In 2012, a small set of large-format photographic negatives, acquired at a "garage sale," gave rise to the Lanterna Mágica series. The black-and-white negatives depicted natural landscapes where the absence of the human figure made it even more difficult to precisely date them. Additionally, small imperfections in the images were noticeable, such as a very subtle double exposure or an important detail out of focus. The scrutiny of those films, somewhat battered by time and neglect, along with the absence of any human being depicted, provoked a certain excitement, as must happen when "exploring" an unknown territory. However, the lack of an enunciated story did not alleviate the voyeuristic discomfort, as that landscape could have been uninhabited due to some tragedy, either past or yet to come.
When inhabiting a landscape, humans always leave a mark, which can range from conscious and sustainable exploitation to irreversible damage, all depending on the intensity or weight of their presence. However, the anonymity of that photographic scene revealed very little about itself, leaving the viewer with a sense of suspended time, where something is on the verge of disappearing or has just been reconstituted.
In the analog photography lab, under red lanterns, time and the light intensity of the enlarger are controlled so that the correct dose of light passes through the photographic film and projects the appropriate shadows onto the paper emulsified with gelatin and silver salts, allowing a good photographic print to be revealed. It has long been known that the dose makes the poison. Applying this adage to photographic lab practices, it’s understood that if the light is excessive, the image will be consumed by the darkness produced on the photographic paper, with its "death" being chemically revealed.
In the Lanterna Mágica series, each black-and-white negative generated four distinct images, according to the intensity of the light from a lantern projected onto the photographic paper before the chemical development process. Each landscape was, therefore, partially consumed four times, each by a stain—or rather, an inescapable black hole of different sizes—produced by exposure to an intense and focused light. As if an inverted lantern, instead of illuminating, darkened the landscape where it was pointed, demonstrating that poison can always be more fatal than we imagine.
Contrary to digital-based documentation, this visual exercise, constructed within the photographic lab, aimed to pave the way for a discussion on the ontology of the original photographic image and the construction of a possible philosophical bridge with a brief episode in human history (which could be situated between its beginnings or its final throes...), represented by banal photographs.
The Lanterna Mágica series consists of a set of 14 photographs created in an analog photography lab, on fiber paper, using gelatin and silver salts.
Rosângela Rennó, 2012 - 2024
