high altitude, 2008-2010
Hybrid photography, lightjet-print, aludibond, diasec, custom-made aluminium frame, 132 x 132 cm and 202 x 132 cm
“lehman_92-08“ from the “high alitude” series, 2008-2010
In January 2009 Michael Najjar stood on the summit of Mount Aconcagua, at 6,962 meters, the highest mountain in the world outside of the Himalayas. The photographic material gathered in the course of the three-week trek forms the basis of the "high altitude" work series.
The series visualizes the development of the leading global stock market indexes over the past 20-30 years. The virtual data of the stock market charts are resublimated in the craggy materiality of the Argentinean mountainscape.
Just like the indexes, mountains too have their timeline, their own biography. The rock formations soaring skywards like so many layered folds of a palimpsest bear witness to the life history of the mountain—stone storehouses of deep time unmeasureable on any human scale. The immediate reality of nature thus becomes a virtual experience.
The jagged rock formations of “high altitude” are emblematic of the thin edge separating reality and simulation.
Acknowledgments: Galería Juan Silió
