Rut Blees Luxemberg, Vertiginous Exhilaration, 1995
At this year’s Photo London the courtyard of Somerset house is set for a takeover. Large light-box cubes scattered within the courtyard will lure the viewer onto a free-standing platform to discover multiple strands of narrative punctured by images of a changing London cityscape. The installation, The Teaser, is an experimental transformation of the recent collaborative photo book The Academic Year by German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg and philosopher Alexander García Düttman. In anticipation for the upcoming opening Luxemburg sat down to tell us more about her growing affinity with the city, and what’s next in store.
What were the influences behind “The Teaser”, could you tell us a little more about it?
It starts with a text, an obsessive love chronicle that takes place in a University, told in remembered fragments. I responded to the text with photographs, that do not explain or illustrate the story but create another space, that of a weathered London undergoing tremendous transformation, and thus providing the disinterested echo-chamber to the doomed lover. When image and text collide a third story emerges that is truly fictional.
Your exhibition “London Dust” that’s currently showing at the Museum of London responds to the redevelopment of the city and the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis as ever more towers appear in the sky. What drew you to this specific subject matter? Why did you decide to take it on?
The city of London is experiencing rapid architectural changes. I became interested in how photographic images play a part in this. CGI Images of proposed developments are being displayed in the public spaces of the city, their suggested perfection so promising and yet so bland. The conventional and limited understanding of photography as a medium that captures the past is being challenged by these very public CGIs. These future images, however, are very narrow in their remit and in the work “London Dust”, I focused on the remnants of the real: the dust and dirt, the dense, disorderly and overwhelming material reality of the everyday.
Rut Blees Luxemburg, The Teaser, 2015.
Speaking of the material and idea of disorder, it’s hard not to notice how you like to play with perception in your images; a lot of the photographs from ‘London Dust’ see a strange contrast of reality and fantasy through that use of computer-generation. Is that element of technology important to you?
Of course! In ‘London Dust’ the digital image – made by developers or architects – became my backdrop. In a sense, I use the street as a studio, installing my 5×4 large-format analog camera and placing the object, such as the ubiquitous sandsack, in front of the CGI. Technology is a facilitator for art, beyond the production of the work, it allows for different viewing experiences and settings, such as urban flyposting via inexpensive printing technology to complex projection systems…
Already you’ve garnered quite a reputation for supplying incredible images for album covers (Bloc Party and the Streets); why do you think your work appeals so deeply to other artists?
Those photographs of London, such as “Towering Inferno” from the cover of “Original Pirate Material” by The Streets, captured the sense that these seemingly disenfranchised urban high-rises are actually hives of creative activity. The music and lyrics chime with the hallucinatory representation of a marginalized city as a place of pulsing potential and I think that appealed to musicians.
So what do you think is the most important feature of a good photograph, does it need to have the same kind of visual potential?
A good photograph is a conduit for activating a thought process while providing visual pleasure.
Rut Blees Luxemburg, Towering Inferno, 1995.
You’re very meticulous. You initially studied Political Science at university – do you think that influenced you artistically or shaped the kind of works you created?
Oh yes, while studying political science certain questions around participation and representation resulted in my first body of work titled “Women at Night” which charted and affirmed the presence of women in the public spaces of the city after hours.
I guess moving to London must have made some impact too?
90s London seemed very free and full of potential, less tightly controlled than Germany at the time – to me at least! There were artist-run spaces and collectives, such as “Plummett” (on the 16th floor of a local high-rise) I think the influence of that is clearly visible in my early work.
You’re currently a reader in Urban Aesthetics at The Royal College of Art. What exactly is it about urbanity that you find so fascinating?
Being in the city one can have an intense awareness of time, the contemporary moment, in a pleasurable but also in a critical sense. The density of experiences and differences can be very stimulating yet demands an openness of the urban dweller, which co-relates to the creative process which also demands a complete openness.
Many of your photographs are taken at night – is it because you think that density of experience is intensified in the dark?
The night is immersive, it allows for a suspension of norms and can provoke a state of heightened perception. When you visit an opera during the day, will it cast the same spell on you as an evening performance? The public spaces of a city such as London shift at night to spaces that are closer to the imagination, not just in a romantic but also in a radical sense.
Interview by Thea Hawlin
“The Teaser” is showing at “Photo London” Somerset House 21 May – 3 June 2015
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