Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

Departments
Photography
Institute of Fine Arts and Media Art
Noah Andrew Kolb (Diploma Project)
Betreuer*in: Gabriele Rothemann

“Just observe.” A former classmate of mine told these words to me when I was new at the University. She wrote it down onto my fortune cookie slip after a special meal during my first class excursion back in 2014 in California where we would spend two weeks in Yosemite National Park. From that point onwards the meaning of this phrase slowly grew and grew in value for me and became integrated into my artistic approach. I expose my photographs onto a light sensitive canvas. After this the canvases are coated with mercury chloride that is diluted into a water mixture. This causes the photograph to fade away. With time and light or even various acidic vapors like ammonia or cigarette smoke the photograph will actually start to come back, organically revealing the past. There is also room to experiment and use a solution of hyposulfite and bring back specific parts of the photograph.

(c) Noah Andrew Kolb

(c) Noah Andrew Kolb