Edgar Lissel (born 1965 in

Northeim Northeim (; nds, Nuurten) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, seat of the district of Northeim, with, in 2011, a population of 29,000. It lies on the German Half-Timbered House Road. History Northeim is first mentioned in 800 in a document ...

, Germany) is a visual artist. He studied photography at the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt. Since 1993 he has been working as a visual artist. In his interdisciplinary projects he searches for traces of the tension between natural science, archeology, arthistory and artistic work while examining pictorial processes and the

ephemeral Ephemerality (from the Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, fr ...

state of images. In his early works Edgar Lissel has been using the

camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is a darkened room with a aperture, small hole or lens at one side through which an image is 3D projection, projected onto a wall or table opposite the hole. ''Camera obscura'' can also refer to analogous constructions su ...

and converted a transporter into a mobile

pinhole camera A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture (the so-called ''pinhole'')—effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the aperture and projects an inverted image o ...

. With his works about the italian fascism and the German

national socialism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...

he has been invited to the

Venice Architecture Biennale Venice Biennale of Architecture (in Italian Mostra di Architettura di Venezia) is an international exhibition of architecture from nations around the world, held in Venice, Italy, every other year. It was held on even years until 2018, but 202 ...

in 1996. His works "Räume“ are based around living quarters and museum displays which he converted into walk-in pinhole cameras. Simple optical principles combine the upside down scene outside the pinhole camera with the

silhouette A silhouette ( , ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhou ...

s of the objects inside the camera. Since 1999, Edgar Lissel has been working with

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

, using their

phototropic Phototropism is the growth of an organism in response to a light stimulus. Phototropism is most often observed in plants, but can also occur in other organisms such as fungi. The cells on the plant that are farthest from the light contain a hor ...

properties to produce his images. The bacteria move out of the shadowed areas into the light. At the

Domus Aurea The Domus Aurea (Latin, "Golden House") was a vast landscaped complex built by the Emperor Nero largely on the Oppian Hill in the heart of ancient Rome after the great fire in 64 AD had destroyed a large part of the city.Roth (1993) It repla ...

(Rome) he collaborated with microbiologists from the University of Rome and archeologists of the Soprintendenza Roma in examining the decay of frescoes caused by contamination from a culture of bacteria. In his artistic realisation he used the same bacteria, which are destroying the “original” site, as active participants in a constructive image process. Since 2004 Edgar Lissel is using his

skin flora Skin flora, also called skin microbiota, refers to microbiota (communities of microorganisms) that reside on the skin, typically human skin. Many of them are bacteria of which there are around 1,000 species upon human skin from nineteen phyla.P ...

for his artistic image production. By physical contact with a nutrient agar his body leaves traces in the form of bacterial colonies, which mirror the contours of his body.

Publications

2008 “Vom Werden und Vergehen der Bilder - Edgar Lissel“, Publisher Schlebrügge Vienna,

References

External links

* http://www.edgarlissel.de {{DEFAULTSORT:Lissel, Edgar German artists 1965 births Living people