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DARKROOMS Essay written for the launch of Sergio Calderón's artwork series DARKROOMS 2022 And don't let yourself glow by the ordinary light "Darkroom", hearing it, reading it, saying it, calling it, conjures the black and white image of a man, advanced in years, dressing a white robe, resembling that of a pharmacist or an alchemist, surrounded by shelves packed with all kinds of bottles, flasks and jars, and a big wooden table with trays containing transparent liquids, and above the table, a lamp. He leans slightly towards the lamp, holding with both hands what, at first glance, looks like a sheet of white paper, and now he is about to drop it on a tray. He is a working man, absorbed in a noble profession, something that only seemed possible in a black and white past. And who uses darkrooms today? Are they just the stuff of nostalgia, dusted off every now and then by this or another course for beginners? I have been in a few darkrooms myself, as a student, I can still hear the voice of this or the other classmate complaining about the negligence of this or the other classmate at forgetting to wash out old liquids from this or that tray or this or that tank. But darkrooms were more than the inevitable exchange of words after a burned or washed-out or completely blacked-out image. Darkrooms were also ritual places in which one had to behave accordingly, and dress for too. It was like going to church. And it had in common with churches not only that both had trays, or baptismal fonts or whatever, containing water like liquid, or holy water or photographic emulsion or magic water or whatever, but they both were silent places, or places for silence, or places in which silence was still a possibility; wrapped in their shadows one could as in August Sander motto: "look, observe and think". And didn't this business of developing photos, or more appropriately revealing photos have an element of revelation too? And didn't this revelation always come after the light, the illumination? And couldn't this be called enlightenment? But no need to cross myself for these images to appear. One only had to wait and be there, ready to receive them and translate them into form, into language. But which language? One had to create it, to invent it. But how do I do that? By letting it emerge from the shadows, caressed with the dim light of the enthusiasm. But did I find my language in those darkrooms from my student days? That I cannot remember; what I can remember is that I went there in order to see something that perhaps had or hadn't happened before, something else that could only be seen in the shadows. And what I found in those shadows then? Nothing in particular, I was just happy observing the images emerging from the liquids, but is the traveller travelling to reach a specific destination? If I had a motto back then, which I am sure I didn't, it would be "let the impressions form themselves!", and one more "impatience is the death of the images!". And what else happened after those images, or after running out of paper, what then? I would leave the darkroom in peace, leave the silence behind and throw myself into the hallway, out into the street, back to the noisy world. But my pictures, the ones I can remember, the first true ones or at least the first ones in which I had the courage to use my own intuition, to paraphrase August Sander, weren't born in darkrooms, they were born outside, in the noisy world. So, no silence, no shadows, or maybe yes, sometimes, late at night, in my apartment, sitting by a wooden table, a different kind of wooden table from the former alchemist, which for once wasn't made out of wood but of a synthetic material. No red lights here but the glowing of a computer screen and the occasional siren marking the rhythm of the work. No more shelves or at least no more bottles, flasks and jars, no more chemicals, no more white robes, and no risk of images being burned or washed-out or completely blacked-out, with digital one can always go back, from now on only trial without error. And didn't I end up more than once trapped in this endless cycle of trial and trial which inevitably ended up bringing me back again and again to the same place over and over, wasn't it sometimes like Sisyphus riding a mouse, clicking and clicking and clicking back and forth, ritualistically, not silently? But didn't this digital business due to its efficiency, its outrageous performance, its extensive connectivity, its superpower, its capability of making trillion operations per second, generate work out of this world, at dizzying speed? And yet the digital worker is forced to spend more and more time in this virtual darkroom, in which more and more decisions have to be made, and how can this worker answer those questions that keep coming at an increasingly faster rate? Did the worker end up with no choice but using ready-made answers, references they call it in the profession or mood boards or whatever, so that all images ended up following the example of other images? No discovery here, mostly anticipation, and the traveller turned into a tourist? And with this dizzying speed, with the incessant flow of images and ready made answers, is it possible to actually have time for "look, observe and think"? Maybe, but later, an hour later, a day later, a week later or ten years later. Maybe then, somewhere, outside of this noisy virtual darkroom would be possible to find silence again, to get back to the shadows, to imagine the forms. And then later, sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that girl I met about ten years ago. Tell me the story of how she came out of nowhere, like out of a dream, and how she looked like a character from one of his artworks, from the world he was living in around that time. Tell me the story of that Saturday morning, ten years ago… So this book, or photobook, or whatever is called Darkrooms and is about a photographer and his model, and they met on a Saturday morning ten years ago with the intention of taking some pictures, later when working on those images, he began to remember other images, from artworks he made before, with the computer, both are intermingled in his mind, without any order. And now? August Sander again, telling me: "nothing seemed more appropriate to me than to capture in photography a piece of our time which is absolutely true to nature". But didn't I capture a piece of our time, our time together, the girl and the photographer, of our relationship, of our brief encounter, not from an objective point of view (as if that would be entirely possible), as the pictures from August Sander seems to suggest, but by exploring the subjective, by narrating her I created her. Wasn't the truth, just my truth, the subjective truth, at any rate, that world she belonged to? And did I find my language or a language that was true to that moment in time? And then the wanderer telling me again: "have the courage to use your own intuition". A few years ago, speaking with the shop manager from Le Bal, in Paris, me, the former photographer, now the bookseller offering her my latest photobook; she wasn't interested in my latest one, not this time, now—at that time—she was interested in more political subjects, like North Korea. Wasn't she sitting in the shadows of her shop, making her choices, without the camera, without the darkroom, without the images, without being really able to see the light, wasn't she asking for something she already saw? Where? Somewhere else, everywhere! She didn't need my language, she only needed images, ready-made images, which she could translate into her own agenda, into propaganda, into noise. And isn't the photographer playing the role of the technician in this noisy world? Longing to be allowed to be the artist, once again? And is not the artist the solitary man, longing for his churches of silence, longing to get back once again to the shadows while singing along to the Johnny Cash version of Solitary Man? I've had it to here Bein' where love's a small word Part-time thing, paper ring I know it's been done Havin' one girl who'll love me Right or wrong, weak or strong London, May 2022 |
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