Margot Kalach

Your work treats light less as illumination and more as a physical substance. When did light stop being a tool and start becoming the subject itself for you?

MK I had a very technical education on photography. I think that definitely had a big effect on the way that I see the photographic medium. At some point I think I was less interested in the composition of the image or the subject that I was photographing and more interested in the way that things happened, you know, in the dark room or even digitally. I was very much interested in how the image appeared on the paper, what happened with the paper or gelatin when light hits it or even, you know, ironically on the computer like having to edit so many images, you know, zooming in onto the pixel level.

Having access to this completely abstract but also completely physical plane of photography pulled me into that direction. And yeah, I decided to push on that aspect of photography and really try to understand light as a physical medium. It unifies so many fields of experience whether that's silence or spirituality or even, you know, something to have some sun in the morning. It’s such a powerful substance, really, you know, like also very influenced in this time of, you know, 21st century quantum physics, kind of crazy.It’s kind of like this turning point of how we understand our physical reality. I don't know, I was drawn into light as a subject matter.

That actually goes into our next question. So, spectrographs are often associated with scientific measurement and precision. What happens to meaning when a tool designed to quantify becomes a vehicle for intuition or ambiguity?

MK Yeah, for me it kind of implies becoming part of the system instead of, you know, this kind of old school idea that even with our most precise instrument we would be objective. We have come to this point where ambiguity is always present because we have realized that we play a role in measurement. So I think it's important to recall that our search for truth will always be a mirror of ourselves. In this sense I think working in my case with the designing of devices to make the images, but there are actually devices that are not at all precise. Rather on the contrary, they are like a bit...I don't know how to say it, but like... stupid, well not stupid, but they're kind of very homemade, very DIY, and very unprecise. In order to push this idea of being part of the system, you know, being part of the measuring device and myself are kind of in conversation.

In the way that I think, both intuition and ambiguity have always been present in measurement. It's just that I think at some point we forgot. For instance, recalling that the scientists that have made great discoveries were simply humans in a lab and one day they were on the moon. One day they make a mistake, but that mistake leads to a new discovery. I think that's the part of intuition that is always present. Or even the fact that the Greeks intuited that there was something like an atom, you know, like thousands of years before we could prove it with a technological advance. So yeah, I think it's kind of like my work is exaggerating something that is always there, but that maybe we forgot or maybe we left aside in that sense.

Working with light on film implies a certain surrender to exposure to chemistry to time, how much of your process is about control and how much is about mind and work to misbehave?

MK I think it's always like a push and pull between control and accident. I think something maybe about the arts is many times working in this register. But I think in my case what has become interesting for me is that when I am making images in the dark room, I've realized it has become much more about muscle memory.

As you know I do these actions in the dark room shooting light onto photographic paper in which I am moving, but also the device in which the paper is held is moving. Also these like homemade lenses made with magnifying glasses and bicycle wheels are this kind of recovered material that becomes the image-making device. Everything is in motion in the darkness.

I believe parameters are set so that the accident or the part that misbehaves about the work is fed. It's like I nourish it in a way. But I think the part that is interesting to control is my own body. In the end I think it has become much more like a choreographic work in which since photography is so much about time and almost, you know, like clockwork.

I have had to develop this internal clock in which I know for how long I have to stop or move or distance myself from the paper or come forward in order to reveal the image. Because if the clockwork is wrong then the image doesn't appear. It's either completely white or completely black. You burn the paper to the point that you can't see anything. So I think in order to reveal the action and the light and the body moving there has to be this control that is almost like a dance.

Spectral imagery reveals wavelengths we can't normally perceive. Do you think your work is expanding vision or complicated?

MK If I would have to choose one of the two I would say, complicated. I think in the end my work uses a lot of layering. And I mean, visioning at two dimensional scale is very hard to understand. I mean, obviously there are very realistic paintings or images that can clarify space in a way that you can understand.

The planes of focus or that space is stopped in a way that is to clarify. But I think in my work it's a complicated vision because even if there is a question in the way it's made. It is an exploration. I would say it's more like an exploration of vision than an expansion or a complication. For me it's more like exploring the phenomenon of light on a photographic surface. I don't know if it has to do that much with vision but more with image making, which I don't think it's the same thing.

Film carries time in a way that feels increasingly rare. What is slowness or delay off your practice in contrast to digital needs?

MK I think it's one of the main aspects of my work. I think it's expanding or delaying the photographic moment. This aspect of photography is so short, making an image is less than a second long. But I've been very interested in how much you can expand that moment of a photographic moment in a way. I started working a lot when I worked digitally with non-exposure images. That is kind of the first step to making this dilatation or how do you say it? The expansion from that moment in time.

