Monokultur, Four Elevators

Photography works, Hubert Blanz, 2006/2007

Urban Slot Machine

The work of Hubert Blanz results from his occupation with the infrastructure of networks and spatial grids. Generating new codes for such protocols provides the basis for his visual language. At first this language appears somewhat familiar, already known. It might be attributed naturalistic or as concrete expression of experienced reality, determined by a process of selective appropriation but nonetheless with the claim raised for generality.

The code, the choice for possible pictorial combinations of the constituent elements is subject to the manipulating intervention of its creator. Driven by his interest in forms of spatial organisation, the material used by Blanz is the result of minute cartography, wherefore the claim for lexical generality is justified but contradictory to its manifestation of his individual obsession. The arrangement of the observational framework is up to the cartographer, the subsequent documentation of the items observed takes place in accordance to specific formal criteria, leaving no room for omission.

In the case given, it is about the photographic documentation of the facades of all buildings in Manhattan as well as the bridges of all traffic junctions of the Viennese motorway ring, in either cases captured from a pedestrian point of view. Blanz maintains this perspective in the subsequent process of pictorial montage. He involves the observer dexterously in the ambiguity of the alternating experience of momentary orientation and the disturbance of pre-conscious perception as an act of “automated” spatial coordination. Therefore the pictorial reality appears true and constructed at the same time. The observer is given the role of an integrated actor in that for instance Blanz entirely seals off the volume occupied by the buildings (in doing so the buildings footprint and roof are handled like facades) in order to obtain the impression of being fully immersed in pictorial space. This immersion in the processual circularity of urban infrastructure can possibly be compared with the interaction between a mesmerised player and a slot machine: the aura of this process - initiated with the insertion of a coin – deprives any timely determination because of the perpetual renewal of the actors expectation.

Wolfgang Fiel, Vienna February 2007.


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Monokultur, Four Elevators Photography works, Hubert Blanz, 2006/2007 Urban Slot Machine The work of Hubert Blanz results from his occupation with the infrastructure of networks and spatial grids. Generating new codes for such protocols provides the basis for his visual language. At first this language appears somewhat familiar, already known. It might be attributed naturalistic or as concrete expression of experienced reality, determined by a process of selective appropriation but nonetheless with the claim raised for generality. The code, the choice for possible pictorial combinations of the constituent elements is subject to the manipulating intervention of its creator. Driven by his interest in forms of spatial organisation, the material used by Blanz is the result of minute cartography, wherefore the claim for lexical generality is justified but contradictory to its manifestation of his individual obsession. The arrangement of the observational framework is up to the cartographer, the subsequent documentation of the items observed takes place in accordance to specific formal criteria, leaving no room for omission. In the case given, it is about the photographic documentation of the facades of all buildings in Manhattan as well as the bridges of all traffic junctions of the Viennese motorway ring, in either cases captured from a pedestrian point of view. Blanz maintains this perspective in the subsequent process of pictorial montage. He involves the observer dexterously in the ambiguity of the alternating experience of momentary orientation and the disturbance of pre-conscious perception as an act of “automated” spatial coordination. Therefore the pictorial reality appears true and constructed at the same time. The observer is given the role of an integrated actor in that for instance Blanz entirely seals off the volume occupied by the buildings (in doing so the buildings footprint and roof are handled like facades) in order to obtain the impression of being fully immersed in pictorial space. This immersion in the processual circularity of urban infrastructure can possibly be compared with the interaction between a mesmerised player and a slot machine: the aura of this process - initiated with the insertion of a coin – deprives any timely determination because of the perpetual renewal of the actors expectation. Wolfgang Fiel, Vienna February 2007.
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