Description
“Who the hell is Sputnik?” author Timm Starl is wondering at the beginning of his text about a recent Vienna photo collection project. And he provides substantial answers: “Sputnik is an alien orbiting the earth, father to all signal-receiving and data-sending satellites that spy on us and promise orientation. Sputnik is the paragon of satellite; the one known to everyone; a satellite of fame not granted to its successors, the more so as they appear en masse and must therefore put up with abbreviations and numbers. Sputnik is provided with antennae put out like tentacles that might seem the legs of a tripod, so that the satellite assumes the shape of a camera standing on firm ground, taking its time to fulfil its observer mission. We have chosen Sputnik as a byword for the view from outside, off that beaten track characterised by the fact that invariably the same pictures by the same famous authors are taken out, displayed, printed, and reviewed. Sputnik stands for a new look at photographs, a different conception of collecting. Sputnik is thus also a point of view.”
