Françoise Hardy, Peter and Lou
It overflows us. We clean it up. It decays. /
We clean it up again and decay ourselves. /
(…) This is how we live and always take our leave.
Rainer Maria Rilke, 8th Duino Elegy
… when we see a picture of ourselves, we see who we no longer are, what has been irretrievably lost; in the glimpse backwards we sense how quietly and unobtrusively death is creeping up on us. Photography is a protest against the advancement of time, the disappearance of the body, and at the same time the anticipation of death.
“Fata Morgana” suggests a fundamental relationship between photography and eroticism, their establishment in the finiteness, their inconvertible striving after an eternity of a moment that consciousness simultaneously fulfils and obliterates in the triumph over time; a promise that ultimately only death is able to honour. The pushing of the shutter release is like an orgasm “une petite mort”.
Martin Jaeggi 2004