Geert Goiris - Prolifération & Prophet
In: Photobook Belge 1854 - now, Hannibal/FOMU, 2019, pp. 318-319.
Although not initially conceived as a series, Roma Publications has recently published three photobooks by Geert Goiris which neatly fit together. Prolifération (2014), Prophet (2015) and Peak Oil (2017) are each the result of a specific project (exhibition or assignment). The three books share the same format, with an abstracted duotone image on the cover (red, blue, and orange, respectively). Roger Willems' subtle design — full-page photographs, lots of white space, loosely inserted text and an image index at the back — is consistent throughout with some minor variations, and echoes the contemplative nature of Goiris' work.
Prolifération is part of Goiris' project of the same name at the Mauvoisin Dam in Switzerland. Overwhelmed by the dizzying size of this artificial construction, moulded into a pristine mountain landscape, the photographer decided to put together a series of images echoing his impressions of this sublime place. The result was a heterogeneous set of 30 images that was exhibited at the Mauvoisin Dam itself and then arranged in this book in the same order. As the reader browses through the book, photos of gaping caves, whimsical rock formations, invasive vegetation, strange light effects, architectural details, people turning away from the camera, desolate landscapes, and bizarre artefacts alternate in an associative contrast montage. These are shots that the photographer made during his many trips to distant places looking for extraordinary sites or phenomena, yet Goiris separates them from their specific context. The worldview he constructs with his photography lies at the boundary between fact and fiction. A different, transitory dimension of reality is opened up, one which feels at once familiar and untouched, but also threatening and disorienting. A place of wonder, where time and space are unreliable and our perception is put to the test.
In Prolifération, Goiris not only demonstrates how the world shows itself to him, but also what the photographic camera does to that world. Through simple, analogous interventions, Goiris transforms what he sees into fantasmata with an evocative impact. In the image entitled Dazzle, a flower head mutates into a fractal, luminous entity. In Divide, rocks crumble into disparate fragments through a scorching blind spot in the centre of the image. Concealed under the windless surface of Dark Day, The Institute and Raft are a number of doom scenarios, appealing to current social themes and sensitivities. Goiris' work is strongly committed to the ambiguous trial of strength between man and his natural environment. The complexity of this relationship is also suggested in Prolifération by means of countless open storylines and mental scenarios. This way, the book can be read as a psychological journey along the intersection between nature and culture, growth and destruction, hyper-evolution and animism, control and surrender, fear and hope for the future.
Goiris sets out his perspective on the world even more sharply in Prophet (2015), which was published alongside his solo exhibition Flashbulb Memories, Ash Grey Prophecies at FOAM in Amsterdam. The publication takes its title and structure from a cross-dissolve projection of 49 slides that was part of this exhibition. Prophet follows the associative contrast montage technique of Prolifération, but this time Goiris' images look even more like pre- or post-apocalyptic visions. What we see is a bundling of disruptive phenomena: two suns in the sky in Interstate, a 'liquefied' car in Dents, cryptic anachronisms (Older Self, The Future), gravity defied (Bottle), proliferation and (genetic) mutations (Bleed, Relic), artificially coloured snow (Blue Snow), figures in white lab suits (Meeting Point), light explosions (South of the North), prismatic clouds and pareidolic effects (Prims Clouds, Pareidolia).
In this book, Goiris seems to offer visual flashes of the possible (dystopian or utopian?) future. With these 'outlooks', the photographer displays a transverse approach to the medium of photography. 'Prophet meets my wish to view photographs as predictions instead of archival documents. In most of the arts, the anticipation of things yet to come (the whole idea of the avant-garde) has always been deemed legitimate and inspiring, but photography proves very difficult to break free from its referent and is usually read quite one-dimensionally as a fragment of the past. For me, it is more interesting to have photos work as omens,' says Goiris. With Prophet, he has already accomplished this objective in an intriguing manner.
