Zeitreisende, (time travelers), since 2011
photo collages, analog b/w found footage, digital C-print
various dimensions, frames 40 x 50 cm
unique pieces

Zeitreisende, (time travellers)

While photographs provide cut-out views of reality they also act as eye-witnessing, physical objects, that transport information about one place and time to another. Addressing this topic, the Zeitreisende or time travellers series is a trip through the techniques and the uses made of photographs in the past and in the present. Every collage is a dialogue between two kinds of images: a found photograph, analogue and in black-and-white, and a cropped digital colour image, which the artist has manipulated to reveal the pixels that form its structure. The artist explains: ‘As a result the time travellers are portraits that do not depict identifiable individuals any longer. Rather, they raise questions about the materiality and the circulation of private photographs’. As in many of Lulay’s works, the Zeitreisende create a constant shifting between the private sphere – that of those who shot the images and that of the artist, who through manipulation confers new meanings upon these otherwise forgotten photographs –  and the public dimension relating to the modes of production, circulation and use of images in the present day.  

Francesca Lazzarini
Fondazione Fotografia di Modena 2015