Inverting

Inverting a photography means to turn it into its negative by way of digital processing, thus creating an image which, by way of its diametrical inversion of light and dark as well as an alteration of its colours in a complementary way, not only changes the object depicted on its strictly physical, external level, but also interprets its meaning in a new sense. Hence, an inverted image refreshes the viewing experience of the beholder.

This short summary only briefly implies that inverted images are able to give their objects unfamiliar meanings which are subject to new interpretation. This is done by a reciprocal inversion of light and dark on the one hand, and by distortions of colours within the image itself, on the other. It has turned out that not only complementary colours but also colours which are generally alien to an object significantly help to impact the force of the effect of this “unfamiliarity.”

The Beauty of the Unfamiliar

However, the fundamental element being responsible for a primary impression initially surprising the beholder is without doubt the inversion of light and dark. It seems to be a substantial challenge for the human brain to be confronted with a usually bright spot suddenly being dark and vice versa, in the process leading to an astonishing phenomenon: what our brain is dealing with is perceived as beautiful. But is this only about beauty? I feel in this context also a little hint of the forbidden, since inverting the world into its opposite seems to me as being prohibited – it is like breaking a taboo, since everything has to remain exactly the way I am familiar with. The basic requirement of order and complacency is the naturalness of the world. I am at home and at ease in this traditional environment, intact as a human being functioning in a basically sensual way, since my entire personality stems from the experiences within and with this world.

Strictly speaking, an image shows only the object, so the ‘honest’ wording should be in fact: “there is an object depicted in this image” rather than “there is an object in the image.” Accordingly, any image depicts only the inverted world. Its impact is not direct and immediate, but, by way of the depiction, rather indirect and mediate, meaning that the personality of the beholder does not actually lose his or her embedding in the real world, but rather media-experiences an inverted, different and seemingly real world. This indirect impact is however sufficient to set an aesthetic process in motion starting with amazement, later followed by the rise of a feeling of beauty.

Unfamiliar, but not Alien

What does that mean? Well, the inverted world the way my photos show it is indeed unfamiliar, but not alien or new. It is only depicted in an extraordinarily distinct way, since we are quite familiar with inverted viewing. After each view and each ocular movement we see very dimly for fractions of a second the inversion of what we have seen immediately before as a positive. The subtle and delicate colours together with their quick fading result in our perception of this inverted image in individual cases only, for example when regarding a flower bouquet against a white backdrop for an extended period of time. As soon as we concentrate our view on a white surface after that, we will see the flower bouquet in its inverted version.

Hence, each view of the presence is superimposed by the invertive – like a spectre of the past displaying what we have seen in the past. When it comes to our optical apparatus, we perceive the past only by way of its inversion. Seen from a physical angle, the invertive is formed the same moment as the positive, however becoming apparent not until the original view is completely terminated. This is why the positive is a snapshot-in-time of the presence, the invertive a rendition of the past.

Would we regard an object only very briefly, then immediately going on to the next and continue in this way, several invertives would put themselves on top of each other and the correlation of presence and past would become multi-layered and interwoven. Maybe this is another reason why the connection of presence with the past is so conventional for us.

An Insight-View into the Past

If we concentrate on the realization that each normal, positive impression is followed by an inverted, negative one, in this way all events of the past trying to commemorate themselves in the presence, inverted images are then nothing but substantiations of the past.

One could very well argue that each photo shows indeed nothing but the past. But that, however, only seems to be true, since, strictly speaking, a photo shows the presence the moment it was taken. Attributable to the particular physiologic characteristics of our optical apparatus the past reveals itself precisely only in the form of an invertive, and that is why inverted photos are images of the past – showing the yesterdays.

Objectivity and Interpretation

Apart from inverting light and dark, there also exists the inverting of colours, converting colours into their complementary “counterparts” (from Latin complementum: complement). These colours are arranged opposite to one another in the colour wheel and are complementing itself through their addition to black – black being lightened up results in a neutral that is colourless, vivid grey.

Through the strict photo-technical process of complementarily inverting, for example by way of an image processing application, the past is presented without any personal participation, quite objectively as it were, since the personal mark of the photographer is missing – if one leaves aside the photography as is for once. The term “objective” is derived from the Latin obiectus, meaning “lying in the way or opposite to something”. The idea that a strictly digital invertive might be nothing but an objective representation of the past gains in significance if we consider the fact that in the colour wheel complementary colours are likewise “lying opposite” to each other.

The exceptional distinctness and visual force of a digitally inverted photo has already been mentioned in the foregoing and is highly acknowledged and appreciated by myself as a unique feature in the context of the creative process. Again, if we apply all this to ourselves as human beings in the light of our perception of the invertive, objectivity becomes questionable, since our own optical invertive is much paler and by far not that clear-cut. Furthermore, biological inversion creates different colours, with tonal values being not that distinct and clear. They appear more individual and are startling the beholder through their high precision in terms of their complementary value. If a digital inversion is described as objective, it is quite obvious to describe by analogy any biological pale, blurred and fuzzy inversion as subjective – not so much in a psychological, but rather in a physical understanding. It interprets and evaluates the past through lack of intensity and fuzziness.

It is exactly this approach to interpretation that interests me. By treating the colours in the image of my photos I dedicate myself to this process, not trying to attempt to approximate my personal recollections and memories of the past in this way, but rather aiming at a re-interpretation of the image of the past in bringing it close to the state I perceive as the ideal one. Hence, the past becomes an ideal-aesthetic incidence.

Positive on Top of Invertive Amounts to Nothing

Experience teaches us that if you place a positive on top of an invertive both images will add up to grey, presenting some incoherent, unrelated contours within this grey, making it rather difficult to recognise a fragmented depiction of any object – quite in a way as if the incidence per se never had happened in the first place.

This “superimposition” of images occurs in nature most likely at the moment when the actual instant is happening, since, as explained in the foregoing, an invertive emerges in the very moment of viewing, but becomes apparent only afterwards.

The analysis of an event or incidence clearly proves that any process not fully completed has not yet given birth to precisely this incidence – therefore it does not exist.

Let us assume I take a picture of a stone penetrating water: what you see are the stone and the destroyed surface with its waters heavily splashing. This is an unmistakably defined image. Its invertive would likewise be defined as clearly and unmistakably. When adding both images, the result would be a grey, non-defined image, making it impossible to depict the incidence described, so, in strictly practical terms, an image of this incidence would not exist. Hence, this picture would neither depict presence nor past; it would rather be like a view in between the moments presenting us nothing – the void.

Rainer Hykes, March 1/2, 2011

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