JULIUS WERNER CHROMECEK

PHOTOGRAPHER, DANCER, MUSICIAN, SCIENTIST

Born and having always lived in Vienna.
After first photo shoots at the age of fifteen, photo apprenticeship, then sixteen years working in the photo trade; 2019/20 Friedl Kubelka School for Artistic Photography, thus came late to artistic photography, before that, among other things, five years working in brain research, several years of training in contemporary dance, music and performance projects.

Current focal points

The value of the analogue
Why is a real (tree) leaf considered by many to be more valuable than a digital image of the same, why is the leaf cut out of photographic paper after hours of work considered more valuable than the digital image – does the craftsman deserve more admiration than the programmers who made the digital image possible in the first place?

Autobiographical work 
Quote from Prof. Timm Rauttert (Fotoschule Kubelka, 2020): “…if you don’t know yourself yet, you shouldn’t take portraits of other people…and don’t go easy on yourself…” as an occasion for extensive biographical exploration with the means of photography/videography.

Spaces and their transformation through actions that have taken place in them.
I am convinced that spaces are not the same when they have been intensively danced or played music in – after numerous, all failed attempts to visually depict the actions that have taken place in the photographs of the spaces that interest me, the great advice of Erik van der Weijde: “…if you feel the change, you don’t have to depict it any more, the viewer feels it or not…” (2020). (2020) – since then I have been working on images of dance studios in Vienna, each studio is captured in just one image, each time after dancing in the space (also published in book form in 2022).

Anthropocene
Deep despair about “our” treatment of the environment repeatedly gives rise to photographic works: falling leaves in the series leave(s) visualise the helplessness of the individual in the attempt to save nature, wildly rotating flowers (not fair) point to the insanity of the current international flower trade, the series plastic trees is designed as a photographic documentation.

Technique
I work digitally and analogue, without reservations about any of the techniques – the decisive factor is the possibility of ideal realisation, not the material per se.  
Exhibitions (selection): TSCHACK BOOM #1, Ministry of Artists, Vienna; Rethinking Nature / Rethinking Landscape, FOTO WIEN (2022); Stille Räume, DWH, Vienna; The Country Where Stamps Rain From The Sky, Ars Electronica, Linz; anarchy . be**Part, Rome, and leave(s), Künstlerhaus Wien (all 2020 – 2022).

Member:
Künstlerhaus Wien (active, area 5: photo, film, sound).
Salzburg Artists’ Association
4rest
IG Culture
KNH Cultural Network Hernals
Ministry of Artists