Transformance - Hardcover

Müller-Pohle's photographs are the result of a theoretical reflection. His theory of photography, as expressed in various writings and lectures, needs to be stated before the pictures themselves are to be considered. There is nothing empirical, naive about them, and if they seem to be the results of spontaneous motions, this is due to disciplined deliberation. "In his book Transformance Andreas Müller-Pohle presents the result of such an effort to photograph the inside of the camera, instead of photographing the outside world. His strategy to escape from the camera program is deceptively simple. The camera prescribes a specific sequence of gestures for the photographer to execute. What happens through this inversion is a true revolution of photographic vision. The outside world disappears from it. The freedom of choice is transferred from the decision to press upon the releaser toward the decision to select one among numerous pictures taken by chance. This freedom is exercised, not within the camera program, but after the camera function, and it acts upon the automatically produced pictures. And the criteria of choice are no longer imposed by the dubious relation between the picture and the outside world, but have become purely formal (aesthetic)". Vilém Flüsser