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Jure Kastelic, HONEYMOON from Jure Kastelic on Vimeo. |
Bridges / Nejc Gazvoda
What can my parents show me? I’m looking angrily from under my little bushy eyebrows (“like a little tiger” my mum says) and I’m holding a branch of a walnut tree which is growing behind our house. I have an orange hat with a black Stihl sign on my head (my mother’s uncle from Germany brought the hat for me, and for my grandfather a Stihl’s calendar with twelve flirty topless girls sawing thick tree trunks for some reason) and my behind is wrapped in a fabric diaper with a tear hanging beside my leg looking like a tail of a wet puppy. But I’m cute, and my mum and grandma also. And those photographs from the sea, where I’m laying on a psychedelically violet inflatable crocodile, which was appropriately named Bob Dylan by my dad, and I’m proudly showing my fresh tooth stubs, in the background there is a burnt patch of sea, looking as if freshly made gold coins were falling down for days. We are at a zoo where I’m feeding a goat with bread, and birthdays and a few Christmases. Album for every year. My mum wrote a few notes (like that one about a little tiger) beneath some of the photographs. We have two shelves full of albums. What am I going to show? Nowadays, by the seaside, we make thousands of photographs of a sunrise and then we delete thousands of them, social networks are full of photographs of young girls who are taking photos with camera risen high above them with a strong flash to cover pimples and double chins, family albums have replaced their cardboard covers with virtual ones, and everyone who has enough money to buy a DSLR camera, better lens and has a lawn behind their house can become a professional macro-photographer and is very proud because they learned to write their name on a photo in water-print. That’s not longing for the good old days – I love digital revolution. But my dad was dedicatedly taking photographs of motives that he liked best thirty years ago – his family and time spent with us. It doesn’t matter what photographs are like technically, he had a reason to take them. He loved his motives and wanted to keep the memories. But when 30 years from now someone tries to get through the photographs of their parents (my generation) when they were young, all they will see will be cold, raw photographs from countless parties, photographs of nature without any inspiration. If parents were a part of the hipster subculture, they will be surprised by artificially distorted photographs where their mother wears retro sunglasses with a violet stripe on her face and vibrant red lipstick, trying to re-define new Nica from Velvet Underground and her friend throwing confetti in the background while father is taking photographs with a holga, which he bought because every single photograph looks cool if it is psychedelic and has text in helvetica. Was this really an important moment of life or just a passing phase? Photography as an art form has maintained its position in the time of technological changes, none of the key art forms have kneeled before the novelties – however, it has lost by far the most as the chronicler of the essence. People remember the key moments and photography was recording them – recording the carefully picked moments when people had a nice time. Today, there are two extremes – you have so many photographs and they are so unimportant or silly that you will delete them sooner or later (just as on social networking sites certain people like telling us what they had for breakfast, lunch, dinner and also what snacks they had in between and what colour their faeces were when they discharged all of that in the evening) or you take your camera only to longer trips and you don’t have the photos saved anywhere (which is what I do). As taking photographs is simply too easy, you do it too often or not at all. We take it as a given that there are cameras around us which record us – but not every moment is worth recording. The modern way of communication is an inflation of moments. Our