Verfünfungseffekt
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Keywords

Photo-multigraph
fivefold-portrait
mirror photography
video-multigraph
crisis of presence

How to Cite

Brečević, Geska Helena, and Robert Brečević. 2020. “Verfünfungseffekt: Delving into the Enchanted World of Fivefold-Portraits and Self-Partitioning”. Membrana – Journal of Photography, Theory and Visual Culture 5 (1):66–71. https://doi.org/10.47659/m8.066.ess.

Abstract

Discovered during a media-archeological investigation into optical illusions, trick photography, and discarded memorabilia, the photo-multigraph technique opened the door to an enchanted world of cloned appearances orbiting in a self-reflective solar system. Shapeshifting into our preferred artistic medium, this turn-of-the-century photographic technique becomes the video-multigraph. It is bizarrely noteworthy that self-isolation would become not only the subject of the piece, but also – due to the unforeseen spread of a recently mutated virus – the prevailing circumstances under which the work was to be completed. In Verfünfungseffekt, we use the medium of video to create a kaleidoscopic portrait-in-motion where the perspective-shifting shards of ego are recorded in a synchronized performance of solipsist intersubjectivity. The video-multigraph allows for the compositing of tiny offsets in time-shifting delays applied to one, or several, of the mirrored selves – shattering the cloned perfection, as well as the conformity, of the multiple presences. This optical illusion necessitates reflection on how media alters our perceptions of time and space; it thereby arouses wonder about our place in existence.

https://doi.org/10.47659/m8.066.ess
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References

De Martino, Ernesto. 1966. Sud e Magia, Milano: Feltrinelli.

Reichstein, Irving. 2007. “A Multigraph from Montreal.” Photographic Canadiana, [online] 33 (1): 12–17. http://www.phsc.ca/reichstein/multigraph_article.pdf

© Membrana Institute and the author(s). All rights reserved.