Whitescapes (2012 - ongoing)


While the photographs in this series have been taken as personal travel or documentary records, the landscapes they depict never existed in this state. They do originate from actual places, from highways traversing developed and highly industrialised areas in Europe or from densely populated cities, and they contain man made lights for public illumination of streets, gas stations, factories, buildings or the occasional urban celebratory lights.

Through photography, I ‘erase' and ‘redraw’ these landscapes in a performative act — my passing through— and by recording what is in my field of view. The different strokes, washes or tonalities of grey are given by the clash between light and darkness, by the various technologies used in public lighting or by signs of photo pollution. Sometimes, others are performing in or passing through these public spaces and their actions are equally recorded.

The working process resembles that of classic photography, nothing is constructed, nor manipulated. The images are only transformed from positives into negatives to increase visual acuity. Thus darkness becomes a white sheet of paper and the photographs are stripped of all unessential representational remnants of reality, of any geographical, topographical or historical meaning.

It is only through points and lines (the latter called by Kandinsky 'destruction of points through external forces’) and their relationship with the plane's surface that a sense of familiarity with these abstractions of spaces is conveyed. The viewer may recognise them partly from visual memories of photographs, drawings or paintings of landscapes already seen.


© Copyright Alexandra Diaconu.
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Using Format