whole lives are in the palm of our hand, every minute can be recorded... and as such unimportant. There is no consideration of the essence. When I look at Jure’s photographs, where white cut out silhouettes of children stand hugging their parents in front of natural phenomena, I feel a pain somewhere deep inside as a human being. Firstly, maybe because I remember those warm saturated colours from the photos of my parents –funny, how the technology influences my perception of the past! A photograph has its primary meaning again – it is a chronicler of the essence. There is no invention of hot water and sliced bread, there is only what people want to have left – common moments from a trip. However! What if the opportunity was missed? If there are no memories because there was no event? Jure cannot and does not want to return his parents to the time immediately after their wedding, when he and his brother were not there yet. What he wants to do is bring back the feeling of the essence. What matters is that his parents wanted to go on a trip. He and his brother were not alive yet at that time, but this does not need to be hidden – the white silhouettes are a clear indication that they exist but they are undefined at the same time. If the parents want it, they can be there... or they are not. Jure’s series of photographs achieves the essential power of visual art, photography as well as film – it transcends the perception of space and time, as it is suffered every day by poor linear human beings. Photo series Honeymoon was taken over a year ago using technology from over twenty years ago. It simulates an event from twenty years ago and tells their story, at the same time it is a chronicler of a real moment in real time and by brothers moving out of the picture, it poses a question about selective memory – is what happened, what we remember, what we want, what we see, what remained in us, what is in photographs? Is the white stain really what was cut out or what we imagine? I can imagine Jure’s parents looking at the photographs – at first they must find it witty what their son has done. The photographs are a memory of their trip with their two sons. They fill the white stains with real events, their children. Then the photographs remind them of their youth due to the technology (specific camera from that period), moments when they wanted something that did not come true at that time. The white stains are their memories which belong only to them. Photographs of nature and animals are almost a complete lie, they can be placed either in a real trip or twenty years back. The association is not direct, it is linked to a concept – it is what could be, it is what the parents want or think that could be. What about us, readers or viewers of the book? We are witnessing a series of photographs which are posing an essential question about what we are leaving behind and what is ahead of us. Does the wish to go on a honeymoon even matter after such a series of photographs or is it perhaps fulfilled? Is it really so important to make an inseparable part of our life story out of every moment that happens to us? Jure removes himself and his brother from the photographs and says – yes, we were there... but we could have not been. The decision is up to you. Yes, we do exist, but which truth is closer to you – the one from the time of the camera which the photographs were taken with or the one from the real time when they were taken, it is up to you. In addition to being a wonderful, thought through and witty present for the parents, which speaks about son’s love and respect for his parents as people who brought him into this world and persons with their own past and intimate life, the series in front of you is also a time for own confrontation of memories and perception of what was and what is. What will remain after the flood of all digital photographs? What will we be facing in the future? Will having every moment of our life documented actually be more real than those white stains, which we colour in ourselves? What is needed for a happy life is supposedly good health and bad memory. Let’s say that this is true. However, it certainly cannot harm to share your life with someone, just like Jure who perceives photography as a bridge between space and time – something that as poor linear human beings, we cannot ever surpass. Bridges need to be built. Whether they are stones of the truth (according to Godard) or a lie (according to Haneke), if they are made with good intentions, I do not care. I cheer for both sides. |
