Photismos: Mosaic, a Medium between Visibility and Invisibility

At the center of the project is a medium which per se is constructed for transformation. In the changing light, mosaics literally reflect the insurmountable distance to the visibility of the sacred. In that the images assembled from tesserae evade an immobilizing description, the seeming potential for the visibility of the invisible is fundamentally called into question through a repeated withdrawal. Therefore, the practice of revealing/concealing is not implicit to such an extent in virtually any other medium. In focus will be the iconic-theoretical preconditions of this medium as well as, simultaneously, its anchoring in context. The light takes on fundamental relevance for the manifestation or the withdrawal of the image, be it sunlight or light from artificial sources. The complex theoretical basis, which is specifically not exhausted in a pure metaphorics of light, is to be studied intensively. With regard to this topic, a substantial examination of relevant authors has not been made, nor have text genres that mirror the reception been explored. The project aims to uncover the reflective potential inherent to the medium both in its constitutive iconicity and in the iconic practice in all its facets.