Hubert Kaufmann’s photographic works focus on the conditions of image creation itself. At the center is the digital sensor as a light-sensitive matrix and operational surface in which visibility is generated. With the phrase “cameraless photography with a digital camera,” Kaufmann describes a practice that shifts image production to the technical core of the apparatus. The camera functions as a housing and interface; the actual image formation takes place in the silicon structure, where photons are translated into electrical impulses and organized as data. The image appears as the result of a physical-electronic process that reveals the material basis of digital photography.
This focus on the light-sensitive surface is not new in art history. László Moholy-Nagy understood the photogram as an independent photographic form in which light itself acts as an imaging force. In “Painting, Photography, Film,” he describes photography as the organization of light and as the direct inscription of physical processes into a sensitive material (Moholy-Nagy 1925). For him, light-sensitive paper functions as an active field, as a place of structural encounter between energy and surface. Kaufmann’s sensor takes on a comparable role in the digital context: it forms a microscopic topography where light is translated into electrical differences. These differences lead to patterns, clusters, and color fields that make images possible.
Man Ray’s rayographs and Susan Derges’ works also unfold photography as a trace of an immediate event. Chemical reactions, water movements, and light intensities are inscribed directly into the respective material. The image manifests itself as a documentation of a process that makes its own materiality visible. In Kaufmann’s works, this event shifts into the electronic sphere. Sensor interventions and targeted manipulations create structures that emerge from the raw signal. Digital noise becomes a visible texture whose intensity and density are aesthetically designed.
20th-century photographic abstraction broadened this horizon. Aaron Siskind isolated textures, cracks, and surfaces in a way that gave them an autonomous visual presence. His photographs transform concrete wall structures or asphalt surfaces into abstract compositions. Kaufmann focuses on the operational surface of the technical apparatus itself. The visible texture arises from the microarchitecture of the sensor, and the image emerges from the structure of the recording conditions. From this perspective, the digital matrix appears as a contemporary counterpart to the material surfaces that Siskind captured photographically.
Vilém Flusser’s theory of the photographic apparatus provides a theoretical clarification of this shift. Flusser describes the apparatus as a programmed system whose images represent the results of a structured scope (Flusser 1983). Each photograph realizes a configuration of probabilities within technical parameters. Kaufmann activates this scope by intervening at the sensor level. Statistical fluctuations inherent in every digital image emerge as a visual structure. The noise appears as a visualization of the fields of probability inherent in the technical process. Meanwhile, Friedrich Kittler’s media-archaeological perspective understands technical recording systems as productive forces of cultural articulation (Kittler 1999). Digital sensors generate data streams whose structure prefigures the image form. Kaufmann’s works draw attention to this operational layer. The image becomes experiential as a manifestation of a technical process that usually remains in the background. The visual surface refers to a deep structure of data and electrical impulses.
Kaufmann’s own reference to Wolfgang Tillmans gains great precision in this context. In the “Freischwimmer” series, Tillmans activates light, chemistry, and paper as productive forces from which abstract color spaces emerge (Ferguson et al. 2006). These works address photography as a material process. Kaufmann continues this line into the electronic sphere. Electrical reactions of the sensor generate color fields that appear as abstract events. The abstraction is based on the specific materiality of the respective medium, be it chemical or electronic. The image appears as a temporary stabilization within a field of differences. Sensor noise functions as an ontological image ground, as a matrix from which visual structure emerges. This structure bears the traces of the conditions of its creation.
Joan Fontcuberta characterizes the present as a post-photographic state of permanent image production, in which images circulate as data and undergo continuous transformation (Fontcuberta 2014). In this context, the focus on the sensor takes on particular relevance. Kaufmann turns his attention to the digital foundation of image culture. His works unfold a visual analysis of the infrastructure on which contemporary visibility is based.
Ontology of noise
The noise visible in Kaufmann’s works has a technical and social dimension. At the level of the apparatus, noise refers to the microscopic fluctuations in electrical charge that are inherent in every sensor. Thermal motion, quantum effects, and statistical fluctuations produce minimal differences in the signal. These differences structure every digital recording as a field of probabilities. Kaufmann transforms this fundamental physical noise into an aesthetic category. The image emerges as an embodiment of these fluctuations, as the visible organization of a continuous stream of data.
Michel Serres describes noise as a universal continuum, as a medium in which information takes shape (Serres 1982). From this perspective, noise is a condition of communication rather than a disruptive factor. Order appears as local stabilization within a dynamic background. Kaufmann’s works make precisely this stabilization visible: patterns and color clusters emerge as temporary configurations whose structure is based on statistical variation. The images unfold a visual experience of emergence in which difference and repetition intertwine.
Vilém Flusser speaks of photographic images as projections of a technical program that calculates and realizes possibilities (Flusser 1983). In this context, noise appears as a manifestation of the probability fields generated by the program. Kaufmann activates this field by manipulating the sensor level and bringing the inherent variability of the signal to the fore. The image becomes a place where technical statistics merge into visual structure.
