Statement

I use my camera like a lab instrument. Parameters like shutter time, exposure and perspective allow me to make things visible which would have otherwise stayed hidden. I use the term "situ art" to refer to art created at or in relation to a specific place (in situ). However, my projects at public places like airports, railway stations or office buildings don't depict concrete venues but rather capture the essence of a situation: a gathering of people linked by common goals or interests and the desire to communicate with each other and their surroundings. Instead of using a camera to capture a composition in that notorious “decisive moment” I practise a form of robotic image acquisition. I usually set up a camera very much like a scientific experiment, to obtain technically optimized input, triggering the shutter automatically whenever suitable subjects enter the field of view. The pictures created from this input reduce the original place to a few, often abstract, features revealing the human dimension even more clearly: People performing seemingly mysterious rites – riding escalators and elevators, climbing enigmatic stairs, traversing unfathomable spaces. My works are sometimes printed in large formats. Not because those sizes have become fashionable, but rather because the viewers are meant to relate to and interact with the people inside the virtual spaces. Printed, e.g. on glass, the pictures become objects that open a viewport into those alternate realities.