Shadows of memory in visual creative practice

КРЕАТИВНАЯ ЭКОНОМИКА И СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ИННОВАЦИИ CREATIVE ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL INNOVATIONS

„ Where there is much light, there is also plenty of shade“ [Goethe 1773]

Shadows wander according to the light source and shorten, extend or distort the shadow images of objects, buildings and people. Visual games with shadows, one’s own or those of things are an archetypal motif in art.

1. „Shadow Game“, Centre d‘Art Contemporain d‘Essaouira“, Ifitry/Morocco 2013 Memory Frame from the work series «My Shadow Remains» Digital image processing printed on Alu-Dibond, 60 x 90 cm, Berlin 2014

diary entry, Berlin 20 September 2013 ... I sit next to life on a grey autumn day – what is real, the night or the day, here or there, Berlin or Ifitry, where in the soft haze the light gently detached from the darkness around 7, where I descended shivering the winding stairs to the beach, barefoot in shorts and walked towards the sun, which appeared above the high rocky coast at 8 – there, half-asleep I sometimes took the thunder and roar of the sea for one of the aeroplanes flying into tegel and here I thought for a moment that I hear the sea ...

Diaries are a central thread running through my artistic work, which include artistic representations as well as the narrative. They are produced wherever I live. Since my film studies at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1978-79, I have also used the medium of photography to create Erinnerungsrahmen (Memory Frames), which represent 'silent' films about people and places from my life. As in a diary, experiences and everyday images are photographically recorded within the form of a 'picture frame' and combined into a story.

КРЕАТИВНАЯ ЭКОНОМИКА И СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ИННОВАЦИИ CREATIVE ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL INNOVATIONS

„...These series of images resemble short film sequences, composed of a respective row of stills, ‘film stills.’ Gisela Weimann sees their origin in her work in film. These ‘still films’ differ from classic cinema by their absence of movement, as well as by the fact, that Weimann’s ‘films’ describe a cycle without beginning or end, thus ignoring a limitation, set upon the typical, linear course of a cinema film ... Gisela Weimann’s Memory Frames indicate that even our memories do not exist in a past reality, separate from us, but enter an association with the here and now of the present.... The fragmented memory imagery from the past forms a frame filled with present associations and imaginations. Only through these dialogic reflections of the current and the past, can past events remain accessible by means of our memories...“ [ Lüdtke 2013].

Diary entry, berlin 23 June 2014 .. which word opens the day and frees me from the shadows of the night? - it is not easy to shake off the shadows, to enter life bright and easy, going through it without fear ..

2. „Stair case at the Artists’ House E 43, Berlin winter 2013“ Memory Frame from the work series «My Shadow Remains» Digital image processing printed on Alu-Dibond, 60 x 90 cm, Berlin 2014

Events cast their shadows ahead as well and can leave darkening shadows behind on our lives, relationships between people are overshadowed by destructive and aggressive acts, Orpheus tries in vain to get Eurydice back from the realm of shadows, sometimes one has to jump over one’s own shadow and people who do not cast a shadow in sun and moonlight got involved with the devil, according to Adalbert von Chamisso's fantastic tale about Peter Schlemihl – these are negative and symbolic connotations that connect to the image of the shadow [1814].

КРЕАТИВНАЯ ЭКОНОМИКА И СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ИННОВАЦИИ CREATIVE ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL INNOVATIONS

Diary entry, berlin 18 June 2013 ... I sit, stand, walk beside the time as if it was no longer mine – the world around turns and tumbles like a spinning top – it's all too much, too loud, too overwound - power fights against powerlessness, wealth against poverty in an inflamed world ...

In the narrative Peter Schlemihl’s story begins with his return from a long journey. He is totally impoverished, gets off at a cheap inn, deposits his bundle and leaves full of hope with a letter of recommendation for the house of the rich and respected merchant Thomas John. Here he finds an elegant society walking leisurely in the park of the stately home. The host describes his plans for the construction of a new building to his guests and throws in the sentence: "He who is not equipped with at least one million, is, you'll forgive the word, a scoundrel!" "Oh, how true " [Chamisso, 1814] exclaims the poor Schlemihl whole-heartedly – and thus the evil runs its course!

