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Stefan Roemer: Image as process
How can one approach a photographic project in a foreign city , how can one conceive of its images if one does not wish to operate in the service of a touristic cliche industry? I am at a loss to find the answer and we drift around following visual clues as they present themselves.
For the exhibition "De-Regulation" I propose a visual essay on Istanbul, an essay whose relation to Kutlug Atamans video work is neither illustrative nor anecdotal. Rather than an art historical or representational form of contextualisation, this visual essay works to open up a subject. My overall interest is focused on how an image emerges as a process, rather than as the representation of something that pre-exists it. My perception and memory of the work that has taken place usually constitute themselves in cycles or in sequences, rarely in singular images. These images do not follow the logic of a clear cut argument, rather they circle around each other and bring forth a thematic subject. As seemingly trivial and quotidian images are confronted with politically, religious and culturally loaded representations, they take on a range of new meanings. Therefore my interest in a compilation has noting to do with an authentic reconstruction of the original spatial arrangement in situ, but with exiting the regime of true representation and entering another of relational content.
