Timo Kahlen. Experimental Photography
Timo Kahlen. Phosphorus
Photography
(Phosphor- Photographie), 1987 -
2018
Ephemeral, processual, glowing images of
light
temporarily caught on a phosphorescent screen.
Photography as a process of transformation:
fragile, phosphorescent images accumulate
in the camera, transform and vanish
in time.
Scholarship of the Berlin Senate, 1997.
Phosphorus Photographs were presented at the
Hochschule der Kuenste Berlin in 1987 and 1992, at Galerie Voges + Deisen, Frankfurt in
1993 and 1995 /
the Karl-Hofer-Gesellschaft Berlin in 1995 / the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in 1998/
Kunststiftung DZ Bank: "Dialektik der Präsenz", Frankfurt am Main 2024/ etc.
Public collections: Kunststiftung DZ Bank, Frankfurt am Main / Sammlung
Künstlerförderung Berlin
Timo Kahlen invented Phosphorus Photography & Film in 1987. Work in progress
Timo Kahlen: Sculpting Light.
Experiments in Photography, 1986 - 2018
With texts by Werner Ennokeit, Leon Zwart and Vilém Flusser
English / German, 292 pages / 206 illustrations
Berlin: Edition Ruine der Künste Berlin, 2018
Free download
of catalogue (PDF / 58 MB)
Timo Kahlen. (in)tangible, 2022
Particles exploding from the artist's hand
"Co-Generation" (curated by Ypek Yeginsu), Mine Sanat gallery, Istanbul
2022
"Timo Kahlen: (in)tangible", Ruine der Künste Berlin 2023
Timo Kahlen. Raumhülle,
2021
from: Works with Wind
A new series of photographs related to the
Tenderness of Space
experiments with aerosols.
Created in times of the Covid
pandemic, Berlin 2021
"Timo Kahlen: Tenderness of Space", Ruine der Künste Berlin 2025
Timo Kahlen. Lichtstaub (Light Dust), 1996
The artist‘s hand throwing dust into the air, and at the camera
"Timo Kahlen". Schwartzsche Villa, Berlin 2001
Timo Kahlen. Vibration, 1991
Time exposures on camera obscura paper negatives
Timo Kahlen
Exposure, 2016
Daylight on linoleum floor, scratches and dirt
Artist's book / edition of digital photographs. Anticipated by an analog series of black-and-white
and Phosphorus Photographs, Berlin 1987 - 1994 and Bauhaus Dessau
1991.
"Timo Kahlen: Katharsis", Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin 2017
Timo Kahlen
From: punctum (Prometheus),
2017
Series of photographs reflecting phenomena of artificial and day-light,
accumulating and spreading in architectural space
Artist's book / edition of digital photographs
"Timo Kahlen: Tenderness of Space", Ruine der Künste Berlin 2025
Timo Kahlen
From: Gefaltetes Licht (Light Folds),
Vienna 2016
archive of digital photographs
Timo Kahlen
From: Heavy Light (Schweres Licht),
2015
Courtesy FRISE, Hamburg
"Timo Kahlen: FLUID", Ruine der Künste Berlin 2019
Timo Kahlen
Images of light from a stone camera, 1986 - 1989 :
Himmel (Sky), October / November 1988
Light, fungi and bacteria on photographic paper,
118 x 110 cm
Nominated for "Prize for Young European
Photographers" 1989
Series of images of the sky from a stone camera obscura,
exposed for varying lenghts of time (1 day, 1 week, 10 months).
"The camera would only allow the photographic paper
to 'see' the sky. All the information of the sky (stars,
sunlight, clouds, moonlight) was distilled into
these huge
negative-like black squares by day, and white squares by night.
Nothing could be seen in the final prints, but it is all there,
a dense centre of information... Moisture over time affected
the photographs due to the stone pyramid's hidden condensation
and bacteria ate away at both the paper and the image."
Joanna Littlejohns, Guernsey 2001
. 
Exhibited at the Ruine der Künste Berlin,
1989
at "Prize for Young European Photographers", Frankfurter
Kunstverein 1989
and at Pinhole Resource, New Mexico / USA 2014.
In the collection of the artist and Deutsche Leasing AG
Timo Kahlen. Einbrennen, 1986 - 2000
Image of a window burnt into the curtains
of the artist's darkroom over the period of 15 years.
Sunlight on black cloth / ca.
200 x 270 cm
Exhibited at "Timo Kahlen: Liquid Light", Galerie im Parkhaus, Berlin
2000
Timo Kahlen
From: Money I've Burnt for Art, 2009 - 2016
The process of burning all receipts and invoices
incurred by producing art in the previous fiscal year;
and seven glass jars of conserved, remaining
ashes of each year
"Timo Kahlen: Katharsis", Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin 2017
Pictures: Ashes of the year 2016. "Timo Kahlen: Katharsis", Ruine der
Kuenste Berlin, Berlin 2017
Timo Kahlen. Datenverlust (Loss of
Data), 2013
Traces of analog modes
of urban communication.
