City Spaces and habitats change. Mass media reign. Fictional reality we face. Tensions grow, causing visual overload. Mental manipulation. 24/7. Noise.
The embedding of mass media spaces into the architecture of buildings, shop windows, subway stations, and market places is where STATIC TENSIONS sets in. The series focuses on the visual overload of the individual due to an artificially created dream world. While walking the streets, the urban surroundings merge with the fictional media world of advertising and create something new. The images are “true”. They are not digitally composed collages.
Raschka shows the fictional reality on the streets in a new way through unusual perspectives and b&w. The absence of colour emphasizes the connections of these complex urban constructions, which are essential parts of human perception levels. The presentation of the images as image pairs highlights the confusion of senses, but it is the eye of the viewer, which holds these different realities together.
In a figurative sense STATIC TENSIONS stands for the fact that we live in times of global and local tensions. Personal, sociological, cultural, territorial and economic developments influence the individual and the society. STATIC TENSIONS, a term in mechanics, describes the point at which material breaks. This can be interpreted as a situation when viewpoints become blurred.
STATIC TENSIONS is an example of how well-known urban traces can be found and interpreted. The images may not only engage people in the hidden beauty of their personal environment but also in the meaning of objects and media concepts of public spaces. Although there are no real people in the images, it is intriguing to recognize that man determines his entire environment. As a result, STATIC TENSIONS shows the transformation of everyday motifs into an art form, without losing their urban rawness.
Over 60 images were taken for this project throughout Europe. A first photobook dummy of STATIC TENSIONS was successfully presented at the portfolio show of the annual meeting of the German Photography Academy 2016.
About Oliver Raschka
Oliver Raschka is a photographer from Stuttgart, Germany. He studied economics and psychology. He worked with numerous renowned photographers. His works have been widely published in exhibitions as well as in international journals. He loves black-and-white photography, coffee is the drug of his choice, and loud rock music is what he likes. [Official Website]
