a work in progress_ beginn 2008
In my photographic work I raise the question: “What is real?”
For centuries these questions have been asked: Can we trust our senses? Can we grasp reality? Where do reality and imagination blur, is there a line between dream - world and reality? Toying with perception, and expanding the limit is at the center of my work.
Perception is subjective.
Our sensory organs react to specific frequency bands. Two individuals in front of the same blot of color will have individual sensations in perceiving this color. Plato already recognized the impossibility of defining a real, exterior world based on our subjective individual perception. This he describes in his allegory of man watching shadows in a cave, never seeing the real world behind him.
Objective perception does not exist. It is always subjective, individual, depending on the point of view. The viewer only perceives light and shadows, the visual sensation varies with the viewers vantage point. The same object will be seen as separate images left in different viewers. Even time is not a definite factor.
Our retina has a limited resolution, like any lens does. Every enlargement ultimately reaches a factor of distortion. With increased enlargement we find increased distortion.
The base materials of my images are stills from my work as a set designer for over 20 years.
They are frozen moments in time, generated in the artificial setting of a film set, sparks of atmospheric moments, condensed reality. Compressed rooms, light and shadow in a two dimensional world.
My works are available as c-prints, paintings and collages.
Wien, 2014
Manuela Freigang
virtuell exhibition view