An exploration of what remains,
when all meaningful information
has been deleted or
removed
"Timo Kahlen: FLUID", Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin 2019
Timo Kahlen
Re/post, 2015/16
Bits and pieces, fragments
of
information and communication:
reposted
"Timo Kahlen: FLUID", Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin 2019
Timo Kahlen. Blattlinien (Leaves), 1999
- 2020
Digital scans of leaves,
segmented and marked by insects
Work in progress. First exhibited at "Timo Kahlen:
Staubrauschen",
Galerie Pankow, Berlin 2001, and recently at Kommunale Galerie,
Berlin 2022
Timo Kahlen. Undo / Delete, 2011
Create & save - or delete, reject, undo.
A reflection on the process
of developing and rejecting new concepts,
new visions and ideas
Also see the related interactive works of net art:
"Undo/Delete", "From Scratch",
"Audio Dust", "Signal-To-Noise"
and "Carpe Diem". The interactive originals
were published at www.staubrauschen.de/delete etc.
With the end of browser support for the interactive Flash Player
on December 31, 2020 all of Timo Kahlen's works of net art
vanished from the internet. They have become
invisible & inaudible 'media archaeological artifacts'.
Collection of ZKM Center for Arts and Media, Karlsruhe.
However, these interactive works of net art have now been revived: recoded
and made visible, audible and tangible once again
- with some glitches and drop-outs, and a bit of sonic tumult and difference to the
original - in 2023.
See "Re-Play: 21 vanished works of net art" by Timo Kahlen 2005-2020 at
www.staubrauschen.de/re-play
http://www.staubrauschen.de/re-play/delete/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/re-play/fromscratch/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/re-play/audiodust/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/re-play/signal/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/re-play/carpe/
As an alternative: watch the audio/video documentary at vimeo.com/441602551.
Please, turn on your speakers.
Timo Kahlen. Schnittstelle / Interface, 2021
A new conceptual series of photographs
exploring the surface of water
Artist's book / series of digital photographs
Timo Kahlen. Matschtreten
(Walking in mud), 2010
Photographic self-portrait of the artist, walking in mud :
leaving and deleting traces of his presence
Presented in conjunction with the sound
installation
"Breaking Ground" at "Timo Kahlen: Noise & Beauty",
Stiftung Starke, Berlin 2010 and at "Timo Kahlen: Doppelter
Boden",
Ruine der Künste Berlin 2015
Timo Kahlen. Schmelze (Melting), 2011
Walking on thin ice.
Ephemeral, fragile
surfaces of frozen water
Work in progress
Timo Kahlen. From: Wasserlinie
(Waterline), 2015
Projections of light on a fluid screen
Artist's book / series of digital photographs
Timo Kahlen. From : Cohesion
(Kohäsion) series, 2017
Projections into and out of the surface of water
Exhibited at "The Universal Sea - Pure or Plastic ?!" 2018 and
"Timo Kahlen: FLUID", Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin 2019
Timo Kahlen. Further work
from the series
Cohesion (Kohäsion), 2017
and Frozen, 2018
Timo Kahlen: Sculpting Light.
Experiments in Photography, 1986 - 2018
With texts by Werner Ennokeit, Leon Zwart and Vilém Flusser
English / German, 292 pages / 206 illustrations
Berlin: Edition Ruine der Künste Berlin, 2018
Free download
of catalogue (PDF / 58 MB)
Timo Kahlen
Windphotographien, 1991 - 2022
from: Works with Wind
The series of 'Wind Photographs'
records visual traces of wind moving
through the branches and foliage of trees.
In the long time exposures, defined contours
of organic material dissolve into
abstract
representations of a transient motion
See the related series of 'Works with Wind',
Timo Kahlen's site-specific, acoustic and/or kinetic
wind installations and wind sculptures.
Exhibited in numerous contexts, including Dieci.Due! Gallery Milano 1992, Bonner
Kunstverein 1992,
Museo Ken Damy Brescia 1992, Galerie Voges + Deisen, Frankfurt am Main 1993, Luftmuseum
Amberg 2010,
Märkisches Museum Witten 2017 and DZ Bank Kunstsammlung, Frankfurt am Main 2017
and Kommunale Galerie, Berlin 2022.
Sammlung Kuenstlerfoerderung Berlin and Collection DZ Bank, Frankfurt am Main etc.
