Battlefields

Photography: Jos Jansen

Assistent photographer: Igo Minnaar

Text: Jos Jansen

Design: Rob van Hoesel

2015

Book of the month May 2022

‘Battlefield’ consists of a number of bundled black and white photos on glossy paper. It looks like photo paper. The first impression is that it is not a photo book, because it lacks a real cover. The bundle is sewn by hand. A loose sheet of thin paper folded in half serves as a cover. On the front is shows the title, name of the photographer and the number of the special edition with a separate, signed print (#4/25). On the back is this text:

Jos Jansen’s work interrogates the relationship between people, nature, science and technology. Questions he asks himself and his audience are: Where do people’s boundaries lie? Do we still control technology – or does technology control us?

In Battlefields, photography is used as a forensic-scientific tool to examine our compulsive desire to be connected at all times and our struggle between private and public.

But what are we actually looking at? The images in the photos can best be described as abstract art of ferocious white brushstrokes on a black background. However, this doesn't seem to be the case. The text on the back of the last print gives a hint:

There is one place in particular where our fingers are performing choreographies that were unknown just a few years ago. (…)

It has to do with wanting to be connected all the time. But how much privacy are we willing to sacrifice?

Clicks, taps, pinches and swipes. Traces of human behaviour… left like a battlefield.

Photographer's fingerprints on screens.

The book Battlefields is published by The Eriskay Connection and is in the Pennings Foundation library.

Artist Talk by Jos Jansen: Thursday May 19, 2022