Wolfgang Hastert : Artist Statement
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There exists a flurry of experimentation along with varied documentary approaches in art production today. Many image makers cross-fade between media platforms exploring both still and moving pictures.

My works fit in this current media-driven art world; I work on the intersection of the photographic narrative, cinema, and experimental/ documentary forms. It fascinates me when groups of images are brought together resulting in a "picture story." The images I make alternately live in HD video projections, flicker in 35mm hand-developed films, and/or rest sequentially in photographic books. My works have always been rooted in photography - precise framing, qualities of light, texture, etc. At the same time they have restlessly tackled the relationships existing between the still and the moving image. Here I explore fractions of a second, where things we can't quite see become visible through the exploration of subtle, chosen, increments of time - the extended time of a pinhole exposure; slow motion carefully articulated as a product of film and video; and/or the juxtaposition of highly considered still and time-based qualities. Above all else, the "ongoing moment," the sliver of time between the still and moving image is made palpable in my work. These concerns have become the center of my productions and research.

My investigations range from portraits of communities in the Appalachian Mountains to high-tech experiments in cloud-based social networking sites. In all of my works I explore the human condition, focusing on the experimental borders shared between cultural anthropology, visual studies, and art/ communication practices.