Fw: asked me to create a textual work corresponding to two exhibitions of Paulien Oltheten and Raymond Taudin Chabot held at De Balie, Amsterdam in 2009.

Experimenting and reflecting on my role as writer, I explored the human need and search for logic and structure in creative processes (like writing/ photographing etc) and linked it to the photographic work of the two artists.

[...]

This is where the experiment begins:
I decide to hang on to this passage from thinking into writing longer than usual, keeping to the groundwork of preliminary lists instead of shaping them into an article with a certain hierarchy, beginning and conclusion. I soon discover that it is difficult for me to come to terms with leaving my roughly drafted arguments as they are.
I am too much a fan of filing systems that provide an appropriate place for objects and documents, thus creating an imaginary refuge from chaos and confusion. On closer investigation, they don’t always relate to reality in a way that makes a lot of sense. Then again, I often can’t help but construct yet another new and improved system to outdo the previous. Knowing that my last system will not be the ultimate doesn’t interfere with my wish for improvement. On the contrary, I’ll keep on searching.

Similarly, in his book Cast (part 2), Raymond Taudin Chabot takes pieces of his photo series Silent Queue (2008) and reassembles them. Microwave ovens, chairs, newspapers on a table, and wall decorations, all taken from his series about waiting rooms, are set apart in austere frames, the subject positioned at the very center. The fragments of the photos are appointed a new system. The sequence of images that is created reminds me of my list of notes. Just like my arguments, Raymond’s pictures contain recurring elements, leaving the underlying systematics (as yet) unstated. In Raymond’s case, the system won’t reveal itself and the pictures continue to be symbolic for the act of ‘waiting’ itself. 

[...]

Order

Prikkelende Afwezigheid (eng. Teasing Absence) thematizes the role of blurriness in contemporary photography. I 'focused' in particular on the influence, blurriness has on the perception of the viewer of photographs and how it can change the meaning we give to the medium photography in general. The other aspect I was interested in, is the sociological and cultural background from which such a popularity of blurred images in contemporary art can be explained. There are several recent (art-)philosophical researches based on the need for the Unbestimmtheit in modern literature, philosophy, science and art (Gerhard Gamm, Gernot Boehme, Wolfgang Ullrich), which I combine with scientific literature about the mediumspecifics of photography (Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, Vilem Flusser etc).

My approach is based on and inspired by the way phenomenology emphasizes on the perception as source for scientific research (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Roman Ingarden & Martin Heidegger).

Blackwell Publishing released Photographic Theory in Historical Perspective by Hilde van Gelder & Heleen van Westgeest, with my thesis about blurriness cited (april 2011). an excerpt

Op stap met Willem is the result of a concept I developped together with Emily de Valk under the supervision of the Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas.

This project is about a visual characterisation of the Twijnstraat - a busy little shoppingstreet in the southern part of the inner city of Utrecht- through the eyes of psychiatric patients who live around the corner in the Willem Arntsz Huis. And here comes the title: Op stap met Willem means strolling around with Willem.But Willem is a non-existing person, except that in 1492 he founded the Willem Arntsz Huis which nowadays is a big institution to treat people with mental illness. The unique thing about this institution is that it is situated in the middle of the city, which makes the patients stroll around in the surrounding area and let them participate in 'normal' daily life.
We asked a couple of patients to photograph their favorite spots with throw-away cameras. Those photographs culminate in the book with quotes from interviews we had with them about funny coincidences, their memories about the Twijnstraat and about the people they daily meet while strolling around. Things like, where to get the cheapest cheese, about falling in love with the supermarket girl etc.
Parallel we also interviewed the shop owners who are the ones who integrate the patients in their daily life and who would miss them if one day they wouldn't stroll and sing on the Twijnstraat anymore. I also made photographs of those shopowners to actually see who is meeting who.

The result is a book, I designed with the photographs of the patients and mine combined with the quotes of both- shopowners and patients in an intimate way. The photobook has been published in march 2008 by het Willem Arntsz Huis ( ISBN 978 90 79518 01 2 ).