Markus Krottendorfer | Abyss

When photography emerged at the beginning of the 19th century, it was placed in the service of science so that things, and above all processes, could be made visible and thus be ascribed objectivity. The concept of objectivity, like that of the true-to-nature depiction of the world that photography was supposed to provide, has since been thoroughly revised. Markus Krottendorfer has set up a laboratory in our gallery in order to work with the assumptions and concepts of science and photography. His object of experiment is a treatise, conceived as scientific, on a fantastical inner world of our Earth. William Reed published it at the beginning of the 20th century. His treatise, “The Phantom of the Poles”, brings together various accounts of expeditions to the icy regions of our Earth. The assumption that gravity is reversed at the poles, which were imagined as huge gateways to the Earth’s interior, was supposed to make it possible to sail the oceans on the underside of the Earth’s crust with the same furious appetite for discovery with which the colonisers had hitherto travelled the outer world.

Exploring and taking possession of these continents yet to be discovered requires knowledge of distances, routes and landmarks. It is thus cartography that plays a central role, both in the web of William Reed’s assumptions and in Markus Krottendorfer’s experimental set-up. The conceptual lodestar of all these reflections is projection. It makes it possible to depict three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional plane: the heights and depths of a landscape by means of contour lines and colours on a map, just as objects in space are given a two-dimensional representation through photography. In this exhibition, however, the concept of projection is also understood more broadly, since the projection of the heights and depths of our longings, hopes and fears creates those fantastical places that lie far off in the still unknown but nonetheless take on quite concrete shapes in our respective imaginations. Be it Hades or Hell, where sinful Christians are lustily tormented by assorted devils. Literature and religions know of these regions and also offer themselves as learned guides. And if the Earth’s interior is not enough, we reach for the stars and search for possibilities of survival on Earth-like planets outside our solar system, while unswervingly destroying nature and the conditions for life on this Earth.

The mere meaning of life is simply not enough for us humans. We are not content with the evolutionary reproductive cycle of living, procreating and dying, but demand more. Yet this dissatisfaction also inspires other longings and fantasies. It makes us set out for unknown worlds, believe in the fantastical and find places where our destiny is to be fulfilled.

Inspired by William Reed, Markus Krottendorfer undertakes just such a journey. He traces the promises of the undiscovered and keeps his camera at the ready to explore the inner worlds of our Earth. His outpost can be seen in our gallery: at the end of the world, which is not only a geographical place. Eroded metal walls harbour a laboratory of longings. Maps are drawn, routes calculated, and the photographs Markus Krottendorfer has brought back from his ventures fuel the belief that what is longed for, like what is feared, is real. This belief is also a driving moment of photography that lends fantastical journeys their fascination. It also calls to mind uses of photography which, in connection with the mapping of newly discovered and conquered peoples and lands placed under foreign rule, made it an instrument of domination. These fantasies, projections of longing and departures, which are at the same time a conceptual investigation into the subject of photography, become tangible in engagingly unsettling photographs within the installation of imaginary journeys that Markus Krottendorfer has set up in our gallery. Text: Kurt Kladler