ROMAN PIECES
I dreamed that I was traveling. It was abroad. Italy maybe: »I step on the bus, already a flurry feeling in the stomach. I don‘t have a ticket. I sit down next to a young lady. She‘s good looking. Two minutes later a controller steps in. My heart starts beating fast, I feel panic. I grub in my wallet, as if I‘m looking for my ticket. The controller comes closer. All kinds of little papers in my hand fall to the ground. In desperation I ask the young lady besides me for a ticket. She smiles and gives me one of her green tickets - what an enchanting encounter. Time is standing still. I feel caressed and nourished.«
How was it going In Rome? Did you dodge the fair there, too? And how did it happen that you did your latest work there?
Yes, I have to admit: I didn‘t pay for a lot of tickets. But I was lucky they didn‘t catch me. I was there for a week. It all started out with a very personal story: The idea was to go to Rome to see my girlfriend for few days. But then the moment before I took off from Germany I got a call from her where she asked me not to come. But I decided to take the plane anyway. It felt that moment easier to go forward into something unpredictable, than to stay paralyzed where I was. »I have my camera with me, I will take pictures, that‘s what I can do.« I told myself.
What kind of relation do you have towards the camera you work with?
Yeah, there is this backup thing, but apart from that I try use the camera as I think that it is meant to be used. I try to attune to the machine the best I can. I submit myself, you could say.
The camera has its strict rules. The scope is very limited: certain sizes and distances are needed, not all perspectives work, you need a certain amount of light. Of course you can use the camera beyond the means to create deviant aesthetics, but that doesn‘t make any sense to me. They don‘t go with the machine. Its qualities are bound to its limitations. You‘re moving anyway along these technical limits all the time, with what you have in mind. But in the end you do what is possible and not what you want.
But what if you want a predefined picture?
Then you need to choose the right camera. But even if you‘d have all cameras, you have to accept, that not everything can be pictured.
Why did you decide to do a booklet?
I realized that it is kind of pointless nowadays to hang pictures on a wall, unless you want to decorate the room. I want to tell something else and it‘s a lot about the way how you get in contact with the content.
Is there a reference to reality with what you tell?
Pictures have their own logic you have to adjust to. So when I try to find a possible sequence, the photos change into any material that I have to manipulate. Different combinations lead to obviously different statements and in the end I try to find the less ridiculous, the most reasonable one. Doing this you find out - or let‘s say you have to admit that there has never been a story based on true events. But that‘s not important. In the end all actions, even the destructive ones, are done with the intention to make up a story, to create sense, to manipulate a incomprehensible, complex present situation into a form. There is this longing to get a picture of what is happening. It has a lot to do with orientation.
Is there any basic necessity, imperative in what you do?
I don‘t know. I‘m motivated to do certain things and I have the impression that it‘s good to do it, but then again I see that I could do something else instead and it wouldn‘t be less good or reasonable. It all depends on the criteria you set. It is interesting to watch how criteria change depending on the state of mind you‘re in. My impression is that things are done and decided out of a current personal mood, each time claiming to be factual. General ideas are shaped and proclaimed although it‘s utterly contingent, it‘s only one out of other possible models. It just depends on what conception you support at the moment. Some will claim reliable criteria to get out of this misery, but the only ones I can see are those of my camera.
What is your relation towards beauty? Beautiful pictures?
I stick to those beautiful pictures, which is definitely a problem. But there is no problem with the pictures being beautiful. One should not be afraid of beauty - trivial superficial beauty.
So, you think there‘s no problem in getting lost in sheer aesthetics?!
There is, because beauty is so seducing, it makes you loose your reasoning powers. It makes you stupid, blind, unable to see what there really is. That‘s why so many people mistrust and negate beauty, because you loose control. But in the end beauty is nothing but an invitation to come closer, to stay a little longer, to waste your time and attention on something. The question of quality and content is less important at first.
