Hotel of Eternal Light
by Karolina Spolniewski
Photographs: Karolina Spolniewski
Text: Karolina Spolniewski
Publisher: BLOW UP PRESS
200 pages
Pictures: 71
Year: October 2024
ISBN: 978-83-965969-5-6
Price: 72 €
Comments: 225x300 mm. Hardcover with holographic (for offset) or silver (for digital) foil. Papers: Munken Print Cream 115g, Novatech Gloss 150g. English and German
We associate light with hope, redemption and salvation. For us, light is an announcement of something new and good. But what if it had a completely opposite meaning? If it were to be used to deprive us of any hope, would it serve to subordinate one person to another, to take over one’s thoughts, to permanent surveillance?
Hotel of Eternal Light is a visual investigation of dictatorships and totalitarian systems in the recent history of Europe. Using an example of the abuse of power by the Stasi, the secret political police of the former communist German Democratic Republic, the book focuses on the use of light as a form of control, torture and communication code.
Photos for the book were taken in the former secret Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Not knowing where they were being held, its former prisoners described it as the Hotel of Eternal Light, where constant artificial lighting was a tool to suspend time and annihilate their inner selves. To break the psyche of prisoners, various methods of white torture and light were used, from X-rays, through light corridors, flashing lights, blinding, to black isolation. As Hannah Arendt describes in The Origins of Totalitarianism, such a radical experience in isolation and loneliness leaves us unable to experience the world, unable to make sense of reality, unable to trust our own sense of the self.
In addition to documentary photos taken in the prison and its hospital, the book also uses other media, such as scans of traces, photographs of items belonging to prisoners, portraits of prisoners, experimental X-ray scans, archival photos and fragments of conversations with former prisoners conducted over the last few years.
In the light of the currently growing popularity of totalitarian doctrines, Hotel of Eternal Light is also an attempt to address, what our freedom actually consists of in severe times of loneliness and how much potential the inner urge for it reveals in the face of an imposed ideology.
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Hotel of Eternal Light
by Karolina Spolniewski
Photographs: Karolina Spolniewski
Text: Karolina Spolniewski
Publisher: BLOW UP PRESS
200 pages
Pictures: 71
Year: October 2024
ISBN: 978-83-965969-5-6
Price: 72 €
Comments: 225x300 mm. Hardcover with holographic (for offset) or silver (for digital) foil. Papers: Munken Print Cream 115g, Novatech Gloss 150g. English and German
We associate light with hope, redemption and salvation. For us, light is an announcement of something new and good. But what if it had a completely opposite meaning? If it were to be used to deprive us of any hope, would it serve to subordinate one person to another, to take over one’s thoughts, to permanent surveillance?
Hotel of Eternal Light is a visual investigation of dictatorships and totalitarian systems in the recent history of Europe. Using an example of the abuse of power by the Stasi, the secret political police of the former communist German Democratic Republic, the book focuses on the use of light as a form of control, torture and communication code.
Photos for the book were taken in the former secret Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Not knowing where they were being held, its former prisoners described it as the Hotel of Eternal Light, where constant artificial lighting was a tool to suspend time and annihilate their inner selves. To break the psyche of prisoners, various methods of white torture and light were used, from X-rays, through light corridors, flashing lights, blinding, to black isolation. As Hannah Arendt describes in The Origins of Totalitarianism, such a radical experience in isolation and loneliness leaves us unable to experience the world, unable to make sense of reality, unable to trust our own sense of the self.
In addition to documentary photos taken in the prison and its hospital, the book also uses other media, such as scans of traces, photographs of items belonging to prisoners, portraits of prisoners, experimental X-ray scans, archival photos and fragments of conversations with former prisoners conducted over the last few years.
In the light of the currently growing popularity of totalitarian doctrines, Hotel of Eternal Light is also an attempt to address, what our freedom actually consists of in severe times of loneliness and how much potential the inner urge for it reveals in the face of an imposed ideology.
