A central theme in Christian Mayer’s work is the revolutionary energy and fragile life of things which have become marginal, overlooked and obsolete. That also includes the now discontinued colour photographic film “Kodachrome” whose stories Christian Mayer uses in this installation in order to span a complex web of formal and narrative cross references around the visualization and archiving of our reality. By connecting various points of view and temporal paradigms Christian Mayer creates dense overlaid planes of time and space leading to an entwined narrative structure that cannot be read univocally. Mayer affords the viewer the possibility of an entwined narrative structure, allowing the layering of temporal and spatial planes and leading to a dialogical process in the action of reception. Escalante Expedition Named This Glowing Valley

 

„Kodachrome Flat“ , 2011

Wallpaper, comb boards with plywood

172 x 260 x 4 cm

 

In Earth’s Age-old Battle with the Elements, Giant Chimney Rock Stands Undefeated,  2011

Wallpaper, comb boards with plywood

182 x 130 x 4 cm

 

In 1949 an expedition commissioned by the ‘National Geographic’ named a landscape in Utah, little known at the time, after the photographic film, with which they documented its landscape: Kodachrome Flat. Kodachrome colour film, which catalysed colour photography in the 40s, became eponymous with a landscape, which was perceived from then on primarily as image. At the end of 2010 the technical procedure for the development of Kodachrome film was finally ceased. The landscape, today a National Park, still bears its name.

 

 

God and Man , 2011

Record, record player

Whistler: Joachim Kuipers, S. G. Wright

 

The two inventors of Kodachrome film, Leopold Godowsky, Jr. und Leopold Mannes, were both professional musicians that shared their enthusiasm about photography. In order to determine the time during their experiments in the darkroom without using any sort of light they were whisteling the last movement of the Symphony No. 1 in C minor by Johannes Brahms with the speed of 2 beats per minute.