You can be easily misled, fooled. But it is not its responsibility when you forget your criteria! It‘s your responsibility to look closer, to ask yourself what you really want and to check if you like what is under the cover. Anyway superficial beauty is quickly consumed and leaves a moldy taste in your mouth. Actually it‘s a great reminder that you are a fool, that you like fooling yourself, because you‘re a junky, hooked on phantasms.
And then there is something else, that I would also call beauty, what is a feeling of resonating with something or somebody. Being in tune with each other and that‘s something that can happen through a picture as well. In that case only within yourself, but that‘s already something, isn‘t it?! If you make a fetish thing out of it - it‘s again a great chance to wake up to the fact that you abuse everything you can.
But isn‘t a picture by definition a substitute for something that isn‘t there anymore? A souvenir.
Yes, of course. The departure to make an image is already a mistake, it‘s like buying something: the illusion to get in touch with something by possessing it. Any experience is determined to be distorted into a cliché by a photography. A sunset is a good example.
So why continue photographing?
Maybe just because there‘s nothing better to do - your approach makes the difference, I think. If you want to show what you‘ve seen it will be a disappointment, but if you use everything that is visible as a pool of allegories, there is no problem and you have every right to proclaim what you want.
And there is still another dimension: If you look faithful at things, they reveal a special beauty. Things radiate a great gratitude. Even the so-called: dead ones. Actually they are quite happy about their existence, despite the fact that they are doing nothing, but falling to pieces. They‘re insisting on their right to exist as far as their material condition allows it, but they don‘t run from the fact that they can‘t. They are at ease, beautiful!
How would you define yourself or what you do?
I would define myself as a producer of objects, who promises his clientele a participation in the perception of the immaterial.
ROMAN PIECES is part of ROMA a printed matter by Bernd Kleinheisterkamp © 2009
There is a confined repertoire of settings that are photographable for me at the moment. According to this I have developed an applicable set of stimuli, a checklist that guides my attention. As soon as I recognize a setting I get out my camera. Mechanically. There is not much magic to it. Still the checklist changes according to my state of mind. It‘s tricky: on one hand I try to establish a form of expression what means I restrict myself, on the other hand I need to get lost to step over something else or let‘s say something unexpected - beyond the checklist.
And how does that happen?
I don‘t have an exact clue, honestly: I have no control. I try to figure out some kind of formula, but maybe there is no such thing.
So how did you start working and what happened then in Rome? How does the story continue?
Well, at first I got sick, and I had to stay two days in bed with temperature. It was very hot and noisy, and I put all my attention on getting healthy again.
As soon as I was back on my feet I started walking. With my camera. I had to give myself a function to resist desolation. Sometimes it‘s the only move I know. The only way to handle my helplessness. That‘s maybe why there is this booklet now.
When I came back to Brussels it didn‘t take long and it was over with my girlfriend. She quit.
How did you handle the situation?
Well, I started working right away on the booklet. I met Jochen, a friend. We drank beers and he asked me how I‘m doing. I remember telling him: »This is all crazy: We‘re creating nothing but phantasms. We feed them with our thoughts, wishes, feelings - with our energy. Pushing them into reality by daily action. You could say, we work for them, continuously creating events and facts. We materialize them! It‘s like building an imaginary house and you have already in mind to call it: »home« or »good times« or whatever. My girlfriend quits and there is nothing left but the construct. A script for an unaccomplished future story. A decorated concept. And it fell apart in a second! It collapsed just like that, in front of my eyes. Impossible to keep it alive. It simply disappeared and left me behind in an ambient that kept on moving unimpressed.«
After my conversation with Jochen I considered going back to Rome, but what a stupid idea: there‘s no use trying to round a story off. The point is to deal with the fragments.
So the booklet is nothing but a personal trip, trying to put things in a row for you?!
No, I hope not. The stranded situation, where I didn‘t know anymore what to do initiated the first move and what I‘m doing now. I try to process this on and that will display something, create a statement and that‘s what is important.