Slowly I've been pushing in my work as pushing the limits of photography in space and in time. I think first of all this idea of making an image or that moment of image making lasts as long as possible in this type of choreography in space. That has to do also with the way that I have designed this super large scale camera that is basically larger than my body. I place myself inside the camera; it's like confronting the medium face to face. I think that it's a way of resisting this culture of immediacy that we all live in.

In a medium that was born in a technological era, like photography, one of the latest mediums that was born within technology in the way that we understand today. Obviously so many mediums have technology embedded with them but maybe in an older way that we forgot to see it as technology. I think the expansion of the photography moment in time and space such as making an image that can last two hours or three hours. Pushing as much as possible in order to exaggerate that act has become very important to me and as well as in time and space.

Being inserted in the act of creation in a way that is exaggerated to the point of absurdity. As a result, that point of absurdity goes against the nature of the medium itself.

result, that point of absurdity goes against the nature of the medium itself.

Many of your work seemed to have a between abstraction and documentation as if recording something real with a name rule. What if anything do you feel you are a document of?

MK I think on one hand if I was documenting anything it would be the relationship between artist and tool. I am documenting an action as I am also documenting myself getting to know my device. I think that the first step in my work is imagining a device, a kinetic device, or a device that is made for image making.

I don't know what the result is going to be. The first step is creating the device and then in the moment of having this dialogue or conversation with the tool. These are the things that the image ends up being the register or the trace of myself trying to figure out how it works.

Light of course is kind of like the ink, the material that reveals this action. I think it's kind of like this tribulation between light, artist and tool that is being documented in the images. On another level maybe that is more what you get as a viewer; I think there are some hints to this more abstract, very dynamic, it kind of touches on some scientific structures or landscapes.

In that sense maybe there is not a documentation but an imagination of a world where everything is moving and forming very complex structures. I would like to think that there is a reflection of this idea of a world made out of hundreds of pieces interweaving in different combinations, really building the structure of reality that we can see but on a more abstract level.

To what extent do you consider light found or even failure as a collaborator rather than materials?

MK Definitely, as I mentioned before I think part of my work is inserting myself in a system that is not autonomous but in the midst of happening. All of the factors are kind of working as gears that are… I can't say there is no hierarchy between the factors that are in place but I definitely think that there is a large aspect of the work where each variable is autonomous and there is a conversation.

There are moments of more de-servitization, moments of more precision so it really depends but I think part of the beauty of the dark room is that the image is revealed once you put it in the chemicals and it's never what you think it's going to be. I think that really emphasizes the fact that yes there is a large part of the work happening in this blind spot of my mind. Obviously I curate where I want the work to go but there are always new unexpected ways that the material is behaving.

Do you hope viewers approach your work analytically, try to decode it or sensor out a lot of the image to act on them without explanation?

MK I think... I don't know. I wouldn't have a precise way that I would want the audience to appreciate the work. I think it's open enough in order for different types of people to access it more analytically or more poetically depending on each person because I definitely think that for myself it also changes. There is this very technical part, very physical part of the work where you can really savor the technique. In the end I think I'm very interested if I would have any ways of putting both things together in the poetics of technique.

For me the physical world is like a beautiful mystery. I don't need to go beyond matter in order to find poetry. I think there are different ways to approach it. I think what I value is mystery. Like approaching it and not being sure what it is. This point of ambiguity of how it was made and what it is and that kind of pushes the audience into both analyzing it but maybe in a futile way because there is no answer.

There is no final answer that you suddenly realize. You know this moment of realization where ah, it's this. So I think maybe you start analyzing it but then you maybe lose yourself in just the experience of being in front of it. More poetically or more sublime with more wonder.

Does the visual language in your work that echoes laboratories, archives and instruments, are you interested in authority? Has scientific imagery required me on doing it?

MK I think my work has shifted a bit. At the beginning I was more interested in using scientific language in order to reveal certain aspects of science that are intuitive or that are subjective or that are, you know, always kind of showered in the world.

Humanity in the end. And I'm definitely very interested in that. I'm interested in the way the authority that science has over our lives. You know, we're all exponentially turning life into numbers and data and I think photography has played a huge role in that way such as surveillance cameras or  facial recognition. And there's this very, very interesting side of photography that can lead to an interesting conversation in that direction. But I think that I am kind of moving in another direction that maybe puts that on the side. It's definitely present, you know, in the sense of this interest in matter, in time, in space, in building my own devices to create those things.

I think it's not really a good idea to work, but I think it's kind of being left on the side and slowly finding its own place that doesn't have to hold on to scientific discourse to exist. And being more interested in the physical experience of being in front of the worker, of making the work.

Although your work can feel disembodied, it's ultimately experienced physically through eyes, distance, movement. How do you think about the body's role in countering these images?

