Photographer w/MS
cowboy
The fall guy: Martin Bruch has MS. His extraordinary pictures show the world
from his point of view - the ground
http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=020429007439&query
=sclerosis
The Guardian - United Kingdom; Apr 29, 2002
BY SAMANTHA ELLIS
Martin Bruch falls over. A lot. And every time he falls he takes a
photograph from the perspective of his landing. So far he's got 366, a
chronicle-in-pictures of the multiple sclerosis that makes him fall. His
skewed shots have been shown in Austria and at the Venice Biennale, and next
week they come to London. Bruch is an obsessive man. He photographs everyone
he meets, while in his day job as a sound archivist he is busy collating
door noises. "Every door you can imagine, opening and closing. There's a
door in a hallway, a wood door, a metal door. . ." He's also got a
photographic project on the go at work, photographing everyone who sits on a
certain red sofa. Another series is called Trunks. "When I go on the street
I photograph open car boots. It's a never-ending story because there are
millions of cars."
Born in Hall, Tirol in 1961, the son of an abstract artist, Bruch cites his
favourite artists as snowball-melter Andy Goldsworthy, cathedral-wrapping
duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude and fat-and-felt merchant Joseph Beuys. His
first camera was a gift - a Lomo, one of the clunky cameras, made in
Russia's Leningrad Optical Mechanical Organisation factory, which sparked an
art craze in the 1990s. The Soviet-era cameras are absurdly low-tech, but
devotees learn to love the blur. Bruch loved his Lomo, but became
disenchanted after taking 1,250 pictures and finding only 50 salvageable.
Then his balance started failing, as a result of his multiple sclerosis, and
he started to fall. "One day I fell down and saw that this was a perspective
that no one had photographed before. I loved it and I knew that I had to
photograph it. Most photographers don't lie on the floor and take
photographs." So in May 1996, he started photographing his falls, or,
strictly speaking, his landings. His surname means "break" or "crash", hence
the name Bruchlandungen ("crashlandings").
Technical prowess doesn't interest him. "I always use a Kodak FunFlash. It's
a very simple camera, it's 99.9% recyclable, and if I fall on it, it won't
break." He has other rules: he always uses a flash, he takes landscape shots
("because we see horizontally, we wear our glasses horizontally") and he
exhibits them small. "People always say 'slow up, blow up,' but I think all
you need to do is get closer to the photograph and then you have it blown
up." They are almost snapshots in their lack of guile, and his photographs
offer a glimpse into a topsy-turvy world of woozy landscapes. Stairs loom
up, buildings veer away, roads flip up vertically. Sometimes a capsized
chair indicates how he must have fallen. His scooter gleams in the corner of
some photographs; later images are dominated by his wheelchair's shiny
spokes. "The photographs are a chronology of my disease getting worse," he
says. Not all sufferers of MS fall this often, but then many don't take the
risks he does. "It's wild, It's risky. Other people sit in a wheelchair and
get pushed."
The people in the images are amused, bewildered, shocked. In one image,
pensioner twins in green velvet look as quizzical as the queens in Alice's
Wonderland. If people rush to help, or if a fall is too devastating for him
to whip out his camera, he makes a black photograph recording the place,
date and time of the fall. One black photograph records a fall backwards
down an escalator. "At least I know I am six escalator steps long," he says.
He photographs car boots because "it's an intimate zone in a public space",
and there's nothing more wrenchingly intimate than falling over in public.
It's not just the exposure, it's the way strangers feel like they know you.
By recording people's reactions, he turns the tables and makes them the
subject of his observation.
For his next project, Handbike Movie, he attaches a camera to his head and
speeds along the open road, cars zooming past, filming the traffic from his
three-wheeler wheelchair. But he's not sure about the noise. He turns it up
so loud I can barely hear him shouting over the sturm und drang of Vienna's
Ringstrasse. "This is what I wanted to convey," he yells. "The noise. And
there's a sense of silence in the noise, don't you think?" An irate driver
sounds his horn. "That was not because of me," says Bruch. So far he's
filmed in Paris and Vienna. Next stop, London. "I'm addicted." He's also
still making crashlanding photographs.
Other photographers have played with the idea that, unlike the paintbrush,
the camera is almost part of the body, an extra eye. Susan Sontag wrote: "A
photograph is not only an image, an interpretation of the real; it is also a
trace, something directly stencilled off the real, like a footprint or a
death mask." In Bruch's work, the pictures are almost like X-Rays in their
capacity to record the sensation of falling, and the downward spiral of a
disease. Bruchlandungen is as much a record of his astonishing positivity as
of his struggle with MS. The photographs serve another function too: "You
can't be frightened to make a photograph," he says. "There's not time to
wallow when you've got to point and shoot. For him the photographs are not
bad memories but a testament to survival. "I have had 366 falls with
photographs," he says. "A lot more without. But I am alive."
Bruchlandungen is at Sadler's Wells, London EC1 (020-7863 8000) until July
21.
All Material Subject to Copyright
--
Brought to you by Cowboy and Paul Jones. See Paul Jones website at
www.mult-sclerosis.org for this article and many more.
DiWitt
--
Cyberhugs,
DianeW
"cowboy" <msco...@zianet.com> wrote in message
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John Sykes Fletcher
"DiWitt" <DiW...@NOSPAMcfl.rr.com> wrote in message
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> Yes, but where can we see these photographs ???
Follow the following links. Theer are 5 to look at on the net.
