Louis Daguerre

This quote from a notice by Louis Daguerre (circulated in 1838 to attract investors), gives us an important key
for understanding the history and functions of contemporary media. Media do not represent reality. Rather, they
reproduce it by new means in order to help us understand both the results and processes of what happens. They
extend our notion of nature without merely representing it or disseminating it to a larger public. In this sense, the
digital collages of Christian de Lutz do not represent recent Balkan history and the political reality of our time.
Instead, through algorithms, filters and digital manipulations of pixels, they reproduce its media character. They
are not documentary photographs but artistic explorations of the documentary function of contemporary media,
especially photography and TV, and their relation to the political. The political in our time simply belongs to the
sphere of these media representations more than to the "real" world. Therefore, understanding these political
processes means analyzing these media events and reproductions. The only strategy for doing this can be to
compare and quote between media, to let history reproduce itself once again in the digital process of these col-
lages which quote the previous techniques of power and representation.

These artistic explorations of the political character of different media suggest for example, the romantic gaze and
its relation to nationalism. In the Balkan Sketchbook series, the photos simulate the techniques of romantic and
realist paintings of the 18th and 19th century . The De-mining Demonstration (1996/2001) and other roman-
ticized picture-photographs from the Contemporary Histories cycle often resemble scenes from some epic song
about mythical heroes depicted in this romanticized way. These manipulated contemporary photographs pre-
cisely demonstrate the process of nationalist blindness and its inability to see the war in some contemporary con-
text. Photographs, TV images and other contemporary media cannot present the truth of Balkan nationalism be-
cause they are unable reproduce this manipulation of today's world which makes it resemble some scene from
the past. On the other hand, the altered photographs of the "present" manipulated to show the "past" simulate the
type of gaze that sees everything from a mythical and romanticist historical perspective. Filtered photographs are
an ironic but exact demonstration of the nationalist mentality, conveying too an atmosphere of place unattainable
to more "real" contemporary media pictures.

Another artistic exploration of the media roots of our political consciousness deals with the hypnotizing power of
the TV picture and its particular framing. In the trompe l'oeil Faux Video Stills we are presented with photo-
graphs pretending to be TV screen stills. Framed in this familiar format, we see everyday situations from a place
that could be anywhere, except the photos were taken in the Balkans. These unobtrusive images are ones that
would never find their way into the TV media. For that reason the text we are reading is restricted to unknown
or small languages with less than 10m native speakers. Expecting to see something dramatic, or at least enter-
taining, our eyes are simply "fooled" by these everyday pictures of the Balkan looking so unlike anything we are
used to seeing from this region. These TV collages are the most hyper realistic pictures of a Balkan reality which
is never "televised" and for this reason looks unreal.

An opposite strategy juxtaposing the region's everyday reality with our media image, is the collection of Meta
content collages. Night vision images simulate the military surveillance technology and actually screen the dark
side of the Balkans, the political subconsciousness colored by fears and other simplified emotions, and asso-
ciations well depicted by the strong colors in these digital collages. The shapes of the things on these pictures
look as if they come from the real world, but the emotions they present resemble ghosts from the past, mythical
figures and other delusions which threaten us. The Meta content collages show how some media are closer to
our inner "cinema" of associations and uncontrolled emotions responsible for extreme behavior, probably even
war. The collage is after all the most political of all artistic media. It is most closely related to the work of our
subconsciousness and uses similar associations. The Meta content collages are actually images we refuse to see
in and of themselves, but through which we perceive reality. They are the reproduction of our subconscious pro-
cesses. Most important on these collages is the use of the HTML code. On some of them it looks like subver-
sive graffiti, the voice of structured reason or some attempt to bring sense to the terrifying pictures, a gaze that
will see the code. This opposition of codes and colors opens a dialogue between our different modes of seeing
and understanding, the most rational and irrational side of our relation to the world. It also ironically suggests a
computer game, the green colour recalling that found on some old Commodore computer.

In the Europa project the HTML collages are taken a step further. In the Turkey collage, the stream of the
HTML code and its structure seem to dance on the picture in the same way as the dervishes, producing an es-
thetic effect showing the close relationship between the oriental mystical and the western rational, symbolized by
our use of computers. The contrast between the hyper realistic pop art colors and the strictly defined colors of
the national emblems on the collages are very provocative. The national emblem and its colors are trying to give
us some orientation and identity while the rest of the collage is simply a wild combination of unnatural colors and
feelings that do not have any relation to the shapes. It looks very much like some advertisement for a product
with the national sign as logo.

The HTML collages make us uncertain as to whether we are looking at a web page, photograph, painting or if
we are not simply involved in an exchange between two computers, machines or servers processing different
types of data. The extreme codes and colors attack our senses and our reason. We cannot decide whether these
are digitally altered photographs or photographically altered web images. On the one hand Christian de Lutz's
collages are a response to our media saturated world, on the other, they are attempts to carefully trace our
memories and experiences by playing these media images off against each other.

-Denisa Kera is a lecturer at the Charles University In Prague, Czech Republic.