III
4K [3840 x 2160 px, 30 fps]: 16:09
video loop duration: 00:04:39:23


skin flats 0

skin flats 0
4K [3840 x 2160 px, 30 fps]: 16:09
video loop duration: 00:14:42:19
full length master



THE IMAGE MONTAGES

alexandra reill, 2022 / 2024
skin flats
series of 60 edited image montages
4032 x 9072 px [1c, 72 dpi] digital
or
34,14 cm x 76,81 [1c, 300 dpi] photo print, glossy on alu-dibond

production: kanonmedia vie / a 2022 / 2024


The original photographies were taken in 2021, as part of a photographic project that took the form of a continuous, chronological self-documentation exploring the effects of Covid-19-induced circumstances on the artist, between fall 2019 and spring 2022.

The images contained in skin flats crystallized as a series in their own right. Now, all of the self-portraits contained within were subjected to the same sequence of image editing steps, with a visual language characterized by geometric, abstract, and simultaneously textured fields. The montage as triples, which this time, in 2022, was based on an intuitively random arrangement of the fields, intensifies the flatness of the textured images of skin. In 2024, the montages were slightly re-edited.

Both the image installation and the experiental video loops may lead viewers into a meditative state and turn them back on themselves. Ultimately, content is created by the recipient.


Mounting options
The 60 triples can be shown digitally, following the chronology of the creation of the images from left to right, in the form of several rows hung horizontally or in a row of cable-free black flat screens.

Insofar it can be financed, the series of image montages targets a corresponding hanging in the form of 1c prints on alu-dibond.

The video loops can be shown as a loop on black flat screen [resolution 4K], mounted at a clearly noticeable distance from the installation of the image works; or on its own, in a horizontal row which starts on the left with skin flats 0, after a distance of ca. 40 cm followed py the parts I, II, and III hung with a distance of 10-15 cm between them.

The full installation consists of the 60 image montages and the four video loops. In parts, the images and the videos can also be shown separately. The video loops can be installed with a selection of prints out of the 60 montages.