'The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.'
- Franz Kafka
- Franz Kafka
Back in 2018 at the art gallery De’Foscherari, Bologna, we held an exhibition of our work which was curated by the philosopher, art critic and close friend Federico Ferrari.
De’Foscherari introduced our work saying that our photographs 'gives viewers the sense that they are glimpsing the genesis of something primordial, the very birth of an image. It is an image that hints at a deeper reality, at something "indestructible"—as the curator Federico Ferrari describes it, quoting Kafka—and shows the world in a different light, motionless yet shimmering. The quest of each ephemeral shot is to grasp this indestructible source, to bear witness to it at the very point where it seems about to vanish.'
De’Foscherari introduced our work saying that our photographs 'gives viewers the sense that they are glimpsing the genesis of something primordial, the very birth of an image. It is an image that hints at a deeper reality, at something "indestructible"—as the curator Federico Ferrari describes it, quoting Kafka—and shows the world in a different light, motionless yet shimmering. The quest of each ephemeral shot is to grasp this indestructible source, to bear witness to it at the very point where it seems about to vanish.'
Federico Ferrari inspired by our images and a sentence from Frank Kafka’s Zürau Aphorisms presented us with the wonderful text below.
We found this concept so interesting that during the past few years, Federico’s text has been the inspiration for this new series in our research for “The Indestructible”.
Our senses are constantly shaping our perception of the world. We know that this perceived reality is subjective. Our brain interprets the input using our cumulative experience, imagination and memories and creates a simulation of what is “out there”.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy described photography as a tool that offers us ‘eyes outside our bodies.’ We tend to believe that the photographic camera imitates the eye and what it represents is real, but we also know that this is not the case. A photograph is a socially constructed reality and its meaning is subjective. Using an image captured with a camera and the possibilities of the photographic medium, we can create photographs that are not a faithful display of reality but an exploration of the limits of reality. The photographic medium, for us, becomes an extension of the human visual capacity.
Our goal is to create photographic objects that create in viewers their very own experience of their encounter with the boundary between the real and the unreal. As Else Alfelt puts it when describing her experience of mountains: ‘I think mountains are a boundary between the real and the unreal, they are the place where heaven and earth meet…. Nothing here is linked to a specific time, I believe that this is how the world was at the very beginning, and this is how it will be at the end. It is a place of enduring certainty in a world that is constantly changing.’
We believe we can learn more and have a better understanding of our physical world by using photography as a tool to explore the frontier between what is true and what is false, the real and the unreal: ‘The line that divides earth from sky, ... the boundary between us and the world, the skin of meaning granting us the certitude that we exist, that we are here’.
THE INDESTRUCTIBLE
By Federico Ferrari
for Anna and Angel
for Anna and Angel
I.
Only by exposing oneself to the fragility of life can one see that something indestructible sustains it.
Only by exposing oneself to the fragility of life can one see that something indestructible sustains it.
II.
Life hangs, like a horizon line, between the celestial sphere and the dust cloaking everything. The line that divides earth from sky is neither earth nor sky.
Life hangs, like a horizon line, between the celestial sphere and the dust cloaking everything. The line that divides earth from sky is neither earth nor sky.
III.
We wander in search of salvation, of something that will save this moment, this gaze, this gesture, from nothingness. Without realizing that all of this, all this harrowing beauty, is not asking to be saved: it needs only to exist.
We wander in search of salvation, of something that will save this moment, this gaze, this gesture, from nothingness. Without realizing that all of this, all this harrowing beauty, is not asking to be saved: it needs only to exist.
IV.
Everything, in its fragility, manifests the indestructible.
Everything, in its fragility, manifests the indestructible.
V.
The indestructible, though present everywhere and in each moment, becomes tangible only in a vision, an illumination. Only when the life form, shaking off everything that distracts it, becomes capable of deep attention; only when the long wait for a guiding image, something beyond any subjective, illusory imagining, materializes into a real figure, does life become destiny and does each thing take on unexpected meaning in the chiaroscuro sculpted by the light of an absent sun.
The indestructible, though present everywhere and in each moment, becomes tangible only in a vision, an illumination. Only when the life form, shaking off everything that distracts it, becomes capable of deep attention; only when the long wait for a guiding image, something beyond any subjective, illusory imagining, materializes into a real figure, does life become destiny and does each thing take on unexpected meaning in the chiaroscuro sculpted by the light of an absent sun.
