Camouflage

Simon Menner

A strange relation between the visible and invisible can be detected in today’s conflicts. Drones and snipers both strive to remain invisible. In order to exert the largest possible effect, this invisibility is further heightened through the media. An unseen drone can kill people, while a drone whose existence is made known can seem even more devastating, regardless of whether it actually exists. An invisible war requires the media to work properly. The interplay between the visible and the invisible also features in Simon Menner’s photography. The viewer remains uncertain regarding the artist’s claim that a sniper is hidden in each of his landscape images. It’s an attempt to playfully address the invisible aspect of today’s conflicts, while at the same time inquiring into photography’s potential authenticity. In this work, photographs are a strange sort of evidence, in that the viewer has the sense that the images are authentic, even as the invisible remains invisible.