Berlin In Situ

We recognize some objects by the shape they have... from far!

The real experience in situ (in place) of big objects, like buildings or monuments, opposes to the previous mental image that often we have of those objects either by our cultural background either by a previous preparation to the visit of these big objects (as traveller's guides, postcards and so on).

If we document that real experience of being in the place of a big object with a photography, one having aproximatlely the same field of view than human vision, the result usually is a partial picture more or less difficult to interpretate and in anything similar to that we had in mind, which is normally based on images taken by others, from the distance and with the purpose to show us a complete and particular sight of the object.

This conflict in our perception mechanism between our own experience and its image and that previsualization of other people's origin triggers a series of reactions (usually unconscious) that go from the fascination of the unusual of those our images to the discomfort or even the rejection (own or by others) of our experience in favor of the previously based and somehow standardized knowledge.

So a game settles down between the complete and the partial, the concrete and the almost abstract, between other people's and the own thing.