REMAKES OF TRAVELLING   -   initiated by Dr. Sabine Grosser
A project using digitally performed photographs of travelling to remake the world

People have been documenting travelling not only since the invention of photography. Beside travel reports photographs or drawings illustrate journeys. Nowadays we usually try to catch our impressions whilst travelling with photographs and file them in private photo albums. In the internet we find innumerable websites made of reports and photo albums of globetrotters. In the contemporary art scene images of travelling (Reisebilder) or experiences of cultural differences are a vibrant topic.

This trend will further increase, as not only the humanities are interested in investigating historical travel reports. Moreover, tourist numbers are rising and the technical possibilities of the digital camera call for a flood of pictures. Considering these two trends, regarding travelling and technological developments, there seem to be additional new possibilities finally giving rise for this project.

Travelling and being on the move

Travelling is understood in a very broad sense in the context of this project: it refers not only to journeys to foreign countries but also to any occasion or movement in the world which evokes an idea, gives a memorable impression, or inspires us to take a visual souvenir. Being on the move and travelling around the world we try to take record of our perceptions, impressions and experiences with photographs. Doing so we might realise the difficulties of this intention: rarely we get a good photograph that matches our ideas about the event - because these situations might be connected with feelings, emotions and associations, which can seldom be caught with a handy-camera. Here digital technology might open new possibilities.

This is the starting point for this project. We would like to stress that the distinction between "photography" and "digital pictures" should not imply any kind of evaluation but should be understood as an interest in the possibilities and a reflection about aesthetic consequences of the new media.

Digitally Performed Images

The computer and the possibilities to work on a digital(ised) photograph open up new prospectives: Nowadays it is possible to use a photograph as a kind of raw material taking it digitally to visualise impressions, ideas or perceptions of travelling. Hence, the result does not want to depict any kind of reality, but tries to express a personal impression or a perception in a digital picture. Places and reality do not exist as pictures as such but are rather remade in our mind and memory.

We want to explore how we actively interact with images of travelling to remake the world in the shape of our fantasies and desires and to narrate the stories which we carry within us in the digital media.

Consequently, this project is not about depiction but about personal perceptions and impressions on travelling visualised on the basis of a photograph but performed digitally to match the author's ideas. Imagination and reality change their places. Our re-makes of places experienced during travelling become real with the digital intervention. Or as the author V.S. Naipaul says in the book "The Enigma of Arrival" (London 1987): "We re-make the world for ourselves." Therefore we do not use the term photography any longer but would like to replace it with the term "picture".

Call for Pictures

Artists who explore the possibilities of new technologies in the outlined context are invited to share their visualised ideas on this platform.

Please send your contribution to a-site.

A contribution does not imply the right of presentation.
The managing team of the project will make a selection for the online presentation.The pictures will be shown for a limited period of time on a-site.

All copyrights remain with the author of the pictures and texts. We respect this right as we expect the visitors of the web site not to use the pictures and data in another context

Practical - requirements:

The size of the picture should not be larger than 200 KB, resolution 72 dpi.
A title may be enclosed, even a short text giving the background, telling a story or outlining a context is possible.
- Your name, country of living/origin, work context, and e-mail address should be given. If you wish you can include your bio data in short.

Please send your contribution to: project@a-site.org. We decides to have no deadline so far. The project will continue the whole year 2004.

Online Presentation

The new technologies allow us to work on photographs and modify them completely. The internet, in addition, gives us the opportunity to collect these pictures like in a virtual, collective photo album. So the next consequence is not only to collect these visualised ideas, impressions and perceptions on travelling privately but also collect them as digital images in the internet. This project is designed as an investigation. The idea implies the use of digital media and the use of the internet as a platform as outlined.

How it started

Since I lived and worked in Asia between 1997 and 2002 I also tried to catch my impressions through photography. However, I soon realised the limits of conventional technical possibilities. The motives seemed to be a repetition in modulated, differing qualities. So I started to explore the possibilities of the digital media ...

Sabine Grosser, Kassel, Germany Mai 2003