Olaf Martens’s 2014 dystopic photograph “001 Liloba” showcases that even the most intimate and isolated moments of life may provoke a feeling of being watched, whether through egotistical fantasy or irrational suspicion. You go about your daily routine and as you are brushing your hair, you wonder how you would be acting if someone else were in the room. Would you brush your hair in a different way? Or, perhaps, would you go as far as to perform a certain way despite being alone? Maybe you are sharing a long awaited first kiss with a lover, yet you are beside yourself – the watcher of the movie you are acting in. Martens’s photograph refutes the question “Are we ever truly alone?” providing an answer that is comforting to the monophobic and terrifying to the paranoid.
The 58-year-old German photographer intentionally places arbitration in each of his works, exemplifying a perspective reminiscent of a quote from Paul Auster’s 1992 novel “Leviathan:” “A book [or in this case, a photograph] is a mysterious object. . .and once it floats out into the world, anything can happen.” The moment an artist lets go of their creation, intended reception can never be guaranteed. No matter how simple or profound the innate meaning, Martens plays with the idea that meaning is left up to interpretation through his hallucinatory, surrealist and saturated sharp-edged style. “001 Liloba” features a couple adorned in cherry red garments sitting closely in front of an illuminated television screen surrounded by an orchestra of vibrant aquamarine eyes, serving as another installment in Martens’s kaleidoscopic dreamworld. The photo sits alongside 14 other images on his website under a collection entitled “Liloba Music Project” and that’s about the only detail Martens provides. The rest is for us to figure out, stitching together meaning like a detective looping red string on their crazy wall. The couple’s body language is tense: the woman clutches tightly onto her black handbag with her other arm stiffly wrapped around her partner’s like a mannequin. She looks downward to the side ready to let out a sigh of despair. The man hunches over twiddling his thumbs. What could initially be mistaken for comfort, at a closer glance, evokes the chilling truth that the couple knows something we do not. The couple sits entrenched in anticipatory agony while an army of electronic eyes offer them little to no space to breathe. The eyes wear matching cream gowns, pale stockings and white leather handbags – the perfect characterization of an antagonist sitting in the corner of somebody’s acid trip gone awry. Some eyes sit turned away from the couple, digging their black heels into the beige shag carpet while others stand idly and poor postured, yet despite their positioning, their collective presence is obtrusive. Old box televisions are stacked atop one another embellishing the walls, and the only one turned on is the one in front of them, placed away from the viewer’s sight. The vivid color contrast and lighting compositions utilized by Martens opens up a world of senses, allowing the photo to be consumed through senses beyond sight. Despite being a still image, you can hear a buzzing white noise, feel a stagnant air sitting at approximately 71 degrees, smell dust-covered notes of an opened storage box stowed away in the attic some 20 years ago, and taste a dry tongue of dehydration. The illusive nature of this photograph, along with the rest of what Martens has captured, embodies his motivation, or rather druglike obsession with his craft. Describing photography as “an extension of consciousness” in a 2004 interview, his artistry is backed by “the desire and the chance, to open up another world for itself, to penetrate into another world. . .but also an escape from the world, which absolutely belongs to [Martens].” Leaving interpretation in the hands of the viewer, “Liloba 001” allows us to find our unique role in Martens’s world, or rather his role in ours.
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authorHallie Newnam studied journalism at Columbia College Chicago. You can find her archived journalistic work here. |