Josef Konczak is an artist and curator who lives and works in London, UK. He studied Photography at the University of Brighton.His photographic work has been exhibited and published internationally. Recent exhibitions include: A Little Experiment (POSK Gallery) and 100 images of Migration (Hackney Museum).
During Fotopub 2016 he curated a collective show with works by Alexander Burgess, David Fathi, Scott Pattinson and Lam Pok Yin Jeff & Chong Ng.
Bringing together artists who question image-making in the digital age through their deployment of different strategies to re-think, re-purpose and re-present the photographic image, this exhibition examines the mechanics of both image and its apparatus.
In The Untimely Apparatus Of Two Amateur Photographers, artistic duo Lam Pok Yin Jeff & Chong Ng, adapt, transform and modify everyday objects into picture-making devices. Ingenuity and playfulness allow techniques to be pushed to the extreme: photography is turned on its head. A slide projector is converted into a camera by reversing its mechanism (so that the machine absorbs light into its body instead of projecting) and a mailing tube becomes a device for telescopic vision. Often adapting and mimicking the language of photographic manuals, Jeff and Chong’s challenging investigation into the basic mechanics of a camera is documented and presented through performance, images, instructional diagrams and sculptural objects.
Scott Pattinson’s Conversations between a scanner and printer about a piece of paper, records the communication and dialogue between two photographic machines. An A4 sheet of paper passed repeatedly between the two machines, creates an almost endless feedback loop between an “input†and “output†device - revealing a breakdown of the mechanical process. Echoing early camera-less photography techniques, these ‘photograms’ translate to the digital age: rather than being developed by a chemical process, they are a reaction between code, data, and algorithms
In Wolfgang, David Fathi reworks images from the CERN archive, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, which was recently released online. Wolfgang Erst Pauli, physicist and pioneer of Quantum physics working at CERN, was known for his “Pauli†effect where machinery and equipment would often mysteriously fail due to his presence. Fathi threads together images using the “Pauli effect†as narrative device, creating a playful interpretation of the archive. Further questioning the relationship between science and myth. Some images are manipulated by the artist, some aren’t, the viewer is invited to decipher between what is fact and what is fiction.
Fragmentation of time and space are the focus for Alexander Burgess. Shift Command Three explores the relationship between real and virtual worlds, questioning the fluidity of the digital image. Burgess fabricates expanse seascapes using images sourced from digital mapping services (Google, Apple and Microsoft) detailing where satellites stop ‘mapping’ and algorithms render the image instead.
Artworks on show:
Alexander Burgess
Shift Command Three
(2015 - 2016)
Archival pigment prints
Kulusuk 192 x 150cm
Gulf (inverted) 90 x 74cm
Gulf II 102 x 83cm
David Fathi
Wolfgang
(2016)
Archival pigment prints (various sizes)
Toy gyroscope
Broken glass
Lam Pok Yin Jeff & Chong Ng
The Untimely Apparatus Of Two Amateur Photographers
(2015)
Archival pigment prints (various sizes)
Kodak Duratrans mounted in lightboxes
Making of images 400cm x 40cm
Scott Pattinson
Conversations between a scanner and printer about a piece of paper
(2014 - ongoing)
Archival pigment prints
F2280 180 x 130cm
iP77220 180 x 130cm
iP77220 70 x 50cm
3950A 70 x 50cm
Sometimes nothing leads to something
(2015)
