„warplay“ deals with the subjectively perceived abysses of war. The starting point for the examination is based on one underlying question: How has photographic material to be textured in order to create emotions such as disgust, aversion or horror and is it possible to bring photographs which originate from a rather harmless context into a shape in which they could narrate e.g. the impacts of a war?
The material, used in the book is composed of analogue black and white and red-filtered photographs, which were taken during a flood in my hometown in southern germany.
nature’s rawness and uncontrollability reminded me of documentaries about Vietnam during the 60s/70s. therefore, the red-filtered images slightly echoe the main character’s feverdreams in “Apocalypse Now” by Francis Ford Coppola.
To complement these self-taken photographs, old slides were used, which were purchased as a bundle on ebay a couple of years ago. the bundle consisted of 32 framed and numbered diapositives of unknown originators. They were distributed for first aid courses in the DDR. The pictures displaying wounds were apparently used as educational material for 8th grade biology classes.
The design of the book is inspired by “Krieg dem Kriege”, an anti-war book by early pacifist Ernst Friedrich, released in 1924. every text in this book was printed in 4 different languages, all adopted lyrics retained unchanged.