Anna-Sophie Berger (Vienna, Austria)
How did you get into photography? I started early, I guess it was the quickest way of getting hold of my world, of expressing myself. As with all things, when you start it is rather random, I don’t believe you are made for something exclusively. No, you start to do it, you start to like it and identify, then you get better and better, it is then when it becomes non-exchanegable as a media.
What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Could be anything, I never know before. If a person that loves his work told be about quantum mechanics I could be equally fascinated as by a great artist’s body of work.
What makes a good image to you? Generally speaking I think there is no rule, like a predefined set of things that would guarantee a good picture. A lot of pictures can be touching in mood, I can feel them pretty, but for a picture to be good I need to be able to give it a second thought. Either in message and deeper context, or in the way a subject is exposed. Above all, human behaviour intrigues me, I never like genre-like gestures, subjects that seem to know about the end result, that know about the photo. I like it if they are overwhelmed and caught.
Your favourite film and why? Favourite is a transitory term for me. I just saw “I am love” with Tilda Swinton, and I really loved it.
Your favourite quote? Whenever the idea is to be materialized it comes as a little depression. It is quite natural, that it will loose strength during this process, exchanging fictional mind power with reality, but for the one creating it is a shock each time.
What was the last interesting dream you remember? The last dream I remember was about war. I was living in a big city, in a huge skyscraper. It was in the air, that there was a war starting. Everybody was nervous, rumours were around, but nobody knew what was going on really. I was with my family i think, when we heard, or figured that bombs were dropping. Then a bomb detonated in the skyscraper, we rushed down, gathered on the street. The queer thing was, that the chaos, the dying of people, the state of emergency didn’t happen as I, in this dream, imagined it. the city was the same, no fires burning. It was just the feeling, among people, an undefined fear, a knowing that a hostile force was within the city, around all of us, but it was not visible. Then after the bomb crashes, there was a vehicle driving on the rails usually used for the tramway, strange people were on it, a woman in a sports dress, foreign looking, that is to say strange in style, was on rollerblades leading the vehicle, laughing and talking on the phone. As I understand these vehicles came to “clean up” that is when I can’t remember anymore.
Your favourite photographer/artist? I bought a book by Sophie Calle that I really love right now. It’s called les Aveugles, the blind.
Latest obsession? Raw scallops and courgette salad.
If you can sum up your photos in one word, what would that be? I find that a silly exercise.
If you could speak another language what would it be? One connected to a person I love.
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