Universes in Universe

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Glass Shards

Photography on glass shards

Objects, installations, 1994 - 1999


Inspired by the slide discovery [see: Lookout: Landscapes] Pat Binder decided to undertake the complicated and difficult procedure of transferring transparent photos onto glass. There may have perhaps been a simpler technique to achieve similar results. In the beginning, the photographic layer often slipped off the glass plate and disappeared in the sink, numerous times the artist cut herself on the sharp edges, her own blood lost in the red light of the dark room. In an age of computer manipulations and given the possibility of producing photocopies and prints on almost any background with little effort, this arduous procedure has something of a ritual. This is brought into the context of the waste oil. Just as the banal everyday objects experience a "consecration" as art by being dipped in oil, the silver crystals are first "consecrated" to an image through the developer bath. Harmful substances arise as well. A (desired) irony exists in that ecologically motivated art can also be an environmental pollutant. However, it would never occur to someone to accuse art of this.

The unwieldy carrier of images has a metaphorical meaning. If it breaks, it will become dangerous, cutting and wounding just as nature's ruined balance threatens human existence. [...] The splinters of glass layered with photographic images, each one unique in its irregularity, are fragments of memory and disparate ways of viewing a reality which can no longer be pieced together to make an intact whole.
(G.H.)

Pat Binder

A selection of art projects, installations, objects, art in public space, art and remembrance.

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