Film negatives are chemical masterpieces. They consist of gelatinous layers of silver halide and dyes, which can be exposed to light and then developed into an array of colours. This intricate world of chemicals is lost once a picture comes to life. The viewer stops seeing a collection of chemicals and starts to see a subject. Max van der Wal has placed negatives into ground vegetable residue for several days. These vegetables begin to rot and house several fungi, which start to feed on the gelatinous layers of the film. The fungal growth becomes a chaotic, unpredictable process that eats away at the film, resulting in juxtapositions with the original content, and is then stopped without seeing the results. The traces showcase the complex growth of fungi that create a three-dimensional structure out of a flat surface by adding, removing and folding gelatinous layers containing various colours. Another method to showcase the film's material qualities is the mordançage process. Also known as bleach-etching, this is a highly chemical process that reacts with prints or negatives silver and causes the gelatine to be removed from the surface. Since it works more effectively on dark parts, the content of the photo is transformed from subjective meaning into a map of effects. Still retaining the image's outline, this uncontrollable method creates veils, gaps and a variety of one-of-a-kind effects.

‍

About

Max van der Wal has been educated as a sound artist at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Netherlands. Afterwards, he has broadened his spectrum of work by researching computer graphics and analogue film processes. During his research, he has dived deeply into systematic thinking, subjective experience and process. There has always been an underlying need to expose systems by following them extensively or mistreating them. He has taken various notions from the sonic world into the visual domain in computer graphics and analogue photography. Inspired by texts and works of John Cage, he utilises a variety of processes that lie beyond my control; with this, he challenges the notion of perfection in art and life itself. The artistic expression is found in the moments when he intervenes in the processes, imposing a human perspective onto a mindless system. The objects displayed in the frame are no longer the focus of the work but rather the processes and their unexpected outcome.