a visual dialogue

Austin Cullen and Domonkos Varga took the challenge beyond the usual ritual of A Visual Dialogue, responding to each other’s work in turn and instead inspired each other with multiple images once they had found common ground. 

In their responses about the experience of working together both Cullen and Varga noted the positive and unexpected impact it had on their art making process. As part of a new generation of inspired artists and thinkers, they both pushed and pulled their original ideas with images and engaging texts and their concept of escapism until  “Eventually, the act of escape became photography”.

natural escapism

​​A person with a clear heart and open mind can experience the wilderness anywhere on earth. It is a quality of one’s own consciousness. The planet is a wild place and always will be.
Gary Snyder

Feb 16, 2022
Austin:
My name is Austin Cullen and I'll be collaborating with you on the see-zeen visual dialogue. I'm very excited to be working with you. I would really love to get started on thinking about a theme, and I'm wondering if there's a theme that you would be interested in doing? 

I'm very interested in how you talk about decontextualization in your work. Working that way not only undermines and questions things we accept as truth like you mention, but I think it also revels in the shortcomings of photography. As a medium, people believe that photography always depicts an objectively truthful reality, but as photographers we know that's anything but the case- and in both of our projects that's something we both hint at.

Alternatively I really love your image of the hands holding the binoculars. the image of the map, and the aerial image of the roads cutting through the landscape. To me, all three of these feel very land-centric, and because of that I think that there may be another interesting theme in there.

Feb 17, 2022
Domonkos:
I'm also very excited to start this visual dialogue together, especially since I found your statement and images fascinating in your latest Natural History series. Seeing your images stimulated the same feeling as you described on the ambiguous dimensions that photography could create —especially in an era when our visual interpretations are becoming ever more sophisticated. Reevaluating the connection of our civilised frameworks and natural topography caught my eye in your series —that can even be associated with your (pretty accurate) reading on decontextualisation and the relatedness of photographs that I tried to explore.

Lately, I've been absorbed in thinking about the tendency of escapism in human perception even more on a personal level. In some ways, I'm also escaping anxiety from my busy life in the city by finding remote places, even nature, against the ever too digital and rational realities in which we live.

Maybe referring to the deconstruction and land-centric approach (very much found those in your images), we could create something like an envisioned land of escapism (perhaps hope?) where nature and humans come together. After all, I think right now we are on the edge of a more technical/digital (and rational) shift whereas being nature-centric (and spiritual) is somehow an alternative.

Let me know what you think, and I'm very interested in your opinion.

Feb 18, 2022
Austin:
I really like that concept! Working with the idea of escapism could allow for both hopeful and cynical images. It seems like a rich well to tap into. It makes me question what that land would look like, and if it's even possible to fully escape from our overwhelmingly digital world. I also love this idea that a spiritual view of nature is an alternative because it totally is, but that alternative lifestyle/perspective still relies heavily on human infrastructure and technologies.

Feb19, 2022
Domonkos:
Maybe this land can never be truly disconnected from infrastructure in the premise, yet is something alternative.

Somehow, I'd catch the feeling of groundedness in the present/empiric world somehow with the images maybe only because of my inner feelings. I feel this land can be each one of ours land/space/moment where we escape. And I'm meaning this as ambiguous as possible to let our interpretations unravel.

What do you think?

Feb 20, 2022
Austin:
I agree with you on all of that. I like the ambiguity within that statement.

March 1, 2022
Domonkos:
I promised you some reflection on my escapism that is remoteness against my everyday stimulus. I found peaks as beautiful motifs correlating not only with what I’m going through emotionally but where our whole world is going right now.

Testing the edges and the limits.

Who would’ve thought that within less than one week, there’s gonna be an outbreak of the most influential yet fearful war in Europe in recent years —and I honestly feel close to this conflict as I’m living in Hungary. I’m sending you two peaks from my most recent road trips around Austria and Slovakia.

March 2, 2022
Austin:
I find it fascinating viewing these images within the context of the beginning of a terrible conflict nearby. More than ever, finding an escape from the external world and finding some peace feels incredibly relevant. I enjoy both of these images quite a bit, but I'm more drawn to image #2. It feels much more sprawling of a landscape. For a seemingly straightforward image, it feels rather abstract. It's difficult to get a read on just how vast it is. What I really love about this image is the hidden home in the bottom corner. It formally anchors this image well, but additionally it places the viewer, or you, into the scene. Oh wow I just noticed all the other homes that are within the landscape. I love how the snow engulfs the human elements of the space, forcing the man-made and natural elements of the space together. Stepping back from the smaller details and returning to our central theme, I think that this image really excels at not only capturing your immersion into nature, but also a group desire to escape or return to a more wild version of nature.

I made some images recently in response to the theme and I'll get those sent to you a little later today. I'm really excited to make some photographs in response to the ones you sent me!

March 3, 2022
Austin:
Here are my images! I want to take some photographs in response to yours, but for now here are my initial thoughts on our discussions. In regards to the theme, I was wanting to make some images that looked at it on a more mundane level before expanding outwards.

