Compound Effect, 2019 - ongoing

So far there are eleven works that were mainly taken in urban spaces in Germany, Canada and Iran. The pictures show apartment buildings, parks and cityscapes. These places sometimes show traces of misfortune, destruction or neglect. But often the buildings are also strangely out of place and out of proportion.

I often compose my pictures from several original photographs of these places or manipulate them very carefully. I remove picture elements that disturb me and add parts from other pictures, 3D programs or by AI. These manipulations serve to visualize and reinforce my feelings and interpretations.

Even if the images appear to be devoid of people, you can discover people hidden or in the background. However, the places themselves and the architecture reinforce the feeling of a total absence of humanity. Although the buildings and landscapes are man-made, they symbolize the dangers, aggression and arbitrariness to which man is exposed and to which he often only reacts with helplessness, insecurity and fear. In my view, these places reflect the current state of our society as well as certain processes and changes.

Wolf, 2022, three-channel-video, 03:19 min.

The video installation "Wolf" consists of three videos that are projected next to each other on the wall and run simultaneously in an endless loop. Six different scenes alternate at intervals, creating ever new contexts.

A cube can be seen whose side edges flicker in cool colours in the darkness. The red silhouette of a person in various positions is visible in the cube. It is not clear whether it is one and the same person or whether everything is happening at the same time. The room cannot be located properly either. Due to the deep black surroundings, it evokes associations with outer space, cyberspace or the subconscious.

The videos were created in an elaborate digital stop-motion process. The set and the actors were filmed and the material was and the material was edited in post-production. They were then projected as individual frames onto a stack of acrylic glass plates and photographed using long-term exposure photographed. These photographs were then reassembled into the video.

Tower of 5, 2018, single-channel-video, 02:27 min.

Tower of 5 is a single channel video. It shows several cubes seemingly floating on top of each other infront of a black background. Each layer shows a different environment. Through the layering and colors the cubes resemble a cross section of planet earth.

The work combines satellite images, video game footage, wire frame modeling, television noise and digital elaborated photographs. It interprets how the modern human being perceives, experiences and creates nature by himself and/or that it was created by a higher entity.

The installation uses the aesthetics of video games like Minecraft or Sim City. But through it being flat and graphic it ́s also poking fun at flat earth theorists and creatonists while it on the contrary considers the evolution and progress of the human being.

The 2050´s and 2150´s, 2013-2014

Inspired by tv shows which recap the past year or a past decade, I tried to recap two decades which have not yet happened, the 2050 ́s and the 2150 ́s. I took photographs of the noise of television and randomly selected parts of the images. I then continuously overlayed the parts to see if it will result in a pattern or a form. Instead of anything concrete, the images just formed a grey fog.

The project had an much experimental approach to it and was therefore very different from my other works which are very distinctive. On the other hand I was able to maintain my usually very ruminant and repetitive work-flow.

I am very happy with the process since the outcome of it was unknown to me as well as the future thats ahead of us.

Dark Blue, 2011-2015

The images of the "Dark Blue" series offer a personal view in which collective consciousness, data, online behaviour and computer use have been visualised against a background of transparency, anonymity and disintegration.

The production of the images is a very labour-intensive process. Each image is constructed from a multitude of cut-out vertical lines taken from photographs of the same person in different positions. By first carefully arranging the lines, I create a series of more or less transparent people, which are then merged into one another.

The images are presented as inkjet prints in a size of 111 x 222 cm as unique pieces.

White Rooms, 2007-2014

The series visualizes certain patterns of behavior, transformations and evolutionary processes in our societies. I became interested in this topic after spending several years abroad. I realized people are not that different from each other and some behaviour is universal. Also the same transformation processes and changes are affecting countries all across the globe. Where ever I was, I spent a lot of time observing the people and their interaction with others and their environment.

While the overall topics are anonymity, repetition and exchangeability, each picture focuses on a different issue. Other central topics of the series are identity, the individual and interpersonal relationships while the strict patterns comment on freedom, control, adjustment, self-determination and how the modern human being already conforms to a computer driven world.

I continuously took pictures of a person walking on a huge area. In the digital post-processing I cut out the person from its original background and transferred it onto a white background. By separating it from reality into an abstract white background it emphasizes the pattern and makes it independent from any existing place. The sum of the frames creates again a room through the positioning.

The images are presented as lightboxes in a size of 65 x 150 cm as unique pieces, while some images are also presented as 3D-acrylic installations in different sizes.

NOISE, 2020

For my work "Noise" two contrary things are fused together. There is the noise of a television that exists due to the lack of information and a close up of a news anchor, which contains a lot of information.

I merged these two together by placing a transparent print of the news anchors face in front of a running tv noise. Usually these two things can only be watched while switching the channel. By combining noise and portrait, the noise distorts all the individual features of the human face until it´s hardly recognizable and with that all information that a person can get from facial expressions. The work describes information reduction in a picture while simultaneously creating information in a place that held no information before

DSADDKIDSDM, 2007-2010

DSADDKIDSDM is an abbreviation for the german sentence “Die Stadt als die dominierende Kraftin der Strukturierung des Menschen”, which means “The city as the dominating force in the structuring of man”.

Copyright 2025 Thiemo Kloss