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Faces 2015 HD 16:9 21:20 min

Camera: Cristian Pirjol
Montage: Elfe Brandenburger
Directed by: Johannes Kochs

Produktion shorefilm produktion



Johannes Kochs’s video and photo series “Faces” (2015) emphasizes choice, the individual, the concentrated. In a way, his work grows out of August Sander’s documentary portraits from the first half of the twentieth century. Sander’s encyclopedic approach, however, is shifted by Kochs—perhaps because the kind of compilation of social types that Sander was able to pursue would at the beginning of the twenty-first century no longer possess the same self-explanatory obviousness. In Kochs’s series, there are very few instances in which the viewer is able to ascertain, just by looking, what the occupations of those portrayed are; this is in part because perceptions of “professions” (and “vocations”) have changed since Sander’s time, and there is also no association between profession and recognizable, proper “work” clothing. The people in Kochs’s images present themselves as individuals without clear attributes. And although the series locates them in documentary settings (in or in front of their respective places of work or homes) they seem strangely disconnected from everyday life.


Corresponding to the 25 photographs are 25 cinematographic portraits of Lichtenberg residents. In these, one senses a concentrated involvement of person recording and person recorded, a kind of “pact.” It seems as if the viewer is able to register the share of the individual’s work on his/her image, for example, the work that goes into positioning in front of the recording device and that of remaining and persevering in the chosen pose. This complicit consent to show up to be recorded as image of him- or herself, as captivating presence, becomes palpable. At the same time, however, this presence does not ascend to something statuesque (or a mystical “visage”). The serial montage (each shot lasts 45 seconds) protects from such elevation with its feathery-light, airy, calm rhythm.

 

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