Katrin Korfmann

Count For Nothing

Dom Antao (25 min), Lisbon
ultrachrome print / frame / mirogard glass
size: 145 x 93 cm
year: 2009

In this series of photo collages the progression of time becomes visible by layering several recordings of a given place together to construct a singular image.
Various instants in time are being linked as if they took place at the same moment, offering a spatial experience of the progression of time.

The titles refer to the specific locations or events which took place and are always accompanied by the exact duration during which the recordings are made to delineate a particular frame. The photos which have been taken at sites traversing the globe, are always captured from various perspectives overhead against natural monochrome grounds, such as a green grass field (King’s College (7,5 h_2d) Cambridge), the black tar of a highway (Franks Office (The German Window 40 min.), an expanse of sand/mud (Nickel’s Eye (27 min.) Luanda) or a red carpet (Waiting for Julia (3x 10 min) Berlin).

These monochrome surfaces place the events at first sight in a strikingly abstract context, against which people from disparate cultures seen from above do not necessarily appear so different. But when we scrutinize the figures and events more closely, details such as the goods carried on the heads of people in Luanda, the black robes of the women in Teheran or the slightly different attire of the academic students at the University of Cambridge, help us to localize different habits and rituals very precisely.

Katrin Korfmann

This work made by Katrin Korfmann is called "Count for nothing" and has been a very big inspiration for me during my last work "Between then and now".

These photographs are about the conceptual ideas around time and context. She explores and challenges the way we are used to percieve an image and in a way the photos becomes very graphic. It invites the viewer to a different perspective we are not used to see the world around us and how similar we are from above. What inspires me most is the relationship between time, as in collecting different times in one single frame which I have seen other artists do, such as Hiroshi Sugimoto etc. It questions then, now and the future and this made me start thinking about time and what it really is. 

These photos are many still films in one still photograph, the only difference from a moving image is that it shows all frames at once instead of after each others.

This is Katrin Korfmann´s website

http://www.katrinkorfmann.com/-en

The wall

This is a way to use a wall as a canvas and whoever pass the within the frame will become parts of the canvas and therefore a part of the artwork and photographs. This is an investigation between the relationship of the viewer and the object. I find it interesting working with public spaces and photography because it is almost always unpredictable which makes it an exciting way of working. This day I was lucky to find an interesting wall which works as a natural canvas in a puclic space with real people unknowingly becoming parts of the work, actors in a film, within a frame they walked into without choice. It is not planned but by chance which makes it interesting for myself as everything will be a surprise.

Irving Penn

These photographs were taken by photographer Irving Penn

The process of flying

Working men in the city b/w

During this project I´ve been looking into the society and the genus aspect of it. How in London I can see an obvious focus on working men specifically. It´s interesting how in working positions men aswell as women are often dressed in uniforms and we are automatically placed in gropus, and defined by the uniform. For me it is interesting observing society and our behaviour socially and culturally. Right now I think we live in a society when it seems so important what we do and how that defines us, is it not enough with who we are but also what we do and status? I think some people spend their lives living it for someone else, and what is expected rather than actually just being themselves.

Working men in the city 2

Exhibition work 2012

This is the work I exhibited on the Central saint martins show spring 2012

Title: "Before then and now" 

This project is about exploring the relationships between still photography and moving image. It is about the time and distances we share in relation to each others. I have also investigated the photographic medium and myself in relation to the object I photograph. 

I see this project as unfinished, an ongoing process which will continue in the form it needs to be expressed in. I see this exhibition as a result, a physical form of my thoughts around these ideas. It is only a fragment of a bigger process, only an idea weaved into many.

This is the text I wrote together with the piece:

"There are no oppositions, there is only process and in this process every picture is a line to another one. 

These photographs symbolize the movements that occur in relations to one another and to the time that equalize us no matter what context we are in.

With this I want to communicate the transitions and changes in time, from one movement to another, which we call the present. To remind ourselves that the now is an ongoing process and that it is nothing we should wait for to happen."