Veranstaltungsreihe „Art &
the Moving Image” der Abteilung für Medientheorie, Univ.Prof. Dr. Gabriele Jutz.
In 1998, when the Swiss artist duo F&D Cartier was awarded the prestigious Prix Jordi for the project A-Venir
(To-come), the end of photography had just been proclaimed; post-photography and post-Internet art followed. It was precisely
at this moment that F&D Cartier developed a concept that reduced the photographic process to its basic components – photosensitive
paper and light itself. Untreated black-and-white photographic paper was to be installed as monochrome sheets in the exhibition
space.
“In the conscious realization that the end of
the era of silver gelatin papers was approaching, we decided to use it as a simple method with which to record time and inscribe
light. Beyond this our aim is to ask questions about the potential of (unexposed or unused) photographic papers and the uncaptured
or unfinished images that are implicit with them. We have brought these images to life, but rather than fixing them, we observe
the process of their constant transformation.” Twenty-five years later, this methodology remains a constant for F&D Cartier’s
work, as their latest publication, The Never Taken Images, exemplifies.
Françoise
Cartier, visual artist, Daniel, photographer, live in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.
Françoise
and Daniel had established individual careers before merging their fields in the 1990s, exhibiting as a duo.