Mostovi / Nejc Gazvoda
Kaj mi lahko pokažejo moji starši? Izpod malih košatih obrvi grdo gledam (“Kot tigerček,” pravi mama) in se držim za vejo oreha, ki raste za našo hišo. Na glavi imam oranžno kapo s črnim napisom Stihl (prinesel mamin stric iz Nemčije, meni kapo, dedku Stihlov koledar z dvanajstimi dekleti, ki so kdo ve zakaj žagale debela debla zgoraj brez in pomenljivo strmele v objektiv) in okoli riti imam navito plenico iz blaga, katere košček se je razparal in mi binglja ob nogi kot rep politega cucka. Ampak sem pa luškan, tako mami in babi. Pa tiste fotografije z morja, ko ležim na psihadelično vijoličnem napihljivem krokodilu, ki ga je oče primerno izgledu poimenoval Bob Dylan, in ponosno kažem sveže škrbine, v ozadju pa prežgana lisa morja, kot bi dneve in dneve deževali sveže kovani cekini. Smo v živalskih vrtovih, kjer kozo pitam s kruhom, pa rojstni dnevi in kak božič. Album za vsako leto. Pod nekaterimi fotografijami je mama napisala opombe (tisto o tigerčku, recimo). Albumov je za dve polici. Kaj bom lahko pokazal jaz? Danes na morju z digitalci naredimo tistoč fotk sončnega vzhoda in jih nato tisoč zbrišemo, socialna omrežja so poplavljena s fotografijami najstnic, ki z visoko dvignjenimi fotoaparati in bliskavico prikrivajo mozoljavo kožo in podbradek, družinski albumi so zamenjali kartonaste platnice za virtualne in vsak, ki ima denar za zrcalno refleksni fotoaparat, boljši objektiv in travnik za hišo, že postane profesionalni makrofotograf in se počuti blazno pomembnega, ko se nauči na fotografijo napisati svoje ime v vodnem tisku. To ni hrepenenje po starih časih – jaz obožujem digitalno revolucijo. Ampak moj oče je pred tridesetimi leti skrbno fotografiral tisto, kar je imel najraje – svojo družino in skupne trenutke z njo. Ni važno, kakšne so fotografije tehnično – imel je razlog, da jih je naredil. Imel je ljubezen do motiva in željo po ohranjanju spominov. Ko pa se bo nekdo čez trideset let poskusil prebiti skozi fotografije svojih staršev (torej moje generacije), ko so bili mladi, bo naletel na gomilo hladnih, surovih fotografij iz neštetih nočnih zabav, nenavdahnjene posnetke narave, če so starši slučajno pripadali subkulturi hipsterjev, pa bo začudeno zijal ob umetno zmaličenih fotkah, kjer njegova mama v retro sončnih špeglih z vijolično liso na obrazu in živo rdečo šminko poskuša na novo definirati Nico iz Velvet Underground, njena prijateljica v ozadju meče konfete, oče pa fotografira s holgo, ki jo je kupil zato, ker vsaka fotka zgleda kul, če je psihadelična in ima gor napisano nekaj v helvetiki. Pa je bil to res pomemben trenutek v življenju ali morda le mimobežna faza? Fotografija kot umetnost je ohranila svojo pozicijo v času tehnoloških sprememb, nobena izmed ključnih umetnosti še ni pokleknila pod novitetami – je pa daleč največ izgubila kot kronistka bistva. Ljudje si zapomnimo ključne trenutke in fotografija je beležila to – beležila je skrbno izbrane momente, ko je bilo ljudem lepo. Danes sta ekstrema dva – ali je tvojih fotografij toliko in so tako zelo nepomembne ali trapaste, da jih boš slej ko prej izbrisal (tako kot na socialnih omrežjih določeni posamezniki zelo radi povedo, kaj so jedli za zajtrk, malico, kosilo, večerjo in tudi kaj so prigriznili vmes in kakšna je bila barva blata, ko so vse to zvečer izločili), ali pa fotoaparat vzameš le na daljša potovanja in fotografij nimaš shranjenih nikjer (kot recimo počnem jaz). Ker je fotografirati preprosto prelahko, delaš to prepogosto ali pa sploh ne. Kot samoumevno jemljemo to, da so okoli nas fotoaparati (in kamere), ki nas beležijo – ampak vsakega trenutka ni