VI.
The indestructible is neither inside nor outside of us: it is the boundary between us and the world, the skin of meaning granting us the certitude that we exist, that we are here—and that this here was waiting just for us.
The indestructible is neither inside nor outside of us: it is the boundary between us and the world, the skin of meaning granting us the certitude that we exist, that we are here—and that this here was waiting just for us.
VII.
Each life form is always just a threshold waiting to be consumed by someone’s hand and gaze. To live on the threshold, consuming the form allotted to us is to grasp the meaning of life. Stopping short of that or imagining one can go further implies giving life some additional meaning that does not pertain to it.
Each life form is always just a threshold waiting to be consumed by someone’s hand and gaze. To live on the threshold, consuming the form allotted to us is to grasp the meaning of life. Stopping short of that or imagining one can go further implies giving life some additional meaning that does not pertain to it.
VIII.
Existence is, in its most naked moments, an experience of ecstasy, of emerging from the cramped, claustrophobic confines of the Ego. Ecstasy at seeing the wonder and horror of the world. Reaching ecstasy, reaching the moment when it all becomes clear, means nothing, changes nothing. Ecstasy is the pure amazement of a form that perceives itself as a form subject to infinite metamorphoses: a revelation of indestructible existence.
Existence is, in its most naked moments, an experience of ecstasy, of emerging from the cramped, claustrophobic confines of the Ego. Ecstasy at seeing the wonder and horror of the world. Reaching ecstasy, reaching the moment when it all becomes clear, means nothing, changes nothing. Ecstasy is the pure amazement of a form that perceives itself as a form subject to infinite metamorphoses: a revelation of indestructible existence.
IX.
Theoretisch gibt es eine vollkommene Glücksmöglichkeit: An das Unzerstörbare in sich glauben und nicht zu ihm streben. [In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: to believe in the indestructible within us and not strive toward it.]
Theoretisch gibt es eine vollkommene Glücksmöglichkeit: An das Unzerstörbare in sich glauben und nicht zu ihm streben. [In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: to believe in the indestructible within us and not strive toward it.]
X.
Being happy is the meaning of life. Indestructible is its possibility. In theory, that is all there is to understand, but in practice... the flights of imagination that presume to elude the solid, unconquerable presence of every being, animate or inanimate, that comes between what we would like it to be and what it is; our desire to possess everything, to clutch it in our hands; and all foolish ideas leading us to believe that we must leave behind everyday life, the here and now, to reach an end point, a hidden core, a dio absconditus, a paradise lost, all of that, plunging us into illusion, makes this possibility of perfect happiness melt away.
Being happy is the meaning of life. Indestructible is its possibility. In theory, that is all there is to understand, but in practice... the flights of imagination that presume to elude the solid, unconquerable presence of every being, animate or inanimate, that comes between what we would like it to be and what it is; our desire to possess everything, to clutch it in our hands; and all foolish ideas leading us to believe that we must leave behind everyday life, the here and now, to reach an end point, a hidden core, a dio absconditus, a paradise lost, all of that, plunging us into illusion, makes this possibility of perfect happiness melt away.
XI.
The meaning of life is not a theory, it is a practice. It is bestowed only through practice, by way of works, making the meaning visible, in and to all senses.
The meaning of life is not a theory, it is a practice. It is bestowed only through practice, by way of works, making the meaning visible, in and to all senses.
XII.
When the world turns dark, when it all seems to vanish into the gulf of nothingness, we sometimes stumble over a gleam of sudden beauty. After tripping and sprawling, we get up and go on our way, with the immediate certitude that the world will not vanish—taking us with it. In that moment, in the wink of an eye, the indestructible bestows its image.
When the world turns dark, when it all seems to vanish into the gulf of nothingness, we sometimes stumble over a gleam of sudden beauty. After tripping and sprawling, we get up and go on our way, with the immediate certitude that the world will not vanish—taking us with it. In that moment, in the wink of an eye, the indestructible bestows its image.
XIII.
Watch, listen, keep silent, love, forget yourself, feel like a thing among other things and you will understand that nothing ever ends, that you are a perfectly completed work in your essential incompletion. You will perhaps have learned to live and die. You will have become indestructible.
Watch, listen, keep silent, love, forget yourself, feel like a thing among other things and you will understand that nothing ever ends, that you are a perfectly completed work in your essential incompletion. You will perhaps have learned to live and die. You will have become indestructible.