THE CLOSEST THING OF WHO I AM #2

Photography as a means for raising metaphysical questions and exploring psychological narratives…

More "adventures" of my friend Harvey…

THE CLOSEST THING OF WHO I AM #1

Photography as a means for raising metaphysical questions and exploring psychological narratives…

The two most important days in life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why. [Mark Twain]

And there was the man who, all through his life, asked himself the same question:
"What is it all about?" and who never found the answer, because there isn't one...

In search of the very own "Steppenwolf"...

The Museum of the Lost Souls.

"I'm leaving" he said, just before leaving the room. It was the only thing he could say. He was going mad...

I realy thought that I had come to that day, that I have found out why. But now it seems that everything is going down in pieces...

INTRODUCING HARVEY…

May I introduce you to my friend Harvey? No, he is not a pooka, but he will accompany me on my traveling through the photographic world sometimes….;-)

Awakening

"ÜBER-ICH: THE "SUPER-EGO" AND THE "COLLECTIVE MEMORY"…

I am currently working on a project i occupied myself already for a long time, not only within my photographic work. Its about nations and societies, how they are seeing themselves and how they are seen from the outside…

According to Sigmund Freud there exists something he called Über-Ich, the superego, that reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly taught by parents applying their guidance and influence. If you implement this concept into sociology you get something which is called collective memory. Collective memory is about how a nation, a society, is handling its past, its history, what is passed an to the next generation by parents, teachers, media and politics. All this passed-on memories can differ very much form what one can call the "official" (self-)picture of a country, a nation, a society.

The "collective memory" that formed Austrian society.

To state this more precisely I have done a picture about how I see my native country, Austria. It is about how I see, what has formed the current austrian society, about things, people, which had (and still have) quite a lot of influence on the Austrian subconscious mind: Sigmund Freud (where else then in Vienna could he have formed his thesis?) and Adolf Hitler (who most likely has learned his anti-Semitism here), all this Jewish artists and scientist, which where driven out of Austria (if they where lucky) and the way how this history was handled after WW2. Until now Austria was not liberated from the Nazis but occupied by the Allies…

I am planing to similar pictures for other countries too. There could be two versions: Mine, the way I see what is forming the collective memory of a country (the view from outside in so do say). And yours. If you give me your ideas, you view. I would appreciate this very much...