The Layer Project was initiated 2005 and was sponsored for two years by the Swedish Art Grants Committee. The layout of the project was to investigate the possibilities for — and assemble — multi layered images in correspondence with very trivial theories on perception and epistemology. I knew already from the start that this was an impossible undertaking, in fact I mentioned it in the grants application, but the bold/futile attempt should generate interesting images and experiences, or so I thought.
Anyway, before completion of the project, while I was still preparing works for the final presentation, my brother was diagnosed with pancreas cancer and died little over two months later. The depression this triggered (sick leave for over six months) was in itself enough to fuck the project, but what did it for me, I think, was the very powerful layer illustration that my brothers dead body presented; the absence of Life. The absence of my brother, although his atoms, molecules, cells were still present.
Somehow it was impossible for me to go back to the slightly amusing but dry academic problems and specimens I worked on before these tragic events. Neither could I paint. My only possible route was through really simple photography, I did the Black Projects during the winter following my brothers demise.
Presently, I´m reshuffling the remains of the project, finding that some of the results are internalised, some forgotten, some discarded. I don´t know if it will ever emerge in a recognisable shape, any renaissance will have to be heavily reworked.
Along with the original project I wrote some incoherent texts that never got properly edited. They´re really just fragments, but since some of them are quite amusing, I´ve decided to publish them here.
- The World
- The Picture
- Tabula Rasa
- Pinx.
- Logos
Culture, The Fig Leaf Layer Layer
Necessity is the mother of invention, but culture was begat by a penis sheath and a silly hat.
- Undercover
- Under a Hat
