© Marieke Busser, Untitled

Tell us about your approach to photography, how it started. What are your memories of your first shots?

Marieke Busser (MB) - When I was little I used to sneak up to the attic where my father kept all of his magazines, books and photo albums. I could look at the images and pictures repeatedly for ages.  One of the magazines had a weekly photo of Ed van der Elsken. Raw, black and white photography of young people in the streets of Amsterdam, and I was fascinated by the interaction between the photos and my mind. I saw a moment that my mind transformed into situations with sound. They became (my own) short films.
I could also stare at things for a long time, trying to find a change in what I was looking at. For example I could look at the sunlight trying to break trough the blinds in my room and after a while they transformed into lines because my eyes got tired of looking at the same thing. I often closed my eyes to see what remained on the back of my eyes to analyse what I had seen.

From staring to wandering to staring to wandering to staring to wandering…

Because of staring outside while sitting in the windowsill, in the train, on my bike, in the classroom or wandering away in a book, a lot of those moments are still with me, trying to find their way and waiting patiently for the right moment to come out. My first shots I made with a pencil and a drawing paper, in an attempt to hold on to what I had discovered during the staring and closing my eyes.  I don’t remember when I took my first shots with a camera; I guess this happened on a holiday when I was little. When I went to art school for the first time in the nineties I had to learn how photography worked according to the rules of photography. This was difficult for me; it was as if I had to change the way I looked at things. Suddenly there was this ‘frame’ I had to deal with, and mathematics to get the ‘right’ photo. It made me very insecure, questioning my freedom of looking, analysing and wandering. I let it frame my mind.
Those first shots were from my surroundings, and the one I remember best is a black and white photo of the refuse bags outside our house.

© Marieke Busser, ‘est-scape’, video installation, loop, 2.21 min, 2012

How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?

MB - Slowly but surely I got my freedom back. I started to look at photography as an experiment. I got used to the given of a frame and installed it in my mind as one of countless possibilities. It gave me the opportunity to see the details, different places emerged and new situations started to occur. 

Now I know that a camera is the closest thing I have found to be able to take with me what I find. As long as I am in control of the camera and not the other way around. I am the director. For me the camera is a necessary evil, a machine with a lot of possibilities and a programme to manipulate an element or some truth. But it also gives me the opportunity to take with me what I find, see, feel and hear. I cannot take these situations, spheres, places or sounds with my eyes, my mind and bare hands and if I want to combine them I need a camera. I like to listen to what I see, hear what I feel and see what I think. These things combined give me the artwork I create. With my pictures and my video installations I create new situations or different spaces. The history of my registrations seeps through into the piece of art.

© Marieke Busser, Untitled

When photography is a (sub)division: how is photography related within your work?

MB - My photographical work is a research for the short films that I create. These films are often presented in a loop, some of them are site specific, with what I refer to the places, spheres or situations I was in (or at) when I was filming there. It refers to the place I was at that moment, when I was editing and when it is presented. It’s always ongoing. Sometimes I print the photos and put them together to create the right sphere or mood to start filming or editing. Most of the time I go through them in my head, like going through a card catalogue, questioning my memory of a photo. I like to call them synopses in sphere, or they are scenes or parts of scenes (of a film that may never be there). I am often questioning the given of staging while filming, photographing or editing. 

The involvement of sound is also very important to me, I listen to the photos while analyzing them and what I hear transforms into (part of ) an image, photo or film as well. There are almost never people in my work because they claim a story. If there is a person in my artwork, it’s mostly about the way they move in the photo, as a part of the composition.

What do you think is important for the emergence of your work? What makes a picture a strong image?

MB - What makes a picture a strong picture for me is having the courage to show the not knowing of things and the desire to wanting to know. I question everything I experience around me and analyse how it evolves in my mind. I am fascinated by the dusk because everything changes really slowly and constantly uncovers new information until it gets dark. For me it’s somewhat like questioning what I know and what I see. It gives me the ability to discover new things in the existing forms, as we know them.

© Marieke Busser, ‘Surplace’

About your work now. Can you describe your personal research in general?

MB - My personal research is about the essence of a moment and what happens between movement and stasis. I am exploring the space between film and photography and how it moves. It’s about analyzing awareness, about spheres, and about the desire to wanting to know.

© Marieke Busser, ‘Filmnoir’, site specific installation, diverse media, 2012

What are your considerations?

MB - For me it is a necessity to create, I often have difficulty finding the right words to say things, what makes me stutter in my mind. By creating I can make new sentences or words. I have also developed my own vocabulary, which is always evolving and often is shown in the titles of my artwork. These words are combinations of existing words that help me to say what I want to tell.

What is your main source of inspiration?

