Digital color print on vinyl banner, 654 x 280 cm In many parts of Vienna old-established small businesses and shops get replaced by a growing number of solariums, betting offices and call shops. These places can be regarded as a new form of salo(o)n - as places of communication and entertainment, small and intimate, as a refuge. As a sign of this apparent change an abandoned shop facade in the Viennese Reindorfgasse is covered with a large print of such a new 'salon' - the EuroSalon - for the duration of SalonXV. The use of the economic area, the cultural and social significance of these premises, and the change of the urban landscape are put up for discussion. The EuroSalon is a hybrid of solarium, betting office and call shop, which was digitally composed of a 4x5" film scan and several shop details. You can zoom into the EuroSalon by clicking into the above picture and/or using a scroll wheel (right-click for help). Or see the magnificent and zoomable full-screen high-resolution version. This work follows my earlier project New Economy. General information about the eyes-on festival (European Month of Photography Vienna) can be accessed here. Credits: Thanks to Alexander Kreutzer for his great help in mounting the banner and Michael Nikolajuk for the preparation on-site. Many thanks to Susanne Jakszus and Pascal Petignat for their feedback and support during this project and to the kind shop owners Mr. & Mrs. Brödl. High resolution zooming powered by OpenZoom.

C-Prints 60x60cm imago (lat.): 1. Bild, Bildnis, Porträt; 2. Abbild, Ebenbild; 3. Schemen, Traumbild; 4. Trugbild, -gestalt, bloßer Schein; 5. Vorspiegelung; 6. Erscheinung, Anblick, Gestalt; 7. Gleichnis, Metapher; 8. Vorstellung oder Gedanke an etw., Einbildung. Der erste Blickkontakt mit einem fremden Menschen: ein spezieller Moment, manchmal angenehm, manchmal bizarr, oft auch intim, aber in jedem Fall einzigartig. Kann in diesem kurzen, flüchtigen Augenblick der Begegnung ein authentisches, echtes imago - ein Bildnis, ein Ebenbild - entstehen? Oder bleibt es beim bloßen Abbild, Schein oder gar Trugbild?

Book (Hardcover), 126 pages, 32x26cm Digital offset print on 150g/m2 matte paper Edition: 10 Die Fotografien beschreiben das Aufatmen nach der Grelle des Konsumrausches, den Frieden in der Sinnentleertheit der frühen Morgenstunden, die Besinnung in der Verlorenheit des Danach. Wie Schatzkisten beherbergen die Hütten die Devotionalien der Fröhlichkeit, die glitzernde Vergänglichkeit von Kitsch und Ramsch, für dessen Erwerb die Menschen nur durch die Aura dieses Ortes entsinnt ihre nüchterne Sparsamkeit in Zeiten der Wirtschaftskrise vergessen, um Kontemplation in der flüchtigen Behaglichkeit ihrer Kindheitserinnerungen zu erwerben. Wenn sich der ziellose Konsumrausch und die nostalgische Gefühlsduselei zur Ruhe betten, kommt die groteske Ästhetik der Zwecklosigkeit zum Vorschein. Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Video Projection, 3:25 mins I was always fascinated by the moment when you make eye contact with a stranger on the street. Sometimes bizarre, sometimes pleasant, it is mostly a special, unique, and intimate moment. In a fraction of time prejudices, sympathy, and attitude are evaluated; the result, an often distorted and filtered picture, is stored in our memories. It is that short instant these photographs are trying to capture. By using a custom infrared flash and special color infrared film in a chest-mounted camera, I tried to minimise the influence of the photographic action itself while keeping eye contact with the subject. In this sense I regard these pictures as pure and unstaged portraits taken in the very first moment two people make contact with each other. These pictures were all taken with an analogue medium format camera. The strange colors come from the use of infrared film and flash, no digital manipulation was performed. This work has been exhibited between June 18-23, 2010 at fotoK, Vienna, Austria. The still images were shown in different (usually short) durations as a large (approx. 2.8 x 3.5m) video projection accompanied by ambient street noise.

5 Gelatin Silver Prints, 8x10" In the Fibonacci sequence, each number is the sum of the previous two numbers, starting with 0 and 1 (resulting in 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, etc.). Fibonacci sequences are not only important in mathematics, but also appear frequently in nature and art (e.g. golden section). Following the same principle, this work forms a sequence of pictures, where each picture is constructed of the two previous frames. Starting with branches of a tree, interpositives/negatives created on orthochromatic print film are overlaid repeatedly. The process and the resulting visual sequence reflect common biological phenomenons such as reproduction, mutation, and degradation.

Color slides 6x7 In many parts of Vienna old-established small businesses and shops get replaced by a growing number of solariums, betting offices and call shops. This work tries to address the use of the economic area, the cultural and social significance of these premises, and the change of the urban landscape. It is followed by my recent work for SalonXV/eyes-on.

Video, 3:05 mins This video has been exhibited between June 18-23, 2010 at fotoK, Vienna, Austria. This work is based on the music track 1 Ghosts I by Nine Inch Nails (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license, ©2008 NIN). Petrol station photography, concept, editing by Marcin Davies. All other images by NASA & the U.S. Federal Government (released as public domain). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license, ©2010.