Laureate Carte Blanche Etudiants 2018

Kata Geibl

Sisyphus Series

In Greek mythology Sisyphus tricked Death by trapping Thanatos in chains. Once Thanatos was bound by chains, no one died on Earth, this is why Sisyphus was punished to roll an enormous rock up a hill, only to watch it come back to hit him, repeating this action for eternity. How we used to think about the world is changing radically everyday. Religion is replaced by science, we are flooded by images everyday, we want instant access to knowledge. Photography as a medium has the ability to capture everything that’s in front of the camera, the machinery sees even what the human eye is not capable of. We can see universes, stars exploding, microscopic worlds, atom bomb detonation with the safety of the far distance. Through these images we think we can get closer to understand how the world is functioning without ever experiencing or seeing it through our own eyes. I always thought that once I understand the construct of time it will lead me to understand the world that surrounds us. Science measures time, categorises it, tricks it. Humanity is starting to slowly realise that our time is running out so we try to look into the future and prepare ourselves to what might come. In the past few years I often find myself struggling with the feeling referred to as Sein-zum-Tode (Being-toward-death) by Martin Heidegger which is slowly taking over not just my life but maybe all mankind. Humanity tends to believe that history is moving forward, never repeating itself, learning from the past’s mistakes. I’ve rather like to think of time and history as a circle, always coming back, just to start again. In series Sisyphus I constructed an imaginary laboratory where its up to the reader to decide where the line lies between fiction and reality without any scientific explanation.