Series of 60 photo montages developing out of a series of static self-portraits, taken at random in chronological order and depicting the artist’s skin from an abstracting perspective …; finally leading to a meditative video installation of looping emptiness …

alexandra reill

series of [moving] photo montages, 2021 / 2022 / 2023

60 photo montages [2021 / 2022]
4032 x 9072 px [1c, 72 dpi] digital
or
34,14 cm x 76,81 [1c, 300 dpi] photo print, glossy on alu-dibond
and / or
video installation or screening of 3 loops / 3 experientials [2022 / 2023]
4K [3840 x 2160 px]: 16:09, single loop duration full length: 00:30:00:00 / part I and II each: 00:15:00:00

production kanonmedia 2021 / 2022 / 2023

The photographs were taken in 2021, in the course of a photographic project dedicated to the effects of circumstances caused by Covid-19 on the artist in the period between fall 2019 and spring 2022, in the form of continuous, chronological self-documentation. As part of this work, all of the self-portraits included in the project were subjected to the same series of image edits.

The images included in SP19-23-skin flats crystallized as a distinct series of photographs, whose visual language is characterized by geometric, abstract, and simultaneously textured fields. Through the montage as triples, which again follows a random arrangement of the fields, the two-dimensionality of the textured images of skin is intensified. Thus, SP19-23-skin flats forms a quasi self-originated meditative line of self-observing perspectives created by subconscious image writing.

Both the photographic installation and the three shorts may lead viewers into a meditative state and throw them back on themselves. Although the works are self-portraits, they ultimately see themselves as empty works, empty of content. The latter is created by the respective recipient, or emptiness is created here as well.

Mounting options
In real space, the 60 triples can be shown digitally, following the chronology of the creation of the images from left to right, in the form of black mobile phones hung horizontally or vertically in a row. If financially feasible, the photo series will be hung in the form of 4c prints on alu-dibond. Ideally, the looping videos are installed parallel to the presentation of the photo series; on flat screens of black color hanging on walls without cables.

At the same time, each of the shorts is suitable as an experiental in a non-looping screening.