Essay - How to Preserve a Pause for Eternity
What is a pause? A lingering between moments, a time for recollection, a charging of energy. An artful way of emphasising the words spoken. A temporary stop, a bridge that connects past and future actions and allows for time to slow down and almost discontinue.
Similarly, the photograph is a way to control time, to inscribe it with significance. The moment preserved is elevated above other moments like it. Written in light – frozen, isolated, kept in order. We photograph the people, places, objects and situations that matter to us the most and keep them in the image app on our phones as a gateway to our internal memory.
In the series Pause Between Thought and Action, Erik Gustafsson does quite the opposite. By focusing on the latent in-between, his photographs counteract efficient, structured, quality time. Instead, the passage, reflection or pause is valued as an end-goal in itself. The images are loaded with anticipation of what is yet to come, of that which already passed and the multitude of temporal trajectories that connect the two.
The series contains three different typologies – people, objects and abstract compositions. The figurative images are seemingly mocking the staged poses of antique sculptures, traditional portraiture and still lifes. Bodies are positioned on top of plinths, slumping on a ladder or caught midway in movement. Still lifes are composed of chairs and photographic equipment. The scenes captured appear random; however, the classic large-scale format 8x10” suggests a meticulous and laborious effort. The photographs are created by loading light sensitive paper directly into the analogue camera, thus creating an inverted image where shadow turns to light, positive becomes negative, presence is absence and pause transforms into action. In so doing, Gustafsson turns his gaze from the controlled, photogenic body or object towards the photographic process itself.
This method of inquiry situates itself in the photographer’s studio, using it as a site of exploration. It is a historically and socially specific place of value-making, often hidden in the artistic process, but in the case of Pause Between Thought and Action it takes centre stage. This is further enhanced by portraits of the tools of the trade, objects that otherwise enable the photograph, but remain unseen. Some images are even more explicitly images of images as we see prints unceremoniously mounted on tripods, photographed again and again – each layer adding a distance between subject and viewer, leaving only the act of photographing in the spotlight.
Complementing the figurative motifs are exercises in abstraction using a luminogram technique whereby images are created by exposing photographic paper to light in the dark room, thus recording the performativity of light in what could be considered the most basic form of camera-less photography. The result is aesthetically arresting images in saturated colours reminiscent of science-fiction sunsets and red poppies in summer.
The camera embodies a wandering eye travelling the land of the studio in a state of distracted observation. Freed of the demand to find or construct an instant worthy of preservation, Gustafsson creates self-reflexive photographs of latency, stasis and standstill.
Pause Between Thought and Action is a vibrant celebration of the craft of photography and its relation to time. Viewing the pause as void of meaning is to fall for the trap of the modern temporal concept of time as purely functional. The photograph represents a rupture in the weave of time, connecting spatiotemporalities and making certain trajectories manifest in physical form – a testament to the art of pausing.
What is a pause? A lingering between moments, a time for recollection, a charging of energy. An artful way of emphasising the words spoken. A temporary stop, a bridge that connects past and future actions and allows for time to slow down and almost discontinue.
Similarly, the photograph is a way to control time, to inscribe it with significance. The moment preserved is elevated above other moments like it. Written in light – frozen, isolated, kept in order. We photograph the people, places, objects and situations that matter to us the most and keep them in the image app on our phones as a gateway to our internal memory.
In the series Pause Between Thought and Action, Erik Gustafsson does quite the opposite. By focusing on the latent in-between, his photographs counteract efficient, structured, quality time. Instead, the passage, reflection or pause is valued as an end-goal in itself. The images are loaded with anticipation of what is yet to come, of that which already passed and the multitude of temporal trajectories that connect the two.
The series contains three different typologies – people, objects and abstract compositions. The figurative images are seemingly mocking the staged poses of antique sculptures, traditional portraiture and still lifes. Bodies are positioned on top of plinths, slumping on a ladder or caught midway in movement. Still lifes are composed of chairs and photographic equipment. The scenes captured appear random; however, the classic large-scale format 8x10” suggests a meticulous and laborious effort. The photographs are created by loading light sensitive paper directly into the analogue camera, thus creating an inverted image where shadow turns to light, positive becomes negative, presence is absence and pause transforms into action. In so doing, Gustafsson turns his gaze from the controlled, photogenic body or object towards the photographic process itself.
This method of inquiry situates itself in the photographer’s studio, using it as a site of exploration. It is a historically and socially specific place of value-making, often hidden in the artistic process, but in the case of Pause Between Thought and Action it takes centre stage. This is further enhanced by portraits of the tools of the trade, objects that otherwise enable the photograph, but remain unseen. Some images are even more explicitly images of images as we see prints unceremoniously mounted on tripods, photographed again and again – each layer adding a distance between subject and viewer, leaving only the act of photographing in the spotlight.
Complementing the figurative motifs are exercises in abstraction using a luminogram technique whereby images are created by exposing photographic paper to light in the dark room, thus recording the performativity of light in what could be considered the most basic form of camera-less photography. The result is aesthetically arresting images in saturated colours reminiscent of science-fiction sunsets and red poppies in summer.
The camera embodies a wandering eye travelling the land of the studio in a state of distracted observation. Freed of the demand to find or construct an instant worthy of preservation, Gustafsson creates self-reflexive photographs of latency, stasis and standstill.
Pause Between Thought and Action is a vibrant celebration of the craft of photography and its relation to time. Viewing the pause as void of meaning is to fall for the trap of the modern temporal concept of time as purely functional. The photograph represents a rupture in the weave of time, connecting spatiotemporalities and making certain trajectories manifest in physical form – a testament to the art of pausing.
Erik Gustafsson
Pause Between Thought and Action
2022
116 pages
Self-published
Design by Andreas Friberg Lundgren
Essay by Karolina Aastrup
ISBN: 9789152728512
Pause Between Thought and Action
2022
116 pages
Self-published
Design by Andreas Friberg Lundgren
Essay by Karolina Aastrup
ISBN: 9789152728512