In the text on the title image of my work series "My Shadow Remains," I interpret from a personal viewpoint the philosophical and ethical aspects of the narrative "Peter Schlemihl’s wondrous story", where one's own shadow becomes a synonym for the soul of a man and its loss to a cautionary parable between material greed and excessive wealth as compared to inner contentment and spiritual values.

..Plug         d Bus- und Bahnverbindun'gen. Ich mit meh.        tten und meiner Kamara, banne sein

Abbild auf die-Festplatte meines Computers und ver

- binde ihn yhausloschlich mit den Orfen, die ich be*, sucht und. den Menschen mit denen ich mein Leben geteilt habe. Mein Schatten bleibt als Beweis memes Dagewesanseins Und Projektion meines jnneren Selhst.

I In Adalbert von Chamissos Erzahlung "Peter Schlemihls I wundersame Geschichfe" verkauft Schlemihl dem Teufel seinen Schatten gegen ein wu-’'J°rbares, Dukaten ausspuckendes Glud^ssackel und n it seine leibliche Identitat. -Er wir'd zu ?'   .i schatt ,.beunruhtgen- den Fremden in de Gesellschaft ss das Licht meL- ' den- und traut sir nuk^miondlosenNcB^JBhter Menschen. Alster Teufel fur das materielle Gluck seine

I Seele von ihm fordert, wirft er das Gluckssackel weg und fauscht seine letzte Habe gegen ein Paar Wgnder-. schuhe, die -sich als Siebenmeilenstiefel entpuppen und ' ihn rastLos wie im Flug auf der Suche nach der Wieder" gewinnu         Schattens von einem Ort zum ande-

Innere H         g-keit und die Suche nacIr-mejdern'HDrt

. in der Welt sind jedoch ebenfalls ein bestimmender Faktor ■ in -meinem Leben, das in einer von Zerstdrung, Flucht und Identitatsverlust gepragten Periode de/ deutschdh

• 3.    „My Shadow Remains“

  Shadow photo from Llorenç del Penedès 2009 - concept text Berlin 2011 Digital image processing and pigment print on canvas, 165 x 124 cm, Berlin 2014 25

• 4.    „Diary entry Villa Aurora, Los Angeles 1997 – shadow photo Venice 2010“ Digital image processing and pigment print on canvas, 165 x 124 cm, Berlin 2014

КРЕАТИВНАЯ ЭКОНОМИКА И СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ИННОВАЦИИ CREATIVE ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL INNOVATIONS

(Translation of the text on the image)

In Adalbert von Chamisso's romantic novel the main character Peter Schlemihl sells his shadow to the devil for a wonderful lucky bag that was spitting out ducats, however, he loses his identity in the deal and changes into a disturbing, shadowless stranger who must shun the light and only dares to move among men in moonless nights. When the Devil finally demands his soul of him in return for the material happiness, he throws away the lucky bag and exchanges his last possessions for a pair of walking shoes. These turn out to be seven-miles boots that drive him restlessly from one place to the other in search for the recovery of his shadow. I have renounced the possession of a ducat spitting lucky bag and have kept my shadow. Inner homelessness, however, and finding my place in the world are also determining factors in my life that began in a dark period of German history characterized by destruction, displacement and loss of identity. My seven-miles boots are aircraft and rapid bus and rail links. I travel with my shadow, capture it with light in my camera, keep its image on the hard drive of my computer and connect it indelibly with the places I have visited and the people with whom I have shared my life. My shadow remains as evidence of my having been (there) and as a projection of my inner self.