March 5, 2022
Domonkos:
I love the new images you just sent me, and I like the play with the interior and exterior look. Also, greenhouses are such metaphors and spaces that I admire because of the antonym presence of artificial & natural and how it creates a new form of ecosystem and spatial experience. From a certain perspective, this is also a manifestation of the era we live in now.

Whenever I visit a greenhouse, I also feel that it leaves me wondering, especially inside the concrete jungle of Budapest (my hometown). There’s a definite sense of uncanny emotion surrounding both images, and they work very well as a pair. I especially like how you use shadows to emphasize the bold and industrial structures that keep the plants alive. Both images utilize light and reflections as it would be a pictorialist attempt toward the abstraction of the space & its little details —and it works well with the double-meanings behind the motif of the greenhouse. The more I look at your first image, the more I feel lost in the elements of the picture and the space through which you observe the view.

Stay safe,

March 8, 2022
Austin:
I've attached two images that I made in response to the landscape images that you sent me. What really stuck out to me is how camouflaged the structures are in the space, and I wanted to capture that within my images. Additionally, I thought about what the perspective must be like for people looking out their windows in that space, both literally and symbolically. I worked physically with transparent objects to relate to that idea of looking out a window.

March 10, 2022
Domonkos:
I found your last two images amazing.

I can feel that our ideas align greatly in terms of visioning the state of escapism. The more I think about the concept —the more I think about how art and photography, in general, is a way to escape the everyday stimulus and translate feelings into the scenery. Maybe it's one of our most effective forms of fleeing mundane reality. I keep reflecting on how artificial & natural seems to come up on all of our images as an instinctive juxtaposition. Unwittingly, I also made images driven by my current impulses and made a reflection on the picture with leaves. I just loved how the texture and light leak create a dynamic and organic feeling in your first image. Interestingly, what I thought was a completely ruined image on my last rolls (due to underexposure) came out rather a joyful mistake with the hand holding pieces of wood waste.

Your perspective inspired me to shoot another portrait of one of my friends. Again, I tried to capture a certain ambiguous viewpoint where the idea of the woodwork comes back, adding another material to our playful symbols. 

March 14, 2022
Domonkos:
I got further inspired by how you conceptualized spatial experience & framing. I also wanted to bring some found scenes (looking almost like ready-made objects) reflecting on the idea of contradictions in terms of different environments (again the man-made & natural) and the materials and their compositions that I observed.

Almost all the scenes are unplanned —yet there’s a staged feeling in them. Ambiguity was the plan aside from uncanniness, but I’m unsure how it went.

I recently discovered that you named your images Natural Escapism. I like it and would also consider it as a title maybe.

March 14, 2022
Austin:
In regards to your images from March 10, I love these! They're so playful and I love the human element in them. It really gets me thinking about just how much control we have over the natural world, and how escaping into nature is actually just escaping human control. When thinking about your images, I wanted to make photographs that kept with the disorienting qualities of both your images, but especially the one of your friend with the woodwork. I also wanted to make the human presence known in the images, but instead of having figures directly in the frame - I opted to focus on the remnants of human control. In my images, I took two different views of floating natural objects - in one a bird, in the other rocks. 

In the bird image I liked that it felt as if it could be an actual image of a bird in flight, but the other main subject in the photograph, the string, immediately contradicts this. In the rock image I was obsessed with the labels. I'm not sure about you, but anytime I go to a park or some other natural area I can't help but focus on the signage and maps. The direction of the view hints at the invisible infrastructure in natural spaces. While some places may not be physically developed, they can be just as heavily marred by human activity.

Your photographs from March 14 just added a whole other dimension to this project! The contradicting elements in your photographs feel at opposition, but in terms of composition they complete one another. I love this playful contrast and I'm especially drawn towards the second and third photograph. The second image reminds me of the idea of territory. It feels extremely in tune with the recent events in Ukraine, but it also feels incredibly relevant to our theme.

Natural Escapism could work!

March 18, 2022
Domonkos:
I also entered a whole new dimension when looking at your pictures, and it left me with quite an uncanny feeling where I was stuck between imagination and reality —also maybe truth and illusion. This got me feeling that this duality also reflects on what you mentioned on human control.

I think this is a question that’s often also about what’s natural & artificial in the sense of living by our biological needs. I think rationality raises boundaries between nature that nowadays plays a more sacred and somewhat spiritual role as opposition. This is where species are truly rooted and everything else in society and its dogmas. Yet, the images come as supposedly natural artifacts with a hint of staged composition.

Perception in this manner is a strange thing, and we are in an in-between yet confusing time. We are stuck between nature and built environment, truth and alternative facts, control, and freedom —causing a nihilist situation. That’s what we humans can hardly deal with. And all these emotions just poured out when seeing these last two examples by you.

In the picture, the machinery with its hidden details and stickers connects to the rock samples & the statement-like stillness that it might bring to a scene.

