ALGAE AGENT

Algae Agent shows a photographic-research approach towards aquatic plants and their potential for a sustainable darkroom. Due to the phenols they contain, algae can act as a developing agent reducing exposed silver halides to metallic silver, when activated in an aqueous solution with sodium carbonate and ascorbic acid.

The project draws a line from collecting the algae on the Belgian coast, transporting them to the darkroom in Vienna, brewing a developer solution and developing a film in it, to the moment of direct contact between the algae and the photographic film material, out of which the plant produces its own silver image on roll film in the form of a phytogram. Questions about the relationship between the depicting and the depicted, about the interaction between the developing and the developed and about the materiality of photochemical processes revolve around the algae. The depicting and the depicted meet on one level, just as the distinction between the factual-documentary and the abstract-poetic qualities of photography becomes blurred.