DIE BLENDUNG – ABBAGLIAMENTO
2025 - 2026
Die Blendung – Abbagliamento is a quasi-instant project that is part of an ongoing research on the roles of travel and chance within artistic practice. The starting point for the project are three newspapers collected at Frankfurt Airport during a stop-over on a journey from Trieste to Genève, which were initially photocopied, overlaid and associated with photographic prints and books, using an old black and white laser printer, working on a contrast between a spontaneous and repetitive gesture in the creation of the image, combined with the intervention of chance.
Over the course of a couple of months, other prints were joined to these photocopies, made with the same printer and produced in batches based on the date the pictures were taken. All the sheets were then folded Japanese-style and placed in reverse chronological order, with the last printed batch at the beginning of the book and the first, i.e. the photocopies of the newspapers, at the end. Within the blocks, the correct chronological sequence was maintained according to the order of printing.
The project is named after the original title of Elias Canetti’s novel Auto-da-Fè, and the Italian translation of the term. As Claudio Magris writes in the introduction to an Italian edition of the book, “The original title, Die Blendung, means «dazzlement», the blinding of man who does not view the world from above, but is assailed and overwhelmed by it, so that he is forced to look at everything from a zero distance, in a furious and distorting chaos.” I find this concept very close to the intention of the project and its development, as well as to my experience in producing it, the unexpected ways in which all elements came together, such as the print on the cover, which, after falling from a cabinet, I retrieved and placed without thought on the first page of the book, only to discover that the crack on the wall inside the image coincided exactly with the branch in the printed page below. I thought it would be best to leave it there and rejoice in the coincidence.
Prints and photocopies made with an old laser copier, scanned and re-printed on A3 common paper sheets, folded in japanese style. Dummy measurements: 21x29,7, 116 pages.
Project supported by the Centre de la Photographie Genève as part of the 2025 Mentorship Program, with Massao Mascaro.