Atomized
PROJECT
atomized
Spanning several decades of shooting around the world, experiences of anxiety and disillusionment are explored in this ongoing body of street photography.
The black & white, 35mm film format served as a bridge between Tihany’s background in fine arts and his work as a filmmaker, however, the spontaneous and momentary nature of photographing in public space fostered a distinctly subconscious orientation to both the practice of observing street scenes and in the pictures taken.
In humanistic and biological terms, fragility and collective demise emerge as central themes in the work; suggestions of dislocation, collapse, and despair feature heavily throughout the pictorial landscape – desolate and fraught with often wry funereal connotations. Underscored by the fixation on convergences of menace and vulnerability (symbolic, and at times literal), the tenor of dread that pervades an anxious imagination is also brought into relief as a subject in and of itself.
While Cartier-Bresson and Erwitt bear influence in the work, to a greater degree the attitudes of still-life and landscape photography inform its depiction of a heightened unreality. Through the appearance of orchestration, the concept of an inversion of consciousness between living and inert subjects becomes animated, though no influence or staging is ever imposed on the pictures. A haunted sense of life is rendered lurking in nearly all corners of the disquieted perspective, as architecture and effigies stir amidst a mostly unaware or incapacitated human presence.
The series is ongoing, displayed as framed prints and in differing editorial arrangements.
Editions Varied
MEDIUM Pigment Photographic Prints
