Hi Georg, could you tell us your early memories about photography?

Georg Zinsler (GZ): My earliest memory about photography is about a poster, a reproduction of a museum’s oil painting, that was hanging on the wall of my parents apartment, when I was about four years old. On it there was this child, I cannot remember for certain, maybe it was an angel or a cupid of some kind. Well one day, my parents had left me unattended, I produced a bottle of tipp-ex and painted the angel’s toenails white (I was too little to reach the hands…), my parents were not very amused.  Now I cannot say for certain, what that episode tells about my character or my sexual orientation at that time, but it seems quite obvious that I was in an early process of reflecting on visual media. Or maybe I was just being a funny child…

Where did you grow up? Tell us something about the place of your childhood…

GZ: I grew up in a rather protected environment in the early eighties in Vienna on the western side of the iron curtain. Nothing wrong with growing up in a boring place really, since you hardly happen to be bored anyway as a kid. Most likely you find yourself racing down a quite respectable hill while having a discussion with your best friend, who might just turn out to be an imaginary tiger. Anyway I cannot remember getting in touch with a lot of art before attending school. And at the time where I was already busy studying medicine I realised I really missed something in my life. Some form of passion, which I probably still had possessed during the earlier mentioned down-hill episode of my childhood. Well in a way I think, I was just afraid of becoming boring as well.

You are based in Vienna, Austria. How is it living in this town? What would you recommend? And culturally speaking what makes it interesting?

GZ: Gustav Mahler is supposed to have said, «If the world comes to an end, I will go to Vienna. Everything happens 50 years later there». And I think artistically this still rings true somehow, but then this can also be quite a relief at times in a world where everyone is trying to catch the same train. Also I am afraid it is hard to completely ignore these modern communication services anyway, so I guess Vienna is not so much different than to the rest of Europe. There is always money for art that attracts tourism, while the actually exciting contemporary projects are struggling to survive. But I guess it is a rather good place for living. And I just read that people in Vienna are almost as unfriendly as in Paris. What an achievement!

With regard to photography. Any good museum, gallery or independent space you would pick for our readers?

GZ: If you allow me, I would like to pick something to tell you about, that I am currently working on with some fellow photographers - although not solely & necessarily Vienna related, I hope that is ok. It is called 'Reflektor' and it is supposed to be a platform for photographers who like to self-publish their books. As you know there are quite some advantages to self-publishing your book, but the main problem is the lack of a distribution system. And that’s where we come in. We are making a magazine, we are present at international photo-festivals, we are organising parties, and we simply love books! Also we kind of consider ourselves a family for photographers. The best thing is, you don’t have to be Austrian, so I would like to invite you to take a look.

About your background. You received a photojournalistic education at Speos Paris Photographic Institute and studied Image Science at Danube University Krems. Tell us about them…

GZ: Two very different places. Speos taught me the craftsmanship and introduced me to the world of photography. Image Science taught me to take apart what I had learned, to analyse and to reflect on it. Although rather by coincidence I think it was a really interesting combination.

Any good professor you remember…

GZ: Mostly I appreciate the people who challenge my way of thinking. I could mention names now, but I will not.

Things have radically changed within the photo community. Fast technological developments, digital revolution, social media... How does all of this affect your way of looking and representing the world?

GZ: I think we have reached the limits of the traditional medium “photography”. Obviously everything that could have been done, has been done. That is why today many artists are trying to find their uniqueness in a post-photography approach. Pushing the limits, asking the question, where can we go from here? Also many of the contemporary topics - you mentioned social media and the digital revolution - they simply require a different way of documenting. Like how do you take a photo of social media? For somebody concerned about where our society is heading, it can be a very exciting period. For me personally I try to walk a healthy line between submerging myself in this fast pacing craziness and taking a step back every now and then and simply enjoying some good old “unconnected” time somewhere in and with nature.

Your last book 'The Sentinel Script' is "a mysterious sci-fi tale and a metaphor of the increasingly nebulous boundary between reality and entertainment". What are you basic assumptions?

GZ: What fascinated me from the beginning was the stark contrast between the market oriented entertainment industry and the real world catastrophe of Chernobyl, that seemed to seamlessly dissolve in popular culture. How does popular culture deal with a historic tragedy like Chernobyl? And what would be an adequate way to talk about this? While I am sure it could have been done in a documentary way, to me the artistic approach seemed way more suitable since it enabled me to talk about the phenomenon while mirroring it. Also I like to think that 'The Sentinel Script' builds on traditional works of science fiction that pioneered many of the ideas behind it.  But mostly I liked the fact, that it can be understood either as a stand-alone science-fiction novel or as an evaluation of our societal values, a form of criticism of late capitalism or if you want even as a contemporary witness to our abusive behaviour towards our planet. The name is the key: 'The Sentinel Script'.

