TITLE: STATIC TENSIONS

The series STATIC TENSIONS is about the impact of the omnipresent mass media advertising in urban spaces. The paired images reflect the tensions we are confronted with when we walk through the city. Each diptych shows two separate, photographed urban street scenes. These images are candid - not staged - but always subjective.

The embedding of mass media spaces into the adjacent urban architecture of buildings, shop windows, subway stations, and market places is where STATIC TENSIONS sets in. The series focusses on the visual overload of the individual due to an artificially created dream world.

STATIC TENSIONS is an example of how well-known urban traces can be found and interpreted. The images may not only engage people in the hidden beauty of their personal environment but also in the meaning of objects and media concepts of public spaces. Although there are no real people in the images, it is intriguing to recognize that man determines his entire environment. As a result, STATIC TENSIONS shows the transformation of everyday motifs into an art form, without losing their urban rawness.

Currently the series contains 50 images [25 dyptichs], taken in Germany, Great Britain, Austria and Italy.
The editing of the series including a complete photobook dummy was realized during the Lichtblick School Masterclass 2015/2016 by Wolfgang Zurborn and Markus Schaden.

AUTHOR: Oliver Raschka (Germany)

Oliver Raschka is an emerging artist from Stuttgart, Germany. He studied economics and psychology. As a photographic autodidact he trained himself through numerous workshops with renowned photographers. He loves black-and-white photography, coffee is the drug of his choice, and loud rock music is what he likes. His photographs have been widely published in group and individual exhibitions as well as in international and national journals.