Imago Camera

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IMAGO Camera
Type: Large format camera
Dimensions: 685 × 390 × 355 cm
Imago Camera

IMAGO is a worldwide unique, walk-in and analog large format camera . On direct-positive paper, life-size full-body self-portraits of people are created on 62 × 200 cm photo paper by means of direct exposure . Since the process does not produce a negative, each image is unique and cannot be reproduced without loss of quality. The images are called "imagograms". The originally only existing camera was invented and built in the 1970s by the German physicist Werner Kraus and the artist Erhard Hößle. The IMAGO Camera is based on an optical system that was invented by Werner Kraus for scientific purposes. The camera was stored in the museum from 1978 to 2006 until it was rediscovered and rebuilt by the inventor's daughter, the artist Susanna Kraus.

history

The late 60s, the physicist Werner Kraus was commissioned to the combustion cycle of the Daimler-Benz - Wankel engine to be documented photographically. To this end, he invented a photo-optical system that recorded images on a 1: 1 scale. Later, Kraus built the IMAGO Camera together with the artist and sculptor Erhard Hößle. The camera and its photographs, life-size self-portraits, were exhibited in Munich during the Fluxus movement. It was in operation for several years, but was put into storage in 1978 when the production of the photo paper essential for its functioning was discontinued. It was later kept in the archive of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich .

restoration

In 2005, the photos taken by the camera in the 1970s were rediscovered by Werner Kraus' daughter Susanna Kraus, which renewed her interest in IMAGO and prompted her to rebuild the camera. In the following year Susanna Kraus was looking for a manufacturer for the photo paper she needed. When she convinced ILFORD Switzerland to restart the production of direct positive paper in 2006 , Florian Hufnagl , head of the New Collection of the Pinakothek der Moderne , agreed to release the camera from the archive and return it to the inventor's daughter. At the end of 2006 the first exhibition of photos taken with the restored IMAGO camera and the camera itself took place in Vienna. After several years of traveling and exhibiting, the camera has been home to a new photo studio since 2011, which Susanna Kraus founded in the Aufbau Haus on Moritzplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg . It has been in operation at this location since then.

properties

IMAGO is a large format camera that measures 6.85 × 3.9 × 3.55 meters. It is intended to hold analog self-portraits of people in their original size. The camera has a special optical system with an extremely long focal length that allows images to be taken on a 1: 1 scale without distorting. The camera has a specially developed flash unit that provides the high-intensity light required to produce large, direct-exposure images on paper, since paper is much less sensitive to light than film. The camera creates black and white portraits in the format 62 × 200 cm on IMAGO and Harman Direct Positive Paper . In the camera, you can look at yourself the wrong way round in a special mirror that also serves to check your own imagination. The time of the exposure is determined by the person themselves by pressing a shutter release.

IMAGO photo paper

IMAGO Camera used silver gelatine direct positive - photo paper , which in cooperation with ILFORD has developed Switzerland and HARMAN technology specifically for IMAGO. It is designed for direct exposure and reacts as soon as an image is exposed on it. The exposed paper is developed in a conventional black and white process that takes about ten minutes. Then the photo is ready. The resulting images are characterized by high contrast and show a wide range of tonal values.

Further developments

In 2014 the IMAGO technology was further developed and presented in a new design. The new aluminum camera built by Jakob Kraus is called IMAGO Photour and was designed for mobile use. Transported in a 40-foot container , it can be reassembled in a new location within two days. The first destinations of the new camera were Rotterdam and Shanghai , where the first IMAGO Photo Tour exhibitions took place from 2014 to 2016.

Special personalities who made an IMAGOgram

Nick Cave , Robert Wilson (director), Eva Mattes , Jonathan Meese , Anton Corbijn , Mike Leigh , François Ozon , Barbara Sukowa , Ernst Fuchs (painter) , Donata and Wim Wenders , Tim Raue , Angela Winkler , Maria Schrader , FC Gundlach .

Selected exhibitions

  • 2006 European Month of Photography in Vienna . First IMAGO exhibition in 30 years. Titiel: Viennese analysts in the black box
  • 2007 User - Century of the Consumer , ZKM in Karlsruhe, curator: Peter Weibel
  • 2011 The Punks of Kreuzberg , European Month of Photography Berlin , IMAGO Galerie Moritzplatz, Berlin
  • 2013 IMAGOGRAPHY , opening of the temporary art gallery “Schaustelle”, Pinakothek der Moderne , Munich
  • 2014 IMAGO-Nation , IMAGO Galerie Moritzplatz, Berlin (guest exhibition Annegret Kohlmayer)
  • 2014 Faces of Rotterdam , DE Rotterdam , world premiere of the IMAGO Photour Camera
  • 2015 German premiere of the IMAGO Photour Camera, Gallery Weekend, tenth anniversary of the Spinnerei Galleries Leipzig
  • 2015/16 Blackout , exhibition in cooperation with Memorieslab Ltd, Shanghai , China
  • 2016 TOUCHED - craftsmanship in contemporary photography . Group exhibition, curated by Anton Corbijn , Unseen Photo Festival, Amsterdam , Netherlands
  • 2016 Self-portraits from the 1970s , European Month of Photography Berlin, IMAGO Galerie Moritzplatz, Berlin
  • 2017 Rendezvous Berlin , solo exhibition, Berliner Sparkasse - Firmen-Center Charlottenburg, Berlin
  • 2018 Where are all the flowers gone , Galerie Alexander Ochs, group exhibition
  • 2018 Your own skin as a mirror of the ego , a portrait cycle from the Berlin tattoo scene. European Month of Photography Berlin, IMAGO Galerie Moritzplatz, Berlin

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IMAGO 1: 1 - visitBerlin.de .
  2. ↑ Annegret Kohlmayer .
  3. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/arts/design/taking-a-selfie-in-Berlin-with-a-3-ton-camera.html
  4. ^ Erhard Hößle Archives • PiB - Photography in Berlin .
  5. ↑ IMAGO press release .
  6. ↑ Imago 1: 1 .
  7. ↑ From Evelyn Runge: Photo art: Make your own picture .
  8. ↑ Camera Imago 1: 1 - November 28, 2008 to June 14, 2009 - ZKM .
  9. ↑ Home - Building the house .
  10. ↑ IMAGO Camera - building a house .
  11. ↑ Photo-forum magazine, January 2014
  12. ↑ macodirect DE .
  13. ↑ https://www.imagocamera.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Instruction-DPP.pdf
  14. ↑ a b https://www.imagocamera.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/press-release_IMAGOPhotour.pdf
  15. ↑ WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE? - ALEXANDER OCHS PRIVATE - ART at Berlin . June 22, 2018.
  16. ↑ Susanna Kraus Biography - Susanna Kraus on artnet .

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