Installation view at "Timo Kahlen: Windwechsel", Luftmuseum Amberg 2010
Work in progress 1991 - 2026
Timo Kahlen. Wind Photographs 2021 - 2022
See contemporaryidentities Magazine nr 13, March 2022
Timo Kahlen. Projektion
(Projection), 1994
Jam jar enclosing the
miniaturized projection of a tree
Galerie Voges + Deisen, Frankfurt am Main, 1994
Stipendiaten der Karl-Hofer-Gesellschaft, Berlin 1994
Timo Kahlen. Liquid Light, 1989
Tableau of photographs
of an ephemeral, processual
sculpture of light (found) beneath a tree
Compare related video works "Liquid Light", 1989 - 1999
"White Noise", 2006 / 2008, and "Rauschabstand", 2012
Timo Kahlen. Grau (Grey), 2011
The view from my studio.
The frozen windowpane a translucent,
fragile projection screen, both concealing
and unveiling the world outside.
Visibility and invisibility. Plato's cave in mind
Series of conceptual photographs exhibited at
"Timo Kahlen: Doppelter Boden", Ruine der Künste Berlin 2015
Timo Kahlen. Presence (Präsenz), 2021
Series of digital photographs
Timo Kahlen
Lichtsaum (Fringe of Light), 2012
Artist's book / series of digital photographs
Timo Kahlen. Cutting Edge, 2006
Projections cut through clusters of dry bushes
suspended from the ceiling
Exhibited at "Timo Kahlen: Earcatcher", Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin
2006
Timo Kahlen. punctum (Prometheus) series, 2017
focussing on the accumulation of
and diffusion of light in architectural space
Artist's book / series of digital photographs; in variation at
"Timo Kahlen: Tenderness of Space", Ruine der Künste Berlin 2025
Timo Kahlen
Lichtmass,1995
Sound and light installation:
empty slide projectors,
wall projections of dust
on lenses
and sound of dust on vinyl LP
filling the room
Exhibited at "Scholars of the
Karl-Hofer-Gesellschaft", Berlin 1995
Timo Kahlen
Blind, 2018
Fake windows, painted on facades.
Traces of erosion.
Timo Kahlen
Blinder Raum (Blind space),
2000
'Blind', opaque mirrors,
silent gallery space with opaque,
translucent window panes
Installation view at "Timo Kahlen : Liquid Light",
Galerie im Parkhaus, Berlin 2000
Timo Kahlen
the undocumented, 2020
Undocumented moments. The camera lens covered by my hand.
Published at "Undocumented events and object permanence",
noemata.net/ueop/
curated by Bjorn Magnhildoen, Norway 2019-2020
Timo Kahlen
At the End of the Day, 2015
Dying light, recorded at dusk
Artist's book / series of digital photographs
Timo Kahlen Experimental Media
Experimental Photography
Impressum
/ Contact © Timo Kahlen / VG
Bild-Kunst, 1999 - 2026
Timo Kahlen
Mond I - III, 1994
Baryte paper negatives
"Himmel: Die Entdeckung der Weltordnung", Kunststiftung DZ Bank, Frankfurt am Main 2023
Collection Kunststiftung DZ BANK
Timo Kahlen. Emission
(Quitten),
since 2009
Images of sweet and ripe fruit (a quince)
showing first signs of
deterioration, decomposition and mold.
Digital photographs with minimal graphic
inscriptions.
See the related interactive film & sound projection Carpe
Diem, 2011
The original was published at www.staubrauschen.de/carpe.
With the end of browser support for the interactive Flash Player
on December 31, 2020 all of Timo Kahlen's works of net art
vanished from the internet. Although still online, they have become
invisible & inaudible 'media archaeological artifacts'.
Collection of ZKM Center for Arts and Media, Karlsruhe
.
However, 'Carpe Diem' has been revived: recoded and made visible, audible and tangible
once again
- with some glitches and drop-outs, and a bit of sonic tumult and difference to the
original - in 2023.
See "Re-Play: 21 vanished works of net art" by Timo Kahlen 2005-2020 at
www.staubrauschen.de/re-play
http://www.staubrauschen.de/re-play/carpe/
As an alternative: watch the audio/video documentary at vimeo.com/441602551.
Please, turn on your speakers.
Eyes wide open (Mit offenen Augen), 1988 (2023)
Camera sculpture
from the 'Phosphorus Photography' series
Carrying light and time. A camera sculpture constantly
recording
fragile, temporary, phosphorescent photographic images
- accumulating & vanishing in time. As the sculpture travels,
impressions and memories are temporarily recorded,
carried along and kept - until the ephemeral,
glowing images inside the camera fade and dissolve.
A cyclical, repeated photographic process.
Camera sculpture: multiple lenses and phosphorescent coating in the dark of the camera.
