Mar 29

Mar 29 Photo Journal Monday: Sara Galbiati, Peter Helles Eriksen & Tobias Selnaes Markussen

MOUNTAIN METAL MESH, Mallorca, Spain, 20160 © Sara Galbiati, Peter Helles Eriksen & Tobias Selnaes Markussen

Text and Images by Sara Galbiati, Peter Helles Eriksen & Tobias Selnaes Markussen

The Merge

Since forming our collective, we’ve been attracted to the idea of stretching the possibilities of documentary photography to investigate not only what people see, but also what they imagine, feel, fear and desire. The Merge takes this approach to its extremes by questioning reality altogether, and therefore the possibility of documenting it.

THE FUTURE AT HAND, Designed to achieve human-like dexterity in the robotic form, ReNeu’s Anatomically Correct Testbed (ACT) Hand has the same size and weight of a human hand, with bones, joints, tendons and muscles replicating its biomechanics.&nbs… — THE FUTURE AT HAND, Designed to achieve human-like dexterity in the robotic form, ReNeu’s Anatomically Correct Testbed (ACT) Hand has the same size and weight of a human hand, with bones, joints, tendons and muscles replicating its biomechanics. ReNeu Robotics Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin, USA, 2017 © Sara Galbiati, Peter Helles Eriksen & Tobias Selnaes

Over a period of four years we travelled to the USA, South Korea, Germany, Thailand, Portugal, Israel as well as within Denmark, visiting pioneering cybernetics research centers, interviewing YouTube influencers alongside the world’s most respected physicists and philosophers, taking pictures of anything from supercomputers to automated pizza restaurants, to document how far we humans have come in creating a perfect simulation.

STILL LIFE, Lidar scan of vase with flowers. Danish Museum of Science & Technology, Helsingør, Denmark, 2020 © Sara Galbiati, Peter Helles Eriksen & Tobias Selnaes

Back in our studio, we turned to cutting-edge camera technology such as Lidar, used by self-driving cars to create three-dimensional maps of their routes, and Real Sense, which provides drones and robots with depth-perception capabilities. Both gave us an insight into how computers see the world through a strictly mathematical lens.

THE IDEA OF PERCEPTION, The AZoth Pyramid is an interactive brain entrainment machine. Shaped like a physical pyramid, the immersive environment features integrated LED lights, infinity mirrors, sensors, binaural beats and rhythmic light technologie… — THE IDEA OF PERCEPTION, The AZoth Pyramid is an interactive brain entrainment machine. Shaped like a physical pyramid, the immersive environment features integrated LED lights, infinity mirrors, sensors, binaural beats and rhythmic light technologies conceived to create a “self explorative experience of expansion.” The LED lights are coordinated to induce brainwave patterns that may generate a sensation of euphoria, similar to the one achieved by means of extended meditation. World's Fair Nano, San Francisco, USA, 2017 © Sara Galbiati, Peter Helles Eriksen & Tobias Selnaes

In the process, we began to notice elements in the reality around us that seemed to confirm our research. Tree trunks, electric wires, cracks in the ground: the most banal, unremarkable details of our visual routine suddenly appeared to us as hints of the fact that we are living in a simulation. We photographed them, too, hoping to immortalize the glitch that might eventually lead us out of the matrix.

HEMISPHERE, Glass sphere outside the The Ski Inn, “the lowest bar in the western hemisphere”, 68 meters below sea level. Bombay Beach, USA, 2017 © Sara Galbiati, Peter Helles Eriksen & Tobias Selnaes — HEMISPHERE, Glass sphere outside the The Ski Inn, “the lowest bar in the western hemisphere”, 68 meters below sea level. Bombay Beach, USA, 2017 © Sara Galbiati, Peter Helles Eriksen & Tobias Selnaes

The captions describe the content of each picture, but it’s ultimately up to the reader to decide whether an image is a representation of reality or just an illusion.