© Georg Zinsler, book 'The Sentinel Script'

© Georg Zinsler, book 'The Sentinel Script'

© Georg Zinsler, book 'The Sentinel Script'

© Georg Zinsler, book 'The Sentinel Script'

© Georg Zinsler, book 'The Sentinel Script'

The book refers to a post-atomic climate. It includes pictures you took during guided tours of Chernobyl. Firstly, what were your impressions of the places affected by the nuclear cataclysm?

GZ: It is a place both tragic and beautiful. While it cannot be put into numbers how much suffering was caused by human error at Chernobyl, the beauty is that, simply because man has made this place vastly uninhabitable for himself, nature has actually overcome the human presence in the exclusion zone. There is a certain stillness both in time and in place to be discovered there, which I guess makes it worth a visit.
Well … that leads me to the one distracting element you will find: tourism. And there is no denying that this post-apocalyptic wonderland attracts lots of tourists. It is a wound on the planet that pulls in scientists, history enthusiasts, artists, urban explorers, eschatologists and many more and it sparks the imagination. And while it is not surprising to me to see Chernobyl finding its way into popular culture, it still seems remarkable to see this historic human disaster being turned into the origin of a zombie story for example.

© Georg Zinsler from the series 'The Sentinel Script'

© Georg Zinsler from the series 'The Sentinel Script'

© Georg Zinsler from the series 'The Sentinel Script'

You also mixed your images with stills from thematically related movies and video games. Why? And how you selected and worked out this fictional archive?

GZ: It seemed like an obvious choice to interweave the photos of tourists with the screenshots of characters of movies and video games once I knew what I wanted to achieve. While it was my intention to reproduce the elements of entertainment, it seemed clear that I also wanted to work with the genuine raw material. At this point I would also like to credit Discipula, the Italian visual masterminds, with whom I had the pleasure to work on the project. Not only did they create the design of the book, but they also had a huge impact on the genesis of the project. Their understanding of images as well as their way of working with them and sequencing them can be felt throughout the whole book. I am very happy, I had the chance to work together with them on 'The Sentinel Script'.

© Georg Zinsler from the series 'The Sentinel Script'

© Georg Zinsler from the series 'The Sentinel Script'

I like how the book proceeds. Like a slow approach to the core. There is a tense atmosphere that grows from one page to another. The human presence somehow makes it less dramatic. We can feel the aftertaste of scientific expedition, somehow entertaining... Something that has to do with the reader's perception?

GZ: Well obviously it is tricky for me to talk about the reader’s perception, but as an author of course it is your wish to draw the reader in on the one hand, while - ideally - making him question his own perception on the other hand. The human interaction with this post-apocalyptic world forms a centre pillar of the book, which indeed has elements of a report of a scientific expedition. But ultimately, as reality becomes fiction or entertainment, the memories of the human presence get blurred and it becomes a script of a tragic event with the roots of the tragedy both in reality and in entertainment.

© Georg Zinsler from the series 'The Sentinel Script'

© Georg Zinsler from the series 'The Sentinel Script'

© Georg Zinsler from the series 'The Sentinel Script'

Grand Tour was a long journey in continental Europe made by the rich young men of the European aristocracy from the seventeenth century and destined to perfect their knowledge. The visit to the classic ruins was a must. What do you think of the attraction that modern ruins play today.

GZ: Grand Tour was mainly a cultural voyage, I think, with the aim of strengthening the travellers’ knowledge of architecture and the arts. The Roman ruins were of considerable age and from what I know, few of the travellers made it to Greece since it was still under Turkish rule then.
I think, the attraction of modern day ruins comes from the fact that they picture a society not so different from ours. They mirror our way of living, showing a potential future, a dystopian vision of what might be, if we as a society permit ourselves to be overcome either by hubris or - which I think is far more likely - simply by indifference.

What are you working on lately?

GZ: I do not like to talk a lot about my work in progress, but what I can say is it will have a strong media-analytical aspect focussing on the male gaze. Kind of going back to painting toenails…

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Georg Zinsler