PRAGUE.- The Berlin-based artist Andreas M黮ler-Pohle is one of the key figures engaged in the ontological as well as representational essence of photography since the mid 1970s. Since the 1990s, he has reflected on the radical changes in the essence of technical images. The constantly reoccurring question of the encoding and meaning of information and its dialectical opposition to entropy and chance point to the mutual influence of M黮ler-Pohle’s爓ork and the thinking of the Czech-born media philosopher Vil閙 Flusser. The artist’s�“select retrospective” in Prague consists of 17 series and projects: from his influential early “visualistic” series of photographs to multimedia works dealing with the transition between analogue and digital codes and the newest long-term projects depicting current civilization in a爂lobal perspective.

VISUALISM AND ENTROPY
While the author’s爁irst photographic series, “Constellations” (1976—1979), distilled the principles of avant-garde photography down to primary forms, the series that followed, “Transformance” (1979—1982), is a爇ind of ironic deconstruction of a�“photographic gesture”, foreshadowing the subsequent “quantum” arrangements of his further projects.

The artist’s爐heoretical and publishing activities also had fundamental importance for European photography. In 1979, M黮ler-Pohle founded the still influential magazine European Photography, in which he published, one year later, his manifest of visualism, where he convincingly described, based on existing history, the position of many other authors at the end of modernity (in the Czech environment, for example, Štěp醤 Grygar, Miroslav Machotka or Marie Kratochv韑ov� were freely inspired by him). In 1981, M黮ler-Pohle met the media philosopher Vil閙 Flusser at a爏ymposium in D黶seldorf, which initiated a燿ecade of very close and prolific cooperation. In 1983, European Photography published Flusser’s爁undamental essay “F黵 eine Philosophie der Fotografie” (Towards a燩hilosophy of Photography) in the form of a燽ook, which soon became one of the key texts on the theory of photography in the 20th century.

M黮ler-Pohle’s爏ubsequent series (“Albufera”, “Dacapo”, “Signa” and the “Cyclograms”) further examine and undermine the integrity of the photographic image as an independent visual symbol, as well as the relations of its further use. In his project “Entropia” (1996), the artist reacted to the omnipresence of paintings with a爎adical gesture: He had eleven thousand photographs, lithographic films, framed images and other photographic “waste” scrapped by a爃uge industrial shredder. This act served as the final outcome of M黮ler-Pohle’s�“iconoclastic” phase. The final video shows the process of the extinction of images, oscillating between ecology and the black hole. A爈ater outcome of this project also includes two isolated “photosculptures”: Photo Box and a爏et of Entropic Cylinders, made from the subsequent “entropic” garbage that perfectly illustrated the gradual extinction of analogue information.

CODES AND HISTORY
Since the mid 1990s, M黮ler-Pohle also pursued the then gradually incoming of images, beginning with the series “Digital Scores (after Nic閜hore Ni閜ce)”, for which he digitalised Ni閜ce’s爌hotograph “La cour du domaine du Gras” (View from a燱indow in Le Gras), 1826, into alphanumeric code. It seems here that a爊atural step after the apocalyptic Entropy would be to turn to the upcoming digitalization, which came to establish a爊ew order of things. In the following years, M黮ler-Pohle became one of the first artists to work with the decomposition and translation of analogue and digital image codes (“Face Codes”, “Blind Genes” and “Sojourner II”).

In several projects, M黮ler-Pohle transformed the subject of coding (or even codification) on a爌olitically historical level: In a爁ilm record of a爎adio speech announcing the bombing of Hiroshima, we see President Harry S. Truman joking; in contrast, the memory of Hiroshima is transformed by a�“historic” record created by an antique film camera, underpinned by a燾ontemporary audio walk around the “ABomb Dome”, Hiroshima’s爓ell-known landmark.

GLOBAL SYSTEMS
A燾ompletely new phase of M黮ler-Pohle’s爓ork begins with the extensive “Danube River Project” (2005—2006), which documents the entire stream of this great European river from photographic, ecological and cultural perspectives.

The project “Hong Kong Waters” (2009—2010) freely follows up on the above, as well as on the “Transformance” series, since it makes use of accidental exposures from a燾amera floating on water; this time, however, the result is an extensive photographic and film document of the constantly growing megalopolis from the water surface view. The artist’s爉ost recent project has global dimensions: In the as yet incomplete series titled “Studies on Traffic”, he examines the patterns of movement in various parts of the world (especially in Asia, to which he has a爏pecial connnection). The commotion of motorcycles in Vietnam, the rhythm of a燽usy street in Hong Kong interrupted by a爏udden grotesque accident, or an endless traffic jam, all portray our current civilization as a爏eemingly indescribable Brownian motion consisting of billions of subjective entities.

As a爓hole, Andreas M黮ler-Pohle’s爋euvre follows a爓ell thought out and logical path from classic photography to complicated syst閙 phenomena, and demonstrates that he is a爑nique artist, linking theoretical and artistic thought across four decades. With a燾omplexity that captivates and questions at the same time, M黮ler-Pohle’s爓ork reveals more about the world in the past several decades than we are perhaps willing to admit.