MB - There are lots of things that inspire me… Lampposts. A slip of the tongue. Wandering. Surplace. Opia. Erich Maria Remarque. Listening to films. The Binas. Roald Dahl. Staring. Powers of Ten. The way things around me change by the involvement - or lack of light. Curled posters. Red. Chemistry. Film Noir. Music. The awareness of a moment. Shadows. William Shakespeare. The force of nature. Jeff Wall. Synopsis. Samuel Beckett. What is left on the retina. Black and white photography. Vilém Flusser. Edward Hopper. Dark Romanticism. David Lynch. The way sound moves and looks like. Immanuel Kant. Short notes. The countless questions I have. State of mining. William Turner. Experimenting. Situations and places. Dusk. The Forensic Institute. Soll Lewitt. A lost scene. A sentence said in a different perspective. The way coat hangers jump on the carpet when dropped. The way philosophy works in the concept of art…

© Marieke Busser, ‘Fermate’

Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, who influenced you in a way?

MB - I am not sure if these artists influence me, but what I do know is that I have carried them with me for years and they tend to pop up now and then. I like Roald Dahl because of his way of writing and the interaction between my mind and his stories. The way a story leaves a book and enters a mind I find fascinating. 

Another artist is David Lynch; the way he talks about creating is fascinating, it’s like he is a brush and a canvas at the same time. The way they transform their thoughts into books ands films I find inspiring. For me it’s like they explore the zone between what is real and what is not, what is uncomfortable and what could be true.

Most of the art I admire give me parts of answers to the countless questions that I have. Sometimes I feel like a detective, looking for a clue in my own mind.
Some of the other artists: Thijs van Kimmenade, Davor Subaric, Thorgal, Ed van der Elsken, Dirk Braeckman, Gerard Holthuis, Weegee, Frederico Fellini, Erich Maria Remarque, Martin Arnold.

© Marieke Busser, installation, diverse media, 2011

Tell us about your latest project

MB - With my latest project I am working on a proposal for the High Court. My artwork will be shown in the chambers behind the courtrooms where the decision-making takes place. My artwork becomes part of the classified conversations that take place in these chambers. Their existence is only for a few eyes to be seen, and I am fascinated by the given of never knowing and hearing the things that my artwork will hear and see. I do not have a title or name yet, maybe it’s without a title.

Which projects are you working on now and are there plans or ‘needs’ for the future?

MB - Last summer I visited Berlin for filming and I am working on a new video-installation based on what I filmed over there. 
- Another project I worked on lately is a letter I wrote about how I’ve evolved as an artist after finishing my bachelor in fine arts and how I feel about the current situation in the Dutch art world. The letter will be published in a book called ‘41 Letters from young artists’. 
- Currently I have an exhibition called ‘Silent Witnesses’ that is about an old and empty apartment above the museum where the exhibition takes place. The apartment will be renovated and before that happened me and two other artists were asked to go up there and reflect on the current status of the rooms and what was left.
- I have collected a lot of pictures and notes and currently I am constructing a synopsis in a room. 
- I also would like to get my masters degree in fine arts, or maybe do an artist-in-residency.

Is there any show or film you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?

MB - I like to watch films and listen to them repeatedly, and they all differ in age. What I like about films is the places and situations I can find in them, apart from the story and how sound and image can evolve. The last ones I have seen recently that are still resonating in my head were ‘Melancholia’ by Lars von Trier, ‘Women in the Dunes’ by Hiroshi Teshigahara and ‘Wall-E’ by Disney-Pixar.

© Marieke Busser, ‘XR’, video installation, loop, 1.16 min

One to three books of photography or art that you recommend?

MB - ‘Dark Romanticism’ by Hatje Cantz, a book about the eponymous exhibition; ‘Eye love You’ by Ed van der Elsken, one of the books I know by heart. The third one is my notebook that I always carry with me.

How do you see the future of photography in general evolve?

MB - For me it feels like photography is losing its status of importance compared to when I was younger and there was a limited amount of pictures that you could take. I think photography gets a new definition almost every day. 
Sometimes it crosses my mind that this development could lead to a feeling of never getting satisfied. Not experiencing what is happening around you, no awareness. I feel it is necessary to keep experimenting with the given of photography, what it means to me and how it evolves. 

To take a moment, even if it is (put) in a frame, it is still a moment. Another aspect that I find fascinating is when the camera shows its inability to capture what I find. The struggle you can literally hear when it has difficulty with focussing or the red lights that pop up when it is programmed to tell you that there is not enough light to take a photo. What remains then are my eyes and my mind.

© Marieke Busser, Untitled

What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networking?

MB - I think it works two ways: it creates a lot of new possibilities and moves boundaries. New things occur daily and the technology evolves really fast. On the other side I feel a lack of concentration and involvement. A while ago I was on the train and while looking around I started to wonder why there are still windows in them. Nobody was looking out of the windows; they were all staring at their mobile devices. It’s not just photography; it is about the way people react on this era and how fast everything is going.

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LINKS
Marieke Busser 
The Netherlands