MK For myself it's definitely become so much of a physical process to create the work. Even in this sense of confronting photography with my whole body and making very large scale photographic images. Pushing the limits of how big can I make analog photography that in the end, you know, obviously has its limits. But it's interesting because it's always been very pristine, the dark room has always been a very pristine space.

You're taught to treat everything with so much care and count the milliseconds to make the image. And for me it has really become the opposite. More like a non-aggressive, I wouldn't want to say an aggressive action, but it's the opposite of aggression.

Like the body kind of just moving forward with momentum and inertia in order to make the work. I feel like I’m slowly becoming more interested in this idea of installation, of being able to share my experience of making the work that is so body oriented with the audience. And that's hard because in the end it's interesting how the process of encountering the works in a space like a gallery or a museum or even the studio, there is definitely a divide there.

But I think part of what's interesting is how you communicate that experience of the process to the audience. Because my work is so much process based, you know, it's really about the process itself. I think the end form needs to be able to communicate this. I believe I'm slowly trying to get closer to being able to communicate that physicality of the work. Part of that is also showing the machines or the devices that I'm working with, thinking about the paper as an object in itself. And yeah, in the end my processes are hard on the body. You know, there's this part that is like a physical hardship that I go through in order to create them. So definitely I would wish that it was transmitted in the work.

Light is often treated as proof of presence, of truth. Do you see your work as evidentiary, poetic or something in between?

I have this very complicated relationship with truth and light, even in a metaphorical sense.  But no, I think my work definitely would fall more on the poetic side.

When choosing between poetic or or evidentiary Yeah, I mean that's a hard one. There's evidence of a physical aspect at work. There's definitely like a literal side of the work, mliterally the sense of portraying a material phenomenon. In that sense, I think it's evidentiary because I try to really have like an unfiltered material. Material process at work. But I think, again, for me, there is this idea of like the poetics of technique that really, I think maybe mixes those two concepts together, you know, finding poetry in observation, in contemplation, in being in contact with the people. In contact with the literacy, with the literality of the world that surrounds us. So I would say maybe like a mixture of those two.

Does working in Mexico, its light, its atmosphere, its cultural relationship to image making, shape your practice in ways that might be invisible to you until you leave?

MK I think something about Mexico that is very inspiring to me is it’s both a social phenomenon and a material phenomenon. It's kind of like the debris that you can find in the streets. There is something about the way matter is organized or unorganized in the city that I think it's very complicated, but very beautiful. In the end, it's very interesting in the passing of time and the way time inscribes itself in matter.

And I think Mexico is a beautiful place to observe that. I think you can find it everywhere, but there is something about the chaotic aspect of the city that is really unstoppable and inspiring. But I mean, on a different level,  usually I'm working in the studio, like a very much studio based artist. It's kind of like this bubble in which I produce. So at some point in my work, I'm also very isolated from the social context of the city.

But I mean, I think one of the most interesting aspects of my studio is that we have this space where a lot of young artists come and show their work. There is this hybrid aspect of studio and exhibition space here. So in that sense, I would say that the richness of being surrounded by so many artists that come and go through "Croma" is also inevitably enriching like this moment in Mexico City where there is a huge expansion of creativity and artists and conversation.

Is there something light can never reveal, no matter how precise it is captured?

MK Yeah, I don't think light reveals everything to begin with. And I also think it really depends how you capture it. There are many ways of capturing light that could reveal one thing or the other. I think what is interesting about light in that sense is that it's always mysterious. That we have found in light not only truths about our reality, but so many kinds of metaphors.

For me it's not about capturing light to reveal the truth. It has nothing to do with that. It's more about understanding light as a vehicle for expressing ourselves poetically. I think light can be viewed as a spectrum, but limited. Our way of understanding it has so much to do with our physical apparatus and how our body understands it as well as how our tools understands it.

I don't see how it could at all capture everything into the inside of light. It's impossible. I do think it's one of the most interesting substances in the world. The speed it travels, it's like this kind of substance that brings us close to things that are very far away, kind of like this wormhole. I don't know.

Color is an incredible thing, but in the end it's a physical experience that we experience either with our body that obviously is totally subjective, or our tools that are also made by us, also have so much of us in them that it's limited in so many ways.

Are you moving toward greater precision, or further into uncertainty?

MK I would like to think that technically I'm moving toward greater precision. I think part of being an artist is really getting to know or understand the materials you're working with, the ideas you're working with, and being more precise. Because in the end it's your language. I think there's something about precision that is very important for me, understanding the way I work.  I hope it's becoming more precise.

In that sense, you can choose to make the work more uncertain, kind of like musicians that are technically exquisite, but decide to make noise. I would say more precision in order to figure out if I want my message to be more ambiguous or more clear, which is kind of like a question that I'm not sure of myself.