Antonioni’s masterpiece Blow-Up, currently the basis of an exhibition that is on a one-year tour of Vienna, Winterthur and—till early April—Berlin, has a special status in the history of the feature film due to its penetrating analysis of photography: its mechanisms and its failures. While the sequence of moving images (and therefore the plot of the film in itself) is woven into a convincing narrative in keeping with the genre, the positive images drawn from a negative by the protagonist create highly problematic evidence for an event whose outcome is unclear. Because they are “blown up” the authenticity of the photographic image is here exposed to debate to an unprecedented degree.
Although the relationship between the fictitious and documentary content of the photograph has been extensively analysed, almost fifty years after the premiere of the cult film, set in London, it brings up quite different questions against the background of new (digital) technologies: what are the consequences of the continual shift between virtuality and reality for our everyday lives? What happens to society when, due to the permanent simultaneity of real life and digital likeness—this patchwork of reality levels—no conclusive story, no actual narrative can emerge any longer? And how does the film medium, now also modified, cope with these circumstances?
With a view to these changes, “In Focus: Photo-Filmic Realities” now makes an attempt to explore the relationship between reality and illusion with examples of photographic copies of reality in contemporary video art. Under the curatorial management of Alexander Streitberger, who is currently preparing a show for several exhibition sites under the heading Passages. Photography in Contemporary Video Art in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), after an historical introduction to the theme, three chapters will deal with questions of memory processes, the development of identity and environmental politics within the framework of current art videos.
MAGAZINE
EIKON #89
www.eikon.at
EXHIBTION
Michael Part
27.2.–15.5.2015
MQ quartier21/Electric Avenue
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Wien/Vienna
Austria
http://www.quartier21.at
EIKON-Messeauftritt / EIKON will be present at the following art fair:
ART BRUSSELS
25.–27.4.2015
http://www.artbrussels.com
