Process

"A World Dissolving" is an ongoing photo art project, begun in 2006. The process is chemical manipulation of slides.

The colour positive film is removed from the frame and put into a chemical solution (which remains secret). Colors, layers and structure are slowly dissolved. After some time, the images are taken out of the mixture, dried and scanned, and out back into the solution. The process is repeated until there is no image information left. The manufacturer, type and age of the original slide varies a lot, and react differently to the manipulation. As elements and layers in the image are erased, what is left emerges; in some images, there are imprints from neighboring images, scratches and dirt.

As the process is hard to control precisely, errors and coincidences play a big role, and is often inspiration for changing the process. Different techniques are tested and developed continuously, for example using different chemicals and changing the temperature.

Some chemicals can take ½-1 year to change a picture, a lot of images are staced on top of each other in a plastic bag. When using stronger chemicals, the process is a lot faster, and sometimes the chemical is painted onto the emulsion side of the slide while it is in the scanner, scanning multiple times as the chemicals have their effect. When heating up strong chemicals, the images only need a few seconds to be affected.

The manipulated images are scanned into the computer in very high resolution. The images are cropped and colouradjusted in the digital domain, but the motif itself is always retained.

The original slides were bought at flea markets or given to CP by friends who found them. They cannot be traced back to the photographer. They are typically travel or family photos from the 1950s to the 80s, the important moments in the lives of ordinary people. The prints of works are numbered and produced continuously. Size and material can vary according to the customer's wishes, until now between A3 and 1 x 1,5 meters.

CP is also a photographer, working with digital photo since 2002, and is constantly searching for "found photos" and any graphic material to scan. These are often used as layers in collages with different types of image material. Since the lockdown, CP has started to make video art and music video, often incorporating the manipulated slides and found 8mm film.

All these activities goes hand in hand with CP's activities as a musician - building a visual identity for different musical projects, and now also producing music and sound art to complement visual works. There are many parallels between the process of making visual work and producing music and sound art. It is about artistic challenge, research and refining and expanding the artistic expression.