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Hotel of Eternal Light
by Karolina Spolniewski
Photographs: Karolina Spolniewski
Text: Karolina Spolniewski
Publisher: BLOW UP PRESS
200 pages
Pictures: 71
Year: October 2024
ISBN: 978-83-965969-5-6
Price: 72 €
Comments: 225x300 mm. Hardcover with holographic (for offset) or silver (for digital) foil. Papers: Munken Print Cream 115g, Novatech Gloss 150g. English and German
We associate light with hope, redemption and salvation. For us, light is an announcement of something new and good. But what if it had a completely opposite meaning? If it were to be used to deprive us of any hope, would it serve to subordinate one person to another, to take over one’s thoughts, to permanent surveillance?
Hotel of Eternal Light is a visual investigation of dictatorships and totalitarian systems in the recent history of Europe. Using an example of the abuse of power by the Stasi, the secret political police of the former communist German Democratic Republic, the book focuses on the use of light as a form of control, torture and communication code.
Photos for the book were taken in the former secret Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Not knowing where they were being held, its former prisoners described it as the Hotel of Eternal Light, where constant artificial lighting was a tool to suspend time and annihilate their inner selves. To break the psyche of prisoners, various methods of white torture and light were used, from X-rays, through light corridors, flashing lights, blinding, to black isolation. As Hannah Arendt describes in The Origins of Totalitarianism, such a radical experience in isolation and loneliness leaves us unable to experience the world, unable to make sense of reality, unable to trust our own sense of the self.
In addition to documentary photos taken in the prison and its hospital, the book also uses other media, such as scans of traces, photographs of items belonging to prisoners, portraits of prisoners, experimental X-ray scans, archival photos and fragments of conversations with former prisoners conducted over the last few years.
In the light of the currently growing popularity of totalitarian doctrines, Hotel of Eternal Light is also an attempt to address, what our freedom actually consists of in severe times of loneliness and how much potential the inner urge for it reveals in the face of an imposed ideology.
more books tagged »Germany« | >> see all
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The Need to Know (signed)
by Michael S. Honegger
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Fotografien 1965-2014 (German)
by Michael Schmidt
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Regensburg. Der Blick von Aussen
by Jan Sagl
sold out -
Dein Kampf (signed)
by Brad Feuerhelm
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Fachwerkhäuser
by Bernd & Hilla Becher
Euro 35 -
Verweilter Augenblick / Lingering Moment
by Hansgert Lambers
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Serpe Velenosa (signed)
by Valentino Barachini
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Prison Photography
by Nicolo Degiorgis
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Prison Museum
by Nicolo Degiorgis
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more books tagged »light« | >> see all
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Textures of Light: Achille Bologna Photographer
by Achille Bologna
Euro 77 61.60 -
Into the Light (signed - last copy)
by Yusuke Yamatani
sold out -
Preganziol, 1983 (last copy)
by Guido Guidi
sold out -
Towards The North (signed)
by Daisuke Yokota
sold out -
Annual report ZUMTOBEL
by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA
Euro 20
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more books tagged »archive« | >> see all
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Jamais je ne t'oublierai (last copy)
by Carolle Bénitah
sold out -
Umschläge (last copy)
by Peter Piller
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Dame Gulizar and Other Love Stories
by Rebecca Topakian
Euro 68.50
more books tagged »documentary« | >> see all
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iWitness (signed)
by Tom Stoddart
Euro 250 -
Glaube-Liebe-Hoffnung? (German edition)
by Abbas
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Beirut, Epi-Centre Ville
by Hans Wilschut
Euro 35 -
I carry Her photo with Me (signed)
by Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Euro 50 -
Langs Vinden (signed)
by Krass Clement
Euro 770 -
Beaufort West
by Mikhael Subotzky
sold out
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Berlin Mai 1945
by Valery Faminsky
Euro 52 -
The Italian Photobook 1931-1941
by Giorgio Grillo
Euro 46 -
Durch Deutschland
by Hans Wiesenhofer
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The Saxons of Transylvania
by Pascual Martínez & Vincent Sáez
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I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours (signed)
by Carolyn Drake, Andres Gonzalez
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