Interview with Jens Sundheim and Bernhard Reuss

Interviewer: Mindaugas Kavaliauskas

Since the dawn of the 21st century German artists Jens Sundheim and Bernhard Reuss have been working on a pretty ironic project, called “The Traveller” (Die Reisende), transforming one of the key aspects of travel – taking pictures in visited places – into a cult hands – free traveling without a camera in hands, but constructing the travel routes along with of places, interiors, landmarks that are publicly seen through web-cams. Beyond the teamwork of two friends hides a heavy-duty set of ideas about privacy of the image, gap in distances, quality of a photographic image, humour and irony of the contemporary society of broadcasting and surveillance.

M.K. What came before what – photography, you knowing each other, of was it immediately “The Traveller”?

Bernhard: We met at university where we both studied photography. We became friends, and travelled a lot. "The Traveller" started towards the end of our studies.

Jens: To photograph my diploma I went to Las Vegas, and shortly before I returned Bernhard wrote me an email, "I found a webcam in front of the MGM Grand Hotel, let's take your photo there, tomorrow at 3." When I stood there for about 10 minutes the next day (on my very last day there) I wasn't even sure if he got the image. We didn't use mobile phones at the time.

M.K. “The Traveller” was one of these early birds to announce the digitization of the still image, when in the dawn of the 21st century many saw the beginnings of the digital as “the naked king” - technology that exposed more of its drawbacks, than visible positive properties. How did the decision emerge of giving up traditional photography and taking into not just digital, but web-tele-photography?

Bernhard: When my collegue Sascha from an artist group in Wiesbaden found a controllable webcam at Zurich airport, he announced, "Installed cameras are all over the place that I can use to gain images. No need anymore to bring my own devices". "Would be interesting if you could interfere in the image, even from a distance", I said. The discussion went on, we sensed potential and started exploring it.

Jens was in the United States at the time, a perfect candidate for a cross-continent photo shoot. Soon after that he went to Scotland and established himself as "The Traveller".

Jens: Besides "The Traveller", I have to admit that I still use traditional photography for other projects. However, the omipresence, variety and visual outcome of the images still fascinate me. A lot of my time and efforts go into that project. Also, we both have webcam projects that we pursue on our own. Bernhard followed a trucker webcam in the american west for some time, I am collecting "100100 Views of Mount Fuji".

M.K. How would you describe your relations, collaboration in daily life? Does it expand beyond the traveller?

Bernhard: We are good friends and share many interests, not only photography. Nevertheless it is our only collaborative work.

Jens: We've been living in different cities for quite some years now. We meet from time to time, but Bernhard sees me more often on his computer screen than in person.

M.K. Jens, when you travel and play adventures of camera-less photography, you seem to turn our obsession of taking pictures in derision. It looks like the real purpose of traveling is precisely taking pictures. Could it be your message, or you have yours?

Jens: The strength of the project is both its simplicity and complexity. It allows to contemplate on many aspects. Travelling, tourism, places of interest, image production, global data spread, synchronicity and the overcoming of space and time, privacy, surveillance, the role of technology. And the aesthetics involved.

However, we do not have "the message". There is humour, there is criticism – if you want to see it.

M.K. Bernhard, you seem to stick to the screen. Does the “Traveller” creation process embody for you the way of traveling without actually leaving your office? How do you describe your role in the duet of “The Traveller”. Are you more photographer / author of the image than Jens, whose name appears as the first one, but what he does is – modeling for images you take... How is all that from your perspective?

Bernhard: It is not only me who photographed the Traveller. Especially during the earlier years we sometimes travelled together, and had others take the image. I do consider myself as "the photographer". But it is team work. Both of us are the authors.

Webcams permanently produce images and spread them via internet. Once a cam refreshes, the actual image, the moment shown, is lost. By working together we conserve and transform these fractions of reality.

M.K. How many years have you “Traveled”: Kilometres, Kilobytes, years, countries ... What are the plans for the future

Jens: So far I visited about 400 webcam locations in 14 countries over the last 9 years.

My plans for the future are, hopefully, to visit webcams in Japan. To follow that all-around-the-globe aspect of webcams and the data they spread. In addition, I aspire to go to a webcam in the artic ice. Place myself next to a penguin. But I guess we'd need a sponsor for that.

Bernhard: Next year the projects runs for 10 years. Originally we planned 5 years – which seemed a lot at the time.

There is an artist book designed by Julia Majewski that covers the first years of webcam travelling from 2001 to 2004. We hopefully have a second and third part to follow. Besides we aim for a ten year exhibition.

M.K. Any specific discoveries, insights about today's society that you could pull out of your “Traveller” project?

Jens: Webcams democratize places and images. Everything shown seems equally important.

Bernhard: If you run a media based project for as long as we do, you unavoidably accompany and record media history.

Interesting for example is the visual impression of our web photographies throughout time. From the very beginning they had low resulution and high jpeg compression, both with intent to allow transmission at acceptable timeframes. While web technology evolved and enabled larger amounts of data, at some point people started to think about protecting other people's private sphere (a huge and ongoing topic, of course – Google Street View is a recent example). Today rules instruct webcam operators in many countries to keep the images at low resulution, so that nobody can be recognized. As a result, the images keep their blurry character despite 10 years of advancement.

M.K. The technologies have now caught up with your creative idea. Now you can go anywhere, put your 4G phone, laptop and get yourself in picture. Do you still feel the need to continue in your “classical” way: Jens traveling with his black-strapped bag and Bernhard staying at his office? Why or why not?..

Bernhard: In fact, the original idea was to take images while travelling, using a laptop and a mobile phone. But that was not only enourmously expensive in 2001, it was also incredibly slow due to technology: modems at home had data rates of 56kbit/sec, mobile devices about 12kbit.

Jens became the Traveller, he is the resting point, the one element that does not change through all images, places and times.

Jens: Of course, that possibility of just doing it all alone came to my mind. Yet without a 4G phone, I once or twice programmed my computer at home to take the image. But it is a different way of working. You don't know if it worked at all, you don't get feedback, and nobody says, "Two more steps to the left is the perfect spot!". A 4G phone could solve that and give me control of where to place myself within the image. But I like the human part: having a photographer who is taking the image.

M.K. How you can describe the power of your work – for yourself. Isn't it in the team work? Any great, amusing, funny, sad aspects of that?..

Jens: For me, the power of the work is the experience of space, of travelling both physical and non-physical at the same time. Webcams are the windows of the Global Village. And there is a lot to see.

M.K. Thanks for traveling to Kaunas!

"The Traveller" by Jens SUNDHEIM, Bernhard REUSS is exhibited at the main exhibition of Kaunas Photo 2010 "Duets and Duels" at the National M.K.Čiurlionis Art Museum, M.Žilinskas Art Gallery