vredno beležiti. Sodobni način komunikacije je inflacija trenutkov. Celo življenje je na dlani, vsaka minuta je lahko zabeležena... in s tem nepomembna. Ni premisleka o bistu. Ko gledam Juretove fotografije, kjer bele izrezane silhuete otrok stojijo objete s starši pred naravnimi znamenitostmi, me zbode nekje globoko, kot človeka. Najprej mogoče zato, ker se spomnim teh toplih, saturiranih barv iz fotografij mojih staršev – hecno, kako tehnologija vpliva na moje dojemanje preteklosti! Fotografija ima spet primaren namen – je kronistka bistva. Ni izumljanja tople vode in narezanega kruha, je samo to, kar bi ljudje radi, da nam ostane – skupni trenutki iz potovanja. Toda! Kaj če je bila priložnost zamujena? Če spominov ni, ker ni dogodka? Jure svojih staršev ne more in ne želi vrniti v čas tik po poroki, ko še ni bilo njega in brata. Kar želi, je vrniti občutenje bistva. Bistveno je, da sta si starša želela na potovanje. Njega in brata takrat še ni bilo, ampak tega ni potrebno skrivati – beli silhueti sta jasen indic, da obstajata, a hkrati sta nedefinirana. Če si starša želita, sta lahko tam... ali ju pa ni. Juretova serija fotografij doseže to, kar je bistvena moč vizualne umetnosti, tako fotografske kot filmske – preseže dojemanje prostora in časa, kot ga vsak dan tlačanimo uboga, linearna človeška bitja. Fotoserija Honeymoon je posneta pred dobrim letom, s tehnologijo izpred dvajsetih let, simulira dogodek izpred dvajsetih let in pripoveduje njegovo zgodbo, hkrati je kronist realnega trenutka realnega časa in z umikom bratov iz slike zastavlja vprašanja o selektivnosti spomina – je res to, kar je bilo, to, kar se spomnimo, to, kar si želimo, to, kar vidimo, to, kar je ostalo v nas, to, kar je na fotografijah? Je bela lisa nujno tisto, kar je bilo izrezano ali tisto, kar si sami zamislimo? Predstavljam si Juretova starša, ki si ogledujeta te fotografije – najprej jima je gotovo duhovito, kaj je sin napravil. Fotografije so spomin na njuno potovanje skupaj s sinovoma. V bele lise si narišeta realne dogodke, svoja otroka. Nato ju fotografije zaradi tehnologije (specifičnega fotoaparata prav iz tistega časa) spomnijo na mladost, trenutke, ko sta si želela nekaj, kar se takrat ni uresničilo. Bele lise so njuni spomini, lastni le njima. Fotografije narave in živali so skoraj popolna laž, umestljive tako v realno potovanje kot dvajset let nazaj. Asociativnost ni direktna, povezana je s konceptom – je to, kar bi lahko bilo, je to, kar si starša želita oziroma razmišljata, da bi bilo. In mi, bralci oziroma gledalci knjige? Priča smo seriji fotografij, ki zastavljajo bistveno vprašanje tega, kaj ostaja za nami in kaj nas čaka. Je želja po poročnem potovanju po taki seriji fotografij sploh še pomembna, ali je morda izpolnjena? Je res tako zelo bistveno, da vsak trenutek, ki se nam je zgodil, neločljivo vpletemo v svojo življenjsko zgodbo? Jure umakne sebe in brata iz fotografij in pove – da, bila sva tam... lahko pa ne bi bila. Odločite se sami. Da, obstajava, ampak katera resnica vam je bližja - iz dobe fotoaparata, s katero so nastale fotografije, ali tista iz realne dobe, v kateri so nastale, je odvisno od vas. Poleg tega, da gre za čudovito, premišljeno, duhovito darilo staršem, ki govori hkrati o sinovi ljubezni in spoštovanju do staršev kot roditeljev in oseb z lastno preteklostjo in intimnim življenjem, je serija, ki je pred vami, čas za lasten obračun s spomini in dojemanjem tega, kar je bilo in tega, kar je. Kaj bo ostalo ob poplavi vseh digitalnih fotografij? Čemu bomo prepuščeni čez leta? Bo res to, da je dokumentiran vsak trenutek našega življenja bolj resnično od tistih belih lis, ki si jih barvamo sami? Za srečno življenje je menda potrebno dobro zdravje in slab spomin. Recimo, da to drži. Gotovo pa ne škodi, če si ga deliš z nekom, kot je Jure, ki dojema fotografijo kot most med prostorom in časom – nekaj, kar uboga, linearna človeška bitja sami ne moremo nikoli preseči. Mostove je potrebno zgraditi. Naj bodo kamni resnic (po Godardevo) ali laž (po Hanekejevo), pa je, če je dobronamerno, vsaj meni vseeno. Navijam za oboje. |