All the best
John
http://www.sadlers-wells.com/visual_arts/bruch.asp
Martin Bruch
Martin Bruch was born in Hall in Tirol, Austria in 1961 and takes
photographs. He concentrates on one subject only, provided by the frequent
falls he has experienced through multiple sclerosis. He always carries a
camera with him and since May 1996, unless impossible, has taken a
photograph after every fall (if he is unable to take a photograph Bruch
makes a 'black photo' which he then subtitles with where and when the fall
happened). Whilst still lying on the ground he uses the camera to document
his perspective. The resulting, extremely personal view of the world has
produced a remarkable art project, which continues as a kind of 'work in
progress'. 307 photographs, dating from 1996 to 2000, are on show in the
international exhibition, Plateau of Humankind, at the Venice Biennale 2001.
There are now 312 images, which will be shown in the foyer spaces at Sadler'
s Wells. Martin Bruch's aesthetic sensibility, combined with his optimism
and sense of humour are inspirational.
Innsbruck, Hauptbahnhof, (main railway station) 96.08.02, 19:14
Fuerteventura, Costa Calma 97.06.25, 14:30
Fuerteventura, Corralejo, Oliva Beach 97.07.04, 16:25
Australia, Perth, St George Street 39 07.12.25, 12:07
http://www.sadlers-wells.com/downloads/press/bruch.doc
VISUAL ARTS AT SADLER'S WELLS
Martin Bruch
Bruchlandungen (Crash Landings)
Sadler's Wells, May - July 2002
Opening times: Performance days only,
Mon - Fri 6pm till Curtain Down, Sat & Sun 2pm till Curtain Down
Austrian artist, Martin Bruch, opens his first British show, Bruchlandungen
(Crash Landings) at Sadler's Wells in May 2002. The exhibition is a
remarkable collection of 312 photographs concentrating solely on documenting
the frequent falls Bruch experiences through multiple sclerosis.
Born in Hall in Tirol in 1961, Bruch always carries a camera with him so he
can take a photograph every time he has a fall. Consequently most of his
work is taken from the ground, where his familiar surroundings become
unfamiliar and fragmented.
Objects, buildings and curious passers-by become disjointed as the
perspective and line of vision is altered. On the occasions where it is
impossible for Bruch to take a photograph he creates a black surface to take
the place of a photo. It is up to the viewer to conceptualise the incident,
with only the time and place as a record of the fall.
The resulting, extremely personal view of the world is part of a remarkable
art project: a work in progress. Bruch's current complete portfolio of 312
images will be shown in the foyer spaces at Sadler's Wells from May 2002.
Martin Bruch's aesthetic sensibility, combined with his optimism and sense
of humour are inspirational.
Supported by Visiting Arts and the Austrian Cultural Forum
For further press information please contact Caroline Miller, Sadler's Wells
Press Manager 020 7863 8112, carolin...@sadlerswells.com
http://www.lookat.ch/photographers/photographersview/52/
Lookat is proud to introduce their Member of Honor Martin Bruch (Austrian,
born 1961), lives and works today as sound archivist in Vienna. Since 1996
Martin, suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, has been documenting spectacular
and less spectacular crashes he had, riding his kickboard and later with his
wheelchair to which he is confined today. First with a lomo, later with
one-way cameras and today with an Olympus Miu. All photographs have been
taken right after the falls. 307 color-fall-images have just been published
under the title "Bruch-Landungen" (Crashlandings) with Haymon-publishers.
Swiss Literature magazine Entwürfe has published a series of images in its
issue of October 2001, and his work is being exhibited in different cities
and festivals, such as the Biennale di Venezia 2001 and Sadlers Wells
Theatre London in 2002.
John Sykes Fletcher
Martin Bruch: Bruch-Landungen. Haymon publishing house.
Extended and corrected new edition book with text by Heinz Gappmayr, Peter
Weiermair, Erwin Riess, Felix von Muralt and Martin Bruch
13 x 21 cm, paperback 353 pages,
312 fall photos 4-färbig
ATS 398,-- EURO 29,--
Edition N. Orac publishing house, Vienna 2001
ISBN 3-85052-129-X
John Sykes Fletcher
Mona
Survival is the topic of Martin Bruch, 40: Since 1996 the Austrian,
who suffers from multiple sclerosis, has pressed the shutter
release of his camera whenever his nerves cause him to fall.
The pictures should be IMO manditory viewing for all *non*
disabled.
--
Laura
So ignore the 90% of the studies that conclude otherwise and boom,
pee brain is correct.
"John Sykes Fletcher" <harvest%20this@%20abuse%40localhost%20.com>
wrote in message news:1YhB8.797$A07.1...@news02.tsnz.net...
DiWitt
--
Cyberhugs,
DianeW
"John Sykes Fletcher" <harvest%20this@%20abuse%40localhost%20.com> wrote in
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njs
> photograph from the perspective of his landing.
Rats! why didn't I think of this? I'm a big faller, too.
I appreciate his good humor about it. I call myself Crash or Spill, but I
never thought of carrying a little camera around to document it. That's a
pretty cool attitude he's got.
I think I'll start taking pix of everything I drop and break. I could've
had an entire gallery showing, just from this past weekend. I hate it the
most when you are trying to clean up what's been dropped and then cause
another chain of disasters. It's been really entertaining around here, but
the pasta spiral spill was the funniest. I was actually cursing noodles, at
the top of my lungs. It began there and went on and on and on, culminating
in a box of cereal falling on my head. And spilling.
Finally decided it was time to read a good book, but the double vision
decided that was not a good idea. lol
Out of control down here!
nancy
DiWitt
cuts....I cut myself alllll the time. Or would that be too gross? LOL
--
Cyberhugs,
DianeW
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