Printed zine (B5), Chemigrams, Lumen prints, Cyanotypes, Video
April 2021

“The workings of chance” is an exploration of photography’s ability to capture the randomness of natural, unplanned forces. Based on experimentation with three different camera-less techniques: chemigrams, luminograms, and cyanotypes, the project encompasses the outcomes of manipulation with light, time, ordinary objects, and analog photographic materials. Each print, inherently unique, functions on its own, revealing to the viewer a new, hidden world of chance and the unexpected. The captured forms raise questions not only about the depicted image, but also the agency of the artistic medium and its classification as photography.

0.1 Part one: conceptually driven work with sound execution

Rooted deeply in the surrealist ideology, the project intends to explore unconscious processes and their uncanny, dreamlike aesthetics. Presented as an installation showcasing various compositions of the pictures arranged on walls and suspended from the ceiling, the work is accompanied by a short video animation with ambient ethereal sound. By immersing in the overlap of abstraction and reality, the public is encouraged to reinterpret the classic medium of photography through the means of the surreal and cherish the beauty found in the process of creation and discovery. One is invited to question what they perceive; Do the images forecast more or less information than a regular photograph? Is this print, painting, sculpture, video, photography, or just an artistic confusion?

Over 50 prints, results of camera-less experimentations, were therefore, grouped together and presented as one piece; as combinations that don’t just make the picture but rather are the picture. Since the works are non-representational they function more as an aesthetic medium rather than a semantic one. They represent both chaos and coherence, which is why the final presentation intended to imply but not affirm; intrigue, confuse and further encourage the viewer to explore and question.

Showcased in a dark room, the pictures were complemented by a short animation with ambient, trance-like music. The strong smell of chemistry responsible for creating the images was still filling the exhibition space and offered a one of a kind experience of discovering the secrets of interactions between photographic paper and chemistry. Visual, auditory and olfactory stimuli worked together within the exhibition space, facilitating the viewer to enter into a dialogue with the work.