March 21, 2022
Austin:
I couldn't agree more with your thoughts on perception. I think this tug between truth and fiction, natural and artificial, creates a wonderful space for the intervention of photography. The machine image feels so removed from being natural, but within the context of this project it feels like a logical transition. Overall it feels as if we started with a traditional view of nature and have been slowly deconstructing that image.

I took two photographs over the weekend - one in response to your stake in the ground, and the other almost a continuation of your machinery image.

In my first image, I was really drawn to the idea of territories and boundaries. With my image I wanted to have the subject matter literally act as a barrier for the viewer. The thicket fills the frame and acts simultaneously as the subject and a deterrent for further reading. In my second image, I imagined what a facility that housed your machine would look like. Additionally, I wanted something that felt as far removed from nature as possible. This image in a way feels like an antithesis to all of our other images, and the brutal qualities of it feels like a catalyst for why people would want to escape cities for more natural spaces.

March 23, 2022
Domonkos:
I think there’s a great contrast between the two images. I love how you washed out all the depth from your first image. It leaves me feeling stimulated where I constantly analyze the details. It evokes a certain stillness that you often experience in natural surroundings. You stay there and stand still.

 First I wanted to react to the chaos of all the trees. I deemed to create an order using a body as a statement and a geometrical shape to counterweight the hectic feeling of this boundary while still keeping the motif of stillness. I also wanted to establish this barrier but through the unnatural and grotesque nature of pose that I forced my model into. The reviving nature plays a pattern in the background as I shot this at an abandoned mossy place abandonded by humans.

Regarding my second image, I related an older picture that I shot on my road trip when we began to collaborate. This, I thought, is a funny circulation because I didn’t know what to do with the scene at that time. But I think I found the pair for that. When I saw the composition, it immediately popped into my mind. Especially because I felt that both of the images feel like a station of a journey where the human made structures are robust and hard to grasp.

March 23, 2022
Austin:
I really love how well your final image ties everything together. The structure in that image feels sort of sickly because of the coloring and as a result makes the surrounding landscape feel almost contaminated. In comparison your first image feels clean and pristine. In your first image the graphic qualities of it certainly feel like a barrier for the eye to enter. It’s almost impossible to have my eye drift away from the figure and in that way it feels really connected to the image that I sent you.

March 28, 2022
Domonkos:
I will forward you one last image of the facility encapsulating the machine-like nature of aesthetically cleared-out structures.

Following the collaboration we asked Austin and Domonkos about the experience.

Describe the collaborative process with a total stranger.
Austin: Working with Domonkos was an incredible experience. While the different time zones did make having smooth dialogue difficult at times, being able to collaborate and bounce ideas off of Domonkos was both fascinating and incredibly generative. Working with somebody with a different cultural, photographic, and artistic background meant that we approached similar subject matters completely differently. Because of this, his images really challenged me to reevaluate my image making process.
Domonkos: The process was a journey out of my comfort zone, as I rarely did such collaborations. However, I think I found a common voice with Austin immediately as our conversation kicked off by talking about our similar views on the semiotics of photography. I believe we have a lot in common, especially how we perceive the world through art. Seeing this amazed me, especially as we are a thousand miles away from each other, probably in different environments. It felt organic when analyzing and reacting to each other's instinctive photography language. I feel the emotions around our work clicked so much that it's also visible in the piece. Eventually, I thought we were immersed in this project from our everyday duties, perfectly reflecting our initial concept.

How did the visual dialogue affect your work?
Austin Working in response to another photographer’s images was a completely new way of working for me. In the past I’ve made work in response to conversations I've had and books I've read, but I’ve never truly worked in response to other photographs- and I have to say that I really love this way of working. This type of image-making is incredibly fun and it’s something I want to weave into my practice because it’s something that could really elevate my current project.
Domonkos: While working on the dialogue, I think I got to know myself better how I use photography as a tool for self-immersing into a flow. I was photographing my feelings subconsciously, and I also tried to be a bit more playful than usual. 
I'm working on a bigger project that's a more deliberate approach, and in this dialogue, I got a chance to rouse myself out of this and start experiencing. I particularly enjoyed sharing our impressions of the intersecting symbols that we found in our pictures. I think working with Austin made me photograph in a very impulsive way, just what I needed right now.

How will it affect the way you work, or think about making work in the future?
Austin: This whole project has made me realize how much I enjoy collaborative projects. Working with another photographer and coming up with a new body of work was an amazing experience. This whole process has made me much more interested in collaborative projects, so I’ll be sure to pursue more opportunities to do so. 
Domonkos: I'm going to take a step toward thinking about collaborative projects. I tend to be introverted in my practice, and I want to turn this around after this amazing experience. 
And I think I will also start incorporating smaller projects aside from my time-consuming series. This dialogue gave me a huge creative boost and motivation for my upcoming work, also some conceptual ideas for a future series.

austin cullen @austin_cullen
domonkos varga @vargadom

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