DANIEL STEEGMANN MANGRANÉ
Spiral Forest 9, 2015
Analog C-print
60 x 40 cm
77 x 57 x 3 cm (framed)
77 x 57 x 3 cm (framed)
Edition 1 of 5 plus 1 AP
Spiral Forest (kingdom of all the animals and all the beasts is my name) was shot with a custombuilt camera that can film while rotating 360° in any axis. The...
Spiral Forest (kingdom of all the animals and all the beasts is my name) was shot with a custombuilt camera that can film while rotating 360° in any axis. The camera’s motor both transported the film and powered its rotations. The camera changed orientation at irregular intervals (according to a score pre-determined by the artist), every time shooting at a new angle. Viewed in an otherwise dark room and submitting to the disorienting effect created by the abrupt shifts in perspective, one begins to see the landscape for its particular elements, abstracted from the familiarity as leaf, branch or tree.
By imposing a constantly shifting orientation of the image, Spiral Forest evokes a vivid physical experience but at the same time its strictures continue to remind the spectator of the separation between gaze and corporeal being.
A series of eleven photographs shot with an analog 35 mm camera in the same location where Spiral Forest was created focus on details of growth and decay: wilting leaves and parts of bark that have fallen but are caught in the dense thicket, not reaching the ground.