In collaboration with Ludovic Roth
GESTALT A series by Thomas Lang
GESTALT is a German word that translates as “form”, in the sense of “taking shape”, “building up”.
According to Gestalt theory, the human process of perception is akin to the art of the puzzle.
Isolated, the piece of a puzzle remains an enigma, and it's the possibility of linking it to others that gives it meaning.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
The target object is therefore not the sum of its parts, but an imprecise whole bordered by a structure.
The contact sheet is this structure.
From the very first shot, Thomas Lang follows a more or less precise path, 36 shots in a row, 36 pieces of a whole where accident and beauty are unpredictable.
GESTALT is a puzzle, a way of seeing and showing things.
The collaboration with Ludovic Roth is in line with this logic of giving images a different way of seeing and thinking.
At the outset, there was a desire to show the negative, the raw material of silver, a photograph with inverted tonalities and no retouching whatsoever. Ludovic Roth has created a light box, a sealed chest inspired by the traditional light table used by photographers and the negatoscope used by radiologists.
The technique is apparent and assumed, the transparency is total, the negative is sacralized, given to be seen as an original and unique object, non-reproducible.
