"Images Through an Algorithmic Lens – Zur Visualisierung der Wirklichkeit, IMG-5163"

pigmentbased inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper

signed, titled, dated, numbered (pencil) and certificated on verso

We live in a time where vast quantities of images are made that do not claim to be art. They claim to be something much more doubtful, because they claim to be reality. We think the photo shows pure reality, but it doesn’t, because the camera sees geometrically, for one thing, and “computational photography” is now built into every new smartphone. We, however, see only partly geometrically, but also psychologically, and not at all in the way that algorithms in our cameras calculate when we take a photo. In “Images Through an Algorithmic Lens”, photographs executed unconventionally using panorama mode are no longer represented as usual by their underlying algorithm and thus become complex images of landscapes and urban spaces. Occasionally, there are references to visual reality in the abstraction, which establishes a connection between the image and our everyday life. But the abstract “misrepresentations” reduce our perception of concrete realities to that fundamental common denominator that all humans can agree on: sensuality. Therefore, each of these 13 images claims to be a more convincing representation of reality than the perfectly calculated images of our digital magic boxes. For images that strive to depict every little detail merely cloud our view of a higher reality.
(Elias Wessel, 2019)