Sources of Construction (Exhibition 2016)

In 'Sources of Construction' I give insights on how I construct my reality to help the visitors to become aware of their very personal construction of reality.

My work focuses on the investigation, alteration and expansion of human perception by applying artistic-scientific methods which turn invisible or simply overlooked things into visually accessible ones. Besides I´m very much influenced by Heinz von Foerster and Ernst von Glasersfeld. Both epistemologists are considered to be representatives of Radical Constructivism - a theory, which assumes that each single perception is entirely subjective. Thus, perception can´t provide an image of reality independently from consciousness.

One can find this approach in many bodies of my work. I try to detect reality being aware that universal reality is not achievable. I want to support a ‘holistic view’. Therefore all of my works are composed of a huge number of single images which, when pieced together, reveal a bigger whole.

My project 'The Future Past’, made with the collodion process includes hundreds of wet plates. It was represented by the diptych 'Black Hole Sun'. Here I combine old and new photographic processes to create something that was not possible 160 years ago when the wet plate process was developed and that will last for hundreds and thousands of years.
Furthermore, I question the infinite reproduction and the edition market not only of contemporary photography by interfering into the digital workflow and modifying it. It is not possible to create an identical copy with the collodion process. It somehow is similar to cloning humans. They never will be an exacty copy, because they wil make unique experiences like the wet plates do during the time consuming process.

The ‚Hidden World Series’ s sort of a work in progress. It gets extended consistently. The filmic aspect is what this new series deals with. Whereas the technical process still had priority in 2014, now the focus lies on expressing the memory itself within a photograph: spending a considerable time at one place makes it almost impossible to capture specific atmospheres and actions in one image. In our memory many procedures and actions are combined with each other and melted. Suchlike must occur in the photographic process too. That is why I combine various scenes to depict a timeframe. I then becomes a very personal memory of a subjective experience.

My photographic work like ‘You are beautiful…’ or ‘You are handsome…’ often deal with the phenomena one wishes to know and explore everything but to cut out the negative or to simply replace it. ‘Sections’ however shows very thin layers of plants’ textures. The work supports perceiving the structure or rather the anatomy of plants and therefore the understanding of their inner processes.

The installation ‚(Butter)Fly´s Eye Cam’ and the project ‚A Possibility of a (Butter) Fly´s View’ which was represented by the work 'Me' deals basically with seeing the world with different eyes. Basically it helps me to imagine how a butterfly would see me.
A specially built camera makes it possible to take a photograph of an entire human body from the viewpoint of a compound eye. It consists of almost 33.000 drinking straws. The work traces different modes of our world’s perception. With this I manage to progress beyond the limitations of presentability of not only anatomic, but also psychological processes.

A few more photos of the opening and the guided tour you will find at: https://www.facebook.com/Michael-Bachhofer-Project-Space-345943112279329/