Hello and welcome to Out of the Darkroom on Adorama TV I'm Ruth Medjber and
joining me on the show today is fine art photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg who
uses the city of London as her subject.
Adorama TV presents Out of the Dark room
with Ruth Medjber. Thank you so much for joining me on the show I know you're
very busy with photographing and you are a teacher as well aren't you're a tutor
I'm a reader in urban aesthetics at the Royal College of Art in London where teach photography
while practicing photography as well. How do you find the balance between the two of those?
It is amazing because I am exposed to young students who are developing new
ways, new way of working with photography, so I actually can consider it as an extended
research. It's not just me teaching them it's also introducing me to new ideas,
new practices, new technological advancements so it goes both ways it's
for me as much educational as I guess it is for the students.
so at the moment you have an exhibition in the Museum of London
as it's called London Dust could you perhaps tell us a little bit about that body of work
Yes London Dust deals with the changes of London the rapidly changing architecture
environment of the city and how photography participates in the change
not just as coming after the fact; documenting the new city, but also
imagining, forecasting this new city by added CGI computer-generated imagery
So architects, developers, city planners use CGI, use the power of the pixels
to create, to show us what this building they are proposing will look like
and they put them up all over the city seducing us
but they don't always happen some of these buildings have stalled and that's why I
became interested in how photography is sort of between past and future and how I
can tether to the presence. Tether to the here and now.
I think you've very much, really managed to achieve that with these pictures because I mean you draw
the viewer in with these images that are you know these CGI images but then
there's something that resonates in the viewers head. This is like this
isn't right and then once we look to the layers you kind of start to see all
these objects and maybe the bit of grit or dirt and we realize that it's not what it seems
absolutely and I fused these CGI basically as billboards
so the street is like my studio and or like a backdrop. Like a studio backdrop and I find props
and I find them in the street like this heavy sand sacks and I put them in front of CGI
So you're physically manipulating the scene and moving things around. Yes.
By creating another layer for the viewer to understand this image is a construction.
What is it about the city that pulls you in? Well the city is changing all the time, so active and
yeah and I think that photography is a tool to understand the city (A) and (B)
photography allows me to be part of the city with the camera I can go out I
have a reason to hang out at night in the city and do my long exposure so it's
like a passport in away. You actively enjoy going and hanging out. Yes. All night time, primarily night time.
A lot of my work is at night yes. Do you shoot with a purpose, a goal at the end, you're
thinking this is going to be a big installation, a big print or this is
going to be something smaller. Do you have that in mind while you're shooting? Yes
have I have a project that I'm working on that I've been researching that I've
been immersing myself in and sort of work that I'm doing it is all fitting into that project, yes.
What kind of cameras do you use? Do you use film, digital? Yes I use Sinar which is a Swiss
camera and 5x4 film. I bought this camera as a student second hand many years
ago and it served me well.
Fantastic! So there is no need to rush out and buy the latest camera
No but obviously I have to buy film.
Is that proving to be a little bit more difficult?
It's proving to be more and more expensive.
In terms of your installations and how you shoot I recently saw in Photo London where we
filmed your work there was the Teaser which is a collaborative effort. How
often do you collaborate and is that really important in a kind of way to
guide your work? Yes and it's become actually the key to a lot of my work so
the Teaser was a book I made with a philosopher Alexander García Düttmann and it was
translated in a three dimensional stage set for Photo London London so you could walk around it
and then experience the book in a very different way. I think that's also
similar to how to experience a city. We walk around we get sort of attached to somethings.
saying something gets our attention so I wanted to also reflect on that
experience of being on an urban dweller, and bring that into make a book into that.
So what some people might know from popular culture anyway is that
two of your images used on the album covers was The Streets album cover and for The Bloc Party album cover.
How did that come about? Did they find you? Did they commission you? Do you have
an agent that acts for you? The Streets so I made the work in '95 on my MA so 6 or 7 years later
Original Pirate Material come out and they found me and they thought this image really
supports the idea of what The Streets are trying to do. So it worked really well.
Yes so i didn't make the work for the album, the work existed and they though that this fits what
we're trying to say. So they found you and it fits the whole ethos of the album I suppose
and would it have been the case then if you didn't like the band then would you've
said no? You know no one knew who the Streets were at that time. They were really just starting
but I liked the lyrics and there was something about it that was a bit like
pirate radio. I mean so it really fitted with the idea of a high-rise where that kind of
music was being made. So it made complete sense. I mean it's fantastic that you're
working in that you, you have this passion for what you do and that you
instill it in your students as well, you know, you have time for for teaching. Is teaching
important to you to give that kind of back to the community?
Yes definitely and I was taught by Karen Knorr who was a photographer and artist
and Olivier Richons so these were practicing artists photographers and I
think it's quite important to students have access to people who are working
Did you study photography or did you shadow a photographer. I studied at
what was called LCC; London College of Communication
Sophie Ricard we were in the same class
Did you always have a lust for photography or was it just you know an artistic drive and photography
found you. I don't know I started with Political Science but I sort of had a sense that the image is
proving extremely important and the image culture and it has become true
We now live in a real saturated image culture, but it's also, we need to understand the image.
We are still super ignorant of what image can do, what it does, how it's different but how it is constructed?
And how people read it differently, I suppose. Yes absolutely,
the image is still a really worthy topic of investigation.
Yes I'd absolutely agree with you there.
Thank you so much for chatting to us today. Pleasure. I cant wait to see more of your work.
Wonderful. You will!
Thanks for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed the show if you have any comments please feel free
to leave comments section below. I do love getting your feedback.
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