Into the Light, 2009—10
The digital camera has become a permanent companion, used by people to document their everyday life. As the popularity of social networking has grown, self-portraiture has become a common phenomenon, a method of carrying one's own story into the outside world. Self-portraits have become a kind of language, a shared mode of communication facilitated by the digital camera and computer. These images re-stage self-portraits posted on social networks. They reveal the full scenario that was not visible in the original self-portrait and show the exact moment when the flash of the self portrait goes off, the making of a digital identity that will eventually allow the individual to be included within a broad community while at the same time shut away at home.
Installation View
Stiftung Genshagen, Genshagen, Germany 2020
ACC-Galerie (with Maria Anwander, Aram Bartholl, Christian Jankowski Nancy Mteki, Stefan Panhans, Pilvi Takala, Anna Witt), Weimar, Germany 2016
ACC-Galerie (with Maria Anwander, Aram Bartholl, Christian Jankowski Nancy Mteki, Stefan Panhans, Pilvi Takala, Anna Witt), Weimar, 2016
HO-Berlin (with Norman Behrendt, Stefan Berg, Robert Beyer, Paula Breithaupt, Mandy Buchholz, Constanze Flamme, Florian G. M. Fischer, Katrin Herrmann, Robert Hortig, Ole Jenssen, Marius Land, Juliane Lindner, Lina Ruske, Fanny Schlosser, Antje Stürholz, Maureen Vollmer, Dorothee Waldemaier, Jonas Paul Wilisch), Germany 2015
Belfast Exposed (with Lorraine Burrell, Gabriela Herman, Lisa Ohlweiler), Belfast, Ireland 2012
Belfast Exposed (with Lorraine Burrell, Gabriela Herman, Lisa Ohlweiler), Belfast, Ireland 2012
Article/Review
“Surveillance has become an inevitable reality of modern life. We are dependent on, embedded in, and exploited by paranoid glances. With the digital sphere as our new playground, we have become voyeuristic machines, whose day-to-day lives revolve around watching and being watched.” n-ost: Surveillance. In: European Images. The photographic Newsletter, 2022, No. 7.
“Digital narcissism has recently gained attention in the popular press with Gabriela Herman’s portrait series ‘Bloggers’ (2010–11), which captures bloggers gazing into their glowing screens alone at night. But closer to our narcissistic norm are Wolfram Hahn’s portraits of people taking pictures of themselves (‘Into the Light’, 2009–10) or Joan Fontcuberta’s book A través del espejo (Through the Looking Glass, 2010), a collection of online images of self-portraitists posing with their cameras.” Jennifer Allen: Who, Me? Narcissism is back in fashion. In: Frieze, 1 Nov. 2011.
“Through self-portraits, people communicate with the outside world while simultaneously allowing insight into their own souls. The photos demonstrate this ambivalence: With a camera and a computer, one can retreat into one's private cave while still opening up to the world and revealing everything. The result is intimate photographs of digital society.” Mirjam Hauck: I photograph, therefore I am. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung Online, 13 Jul. 2011.