Ola Lanko - Statement

Home [http://www.olalanko.com] Statement CV Contact Ongoing Day 2013 Selective Encyclopedia of Visual Metaphors ED Frames Photofetishism Looking for the heart Le musee imaginaire de la sculpture mondiale 2012 Cubes Exercises 100 Grams of Rice Required Reading Fotografica 2011 Down the rabbit hole People, Numbers, Millions and Competition Silence Kids Hermitage Warning memory game Natural language understanding Sunset 2010 Animal planet Trolleybus 2009 Supersaturation Getting lost Books Press Newsletter www.visual-literacy.net www.1year365days.com www.editingstandard.com www.livingarchiveproject.com Statement In my artistic practice I am interested in several aspects of visual culture. The image itself as a carrier of a meaning; Shift of perception because of visual representation; Comprehension of an artwork in society; Abstraction as a method of a possible unified language of communication; Development of system exploring visual literacy as necessary skill in modern times. Photography for me is a way to work with these ideas. I am not dependent on photography as the only way of visual representation. I am more interested in it as general phenomena in visual culture and the impact it has on our understanding of information. I am using the photographic medium to shift and direct different levels of visual perception of the viewer. Due to the level of credibility photography has, it gives me an opportunity to use this feature in my work, talking about the image. Photography intrigues me in its complexity. It is not just about a photograph, but it is about layer of a meaning which occur on an image when it becomes a photograph. I am interested in visual culture and the growing importance of generating knowledge about the ways of perception. I think that, as with any other type of information, an adequate structure of comprehension should be developed. In my work I use a playful visual language to develop such a structure. In my practice I am working not just with photography, but also with language and painting. But even in that case I can call my work photographic, even if photography as a medium is absent. For me it becomes one if we are talking about a certain form of representation which refers to the material world or certain phenomena.