The Makroskop is a work by Boris Hars-Tschachotin and Hannes Nehls, currently on exhibition at the Berlin Photography Museum along with the Newton collection. The installation consists of a spiral-shaped array of screen-strips on which a continuous collaged image is projected. The image is slowly grinding towards the center of the spiral. There is also sound and as a whole creates a very maelstrom-esque appearance of the piece that is quite beautiful. Apparently, there is also some degree of interactivity which allows one to touch a part of the collage in order make more images from the same context appear, thus rendering it a kind of macroscope for the pool of images.

The photos have been taken from the private collection of Sergej Stepanowitsch Tschachotin, a Russian scientist and political activist who had been visually documenting his life throughout all of his impressive biography. In the beginning of the last century, he developed an optical lancet, which for many is the predecessor of today’s laser, but with the Russian revolution he got more and more tangled up in political engagement. In the end of his life, he had criss-crossed Europe, sometimes relentlessly fighting for peace, sometimes researching and left a collection of photos that tells a thousand stories about the 20th century in Europe. The Makroskop takes on that collection and tries to make it experiencable, which for me actually worked really well.

On exhibition until April 23th. Thanks Matt Karau!

Related: Lies, all Lies by Hannes Nehls.