The central issue that my work series about shadows and memories is based upon is my artistic journey through life. The selection of photos of my shadow taken in different places of the world since 1978 are on the one hand combined with texts from my diaries from other places and on the other joined together to „Memory Frames“ that document my presence in further places. Shadow images, texts and „Memory Frames“ weave a carpet on which I can go back and forth between my past and my present.

villa aurora, los angeles, 4. o. W97 ... am spaten nachmittag ^oc^^^mii peinem tee in den groBen saldn dt^sr4^ htv/angers и nd legte mir eine cd mit beetHfevegs spdten klavier-konzerten auf... -gegeplSBend leuchtete in der diesigen dammerung, wfe^eine flamme ein Helles licht am anderen ufer c!er bay auf, und dann fiel plotzlich die_tnacht auf das Haus, um-stellte es eng und verwandelte die glasturen des salons in drohende schwarze flachen -das geheimnis der ndchte stellte sich hinter der tur in meinem rucken auf und beob-achtete mich - ich dachte an marta und lion feuchtwanger und die vielen aus deutschland vertriebenen judischen gdste, die in diesem salon gesessen haben, spurte anwesenheiten und angst und fluchtete mich von licht zu licht der flurleuchten nach oben, in martas und mein schlafzimmer// um sieben uhr bin ich heute erst erwacht, in einen strahlenden tag hinein, der jede dunkelheit vergessen hat -ich lief durch die unteren raume, die einfach so taten_z als ware gestern nichts gewesen...

КРЕАТИВНАЯ ЭКОНОМИКА И СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ИННОВАЦИИ CREATIVE ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL INNOVATIONS

(Translation of the text on the image)

Villa Aurora, Los Angeles, 4 may 1997 ... late in the afternoon I went with my tea to the large salon of the Feuchtwanger’s and put me a cd in with Beethoven's late piano concertos ... – towards the evening a bright light flashed in the misty dawn like a flame on the opposite shore of the bay, and then suddenly the night fell on the house, surrounded it closely and transformed the glass doors of the salon into threatening black surfaces – the secret of the nights stood up behind the door in my back and watched me – I thought of Marta and lion Feuchtwanger and the many Jewish guests who had been expelled from Germany and had sat in this salon, felt attendances and fear and fled from light to light in the hallway up to Marta’s and my bedroom / / only at seven I woke up this morning into a radiant day that has forgotten every darkness – I wandered through the lower rooms, which simply pretended that nothing had been there yesterday...

Diary entry, berlin 22 June 2014 ... I collect my thoughts and the bygone time, put it on my breakfast table next to the little bowl with nuts, the dish with yogurt, the glass with green tea, the apple and the peach – then I open my thoughts and let them wander to what just was, recently, not a very long time ago and long ago – first come two dead, Anna, who died 2 years ago and Jochen who will be buried on 5 July - the memories encircle them, pull their faces close, lead a short conversation ...

uskudar, 28. 11. 1991 ich denke uber meine fahrten, uber das erlebnis dieser stadt nach, uber die rufenden, so

КРЕАТИВНАЯ ЭКОНОМИКА И СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ИННОВАЦИИ CREATIVE ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL INNOVATIONS

• 5.    „Diary entry Istanbul 1991 – shadow photo Budapest 2011“

  Digital image processing and pigment print on canvas, 165 x 124 cm, Berlin 2014

(Translation of the text on the image)

Üsküdar 28 November 1991 ... I think about my journeys, about the experience of this city, about the calling, so plaintive, so wistfully sounding voices praising Allah or vegetables or the boat trips to Beşiktaş – everything changes into a rhythmic chant, in which the words are provided with melodious endings to better flow from the tongue into the ears of the others / / everyone knows where the small boats leave for Beşiktaş – nevertheless, an old man is screaming shrilly "Beşiktaş , Beşiktaş" at some distance from the landing stage and waves with wild, almost desperate hand movements in the direction of the boat – maybe it is the last boot to Beşiktaş, are there no more passages across the water in these grey, lost days – maybe he is only expressing his poverty, complains that he stands in the rain and wind and hopes that he gets a few lira more when he cries very loud – in front of the boat, next to the sign with the inscription "Beşiktaş", stands a young man and repeats tunefully "Beşiktaş" when the old man breathes in – and then these leaden rides in boats, that seem now in winter to sink deeper into the water, so that I have to hold up my nose to let my eyes wander over the water surface to see the many large and small boats that slide magically towards and past each other ... // at midnight, when I came to the port, the small boat was already waiting for me and slid across the pitch-black water like on ice.