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gelatin silver print on baryta

Günther Selichar’s black and white photographs, entitled Sources, reach beyond the visible. They allow us to see beyond the image as a representation of something perceived in the external world. The photographs represent exactly what their title suggests. They visualize the hidden sources of representation as a physical phenomenon. They go to the infinitesimal foundation of the image and present it on a macro-scale. In Sources the unseen order of the image is revealed.
These photographs give evidence that each module of electronic light operates as a signal beyond what we generally interpret in the process of seeing. “Sources” deconstructs not only the manner in which we recognize an image, but also the manner in which we make meaning in relation to what we see.
Even if the image is the result of an alteration or a digital manipulation, an “abstract” image that exists beyond recognition, there is still the visual pattern that exists beneath the process of recognition and thus beyond the externally visible signifiers of object-recognition. There is the fact of the image coming through the retina and registering itself on the cerebral cortex. Whether or not we are cognizant of this empirical reality, one cannot ignore the invisible patterns that serve as the structural basis of the image.
These patterns are the basis of all visual sensation. They are the visual components of nature that inform our perceptions and identification with culture. It is in this sense that Selichar’s art may be seen as profoundly structural, yet not without certain social, political, and psychological dimensions. To investigate the image in this extreme way is ultimately as political as it is phenomenological.
(from: Robert C. Morgan, "Inside The Visible", 1996)

Weiterlesen

Robert C. Morgan, "Inside The Visible", 1996 (PDF)

Carl Aigner, "Apparative Graphien" (PDF German)