In contemporary culture, the concept of noise takes on an additional layer of meaning. Digital infrastructures generate a continuous stream of images and data. Hito Steyerl describes the circulation of digital images as a process in which compression and acceleration intertwine (Steyerl 2009). Images become units within a global distribution system. Kaufmann’s works respond to this situation by turning the noise itself into an image. The permanent sensory overload finds a visual counterpart in dense, vibrating fields of pixels and layers of color. Noise becomes the aesthetic figure of a present characterized by continuous updating. Joan Fontcuberta characterizes the post-photographic situation as a state of mass image production in which photography loses its exclusivity as a medium of documentation (Fontcuberta 2014). In this constellation, attention shifts from the individual photograph to the infrastructure of image generation. Kaufmann picks up on this shift. His works reveal the technical basis from which digital images emerge. The noise appears as a material trace of an image culture based on data.
In this context, the grid structure also takes on special significance. Agnes Martin’s paintings show how repetition and minimal variation can create a meditative intensity. Her grid forms a visual order consisting of subtle differences. Kaufmann’s sensor fields develop a digital counterpart to this structure. Pixels and clusters form a vibrant fabric in which repetition and variation create a visual dynamic. The noise appears as a rhythmic texture that oscillates between regularity and deviation.
This aesthetic substance also has a political dimension in Kaufmann’s work. Digital platforms operate with algorithms that structure attention and regulate visibility. In this context, noise functions as both a metaphor and a material reality. It refers to the incessant production of images that demand perception and create emotional bonds. Kaufmann’s works translate this situation into a visual form. The density of the sensor images creates an experience in which superimposition, intensity, and condensation become present. At the same time, these works open up a space for reflection. By making the noise visible, the infrastructure of digital image production appears as an object of aesthetic contemplation. The image refers to its own creation and to the statistical structure from which it emerges. This self-referentiality positions Kaufmann’s practice within a tradition of critical media art that understands technical conditions as an aesthetic theme.
The digital horizon
The group of works entitled “Entfaltung” (Unfolding) takes the previously developed logic of sensor noise into a spatial and perception-theoretical dimension. Horizontal layers, atmospheric color transitions, and seemingly floating zones structure these works. The horizon appears as a visual line that organizes space and at the same time functions as an interface. It marks a threshold within the image where data depth and the surface of perception meet. The digital matrix unfolds here as a field of gradual intensities in which light values merge into color spaces.
The figure of the horizon has a long art-historical history dating back to Romantic landscape painting. Caspar David Friedrich developed the horizon as a place of metaphysical projection, as a boundary between immanence and transcendence. In his compositions, the horizontal line structures the movement of the gaze and creates an experience of vastness. In Kaufmann’s works, the horizon appears as a generated structure, the result of sensory and electronic processes. The landscape is transformed into a digital event.
Mark Rothko’s color field painting also offers a relevant resonance space. Rothko organized his canvases into horizontal color zones whose transitions create atmospheric depth. The picture surface acts as a place of intense perceptual experience. Kaufmann’s horizontal unfolding develops a digital counterpart to this structure. Color values arise from electronic differences, from minimal shifts in the signal. The picture surface has an atmospheric quality that emerges from the processual nature of the sensor.
Gerhard Richter’s abstract works, especially his reworked photographs and color fields, address the relationship between photographic reference and painterly structure. Through superimposition and blurring, Richter creates a surface that makes movement and materiality tangible. Kaufmann’s works develop a related sensitivity to transitions and condensations, with movement emerging from the digital matrix itself. The horizon becomes a zone in which algorithmic processes create visual continuity.
The atmospheric quality of these works also refers to a long tradition of exploring light and color. James Turrell, for example, develops spaces in which light can be experienced as an immaterial substance. His installations create a perceptual situation in which color appears as a spatial event. Kaufmann’s digital color spaces operate in the two-dimensional field, but unfold a comparable intensity. The colorfulness arises from electronic processes and creates a visual experience of depth and expanse.
Hubert Kaufmann’s works thus combine media-archaeological precision with a sharpness that diagnoses the present. The sensor emerges as a productive matrix in which electricity and statistical difference are embodied in a visible structure. Noise appears as a fundamental condition of digital image production and, at the same time, as an aesthetic form in which the infrastructure of contemporary visibility is articulated. The image carries its own creation within it as a material and intellectual trace. Kaufmann develops a visual language from this that shows the digital foundation of the present as an experiential space: as a matrix of information and color that embodies itself in the image as an independent reality.
Anne Avramut
Literature
Barnes, Martin. 2018. Cameraless Photography. London: Thames & Hudson.
Ferguson, Russell, Ann Goldstein, and Jessica Morgan, eds. 2006. Wolfgang Tillmans. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art.
Flusser, Vilém. 1983. Für eine Philosophie der Fotografie. Göttingen: European Photography.
Fontcuberta, Joan. 2014. La furia de las imágenes: Notas sobre la postfotografía. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.
Kittler, Friedrich. 1999. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and Michael Wutz. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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Serres, Michel. 1982. Genesis. Translated by Geneviève James and James Nielson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Steyerl, Hito. 2009. “In Defense of the Poor Image.” e-flux Journal 10 (November).