Timo Kahlen: Tenderness of Space, Ruine der Künste Berlin 2025
Timo Kahlen. Construct, 2009
Images of the translucent phosphorescent screen
exposed to light in the hand-made camera
Artist's book / edition of digital Phosphorus
Photographs
Timo Kahlen. From: Phospheme, 2016
Digital recordings of the translucent
phosphorescent screen in the
dark of the camera
Series of new, digital Phosphorus Photographs
Timo Kahlen. Photographic series
Lineatur I and II, 2011 and 2020
Timo Kahlen. aus der Luft gegriffen
(Ether), 2020
Images of antennae, and three paper bags
filled with static noise - dusty, grindy, crackling -
of radio waves intersecting and interfering with an
unintelligible dialogue of voices distorted by the transmission
of sounds via medium range radio signals, circling and encompassing
our globe, travelling and reflecting in layers of air
in the lower stratosphere.
Installation view at "Timo Kahlen: aus der Luft gegriffen / in trockenen
Tüchern", Ruine der Künste Berlin, 202o
Free download of
catalogue (PDF / 4.9 MB) of the exhibition. Enlish / German. 28 pages / 34 images.
Edition Ruine der Künste Berlin, 2020
Timo Kahlen. Baum (Tree), 2015
Two photographs of what looks like a tree - but is, in fact,
a technological structure: a plastic imitation of a
pine tree,
constructed and literally pieced together to serve as a gigantic antenna,
transmitting radio waves and mobile data.
An homage to Alexander Rodchenko's
early 20th century experimental and Constructivist photographs
of electric wiring, of transmission poles, of radio towers
- and similarly, of lush pine trees, seen against the sky.
Installed at "Timo Kahlen: aus der Luft gegriffen / in trockenen
Tüchern", Ruine der Künste Berlin, 2020
Timo Kahlen. Datenaustausch
(Exchange of Data), 2010
A spoon, several small loudspeakers,
and audio components on a plate.
Particles of sound ready
to be served
Series of photographs related to
synaesthetic sound sculptures / sound installations,
e.g. ' Zart ' (Tender), 2010 : various
plates filled
with miniature loudspeakers, emitting
soft,
subtle microcosms of sound
Exhibited at "Timo Kahlen: Noise & Beauty", Stiftung Starke, Berlin
2010.
Courtesy Stiftung Kunstfonds, Bonn 2010
Timo Kahlen. Zwiebelmuster (Still # 16)
and # 17, 2006
Two sound sculptures. Images of a swarm of flies hovering
over a plate - oscillating and vibrating irrationally,
agitated by very low, barely audible sounds of insects
whirring through the air.
A kinetic 'still life'.
Photographic images, wire, plate, loudspeaker and infrasonic sound.
See Kahlen's oeuvre of site-specific and kinetic sound
sculptures.
Exhibited at "Tonspur expanded: The Loudspeaker", Vienna 2010 - 2011
"Sound Art 2006: Deutscher Klangkunst-Preis, art cologne 2006
and "Timo Kahlen: Earcatcher", Ruine der Kuenste Berlin 2006.
"Zwiebelmuster (Still #17)" was re-installed at "Flügelschlag.
Insekten in der zeitgenössischen Kunst",
Museum Sinclair-Haus, Bad Homburg 2019 and at "Timo Kahlen: aus
der Luft gegriffen / in
trockenen Tüchern", Ruine der Künste Berlin 2020.
Timo Kahlen
Everything Will Be Alright
(#2), 2008 - 2018
"Timo Kahlen: FLUID"; Ruine der Künste Berlin 2019
Timo Kahlen. Isolation (Rasenstücke),
2020
and Isolation (Carte Blanche), 2022
Isolated fragments of turf, temporarily removed
from their contexts.
How can the pandemic experience of our times,
the experience of 'social distancing'
the lack of physical personal contact, be visualized ?
Series of processual works
created from March
2020 to early 2022, during the Covid-19 pandemic and times of 'social distancing'.
Published in contemporayidentities nr. 13, March 2022,
as a series of large-scale photographs in public space
at Kommunale Galerie, Berlin 2022,
and in the exhibition "Timo Kahlen: Immaterials (1986 - 2022)"
at the Ruine der Künste Berlin 2022.
Timo Kahlen
Holding My Breath, 2020
March 2020. Holding My Breath
My breath, contained in an intimate, shimmering,
fragile sphere becomes, quite literally, the medium
of my reflections: on social distancing, on cultural
isolation and well-being.
Recorded in artist's studio, during the first days of the Covid pandemic.
Timo Kahlen: Tenderness of Space at Ruine der Künste Berlin 2025
Passagen at Kunststiftung DZ Bank, Frankfurt am Main 2022
Webbiennial, Turkey 2020, The New Art Fest, Portugal 2020, Scotty, Berlin 2021
and Field Notes: Safe and Sound Festival, Berlin 2020.
Collection of Kunststiftung DZ Bank, Frankfurt am Main
HD video (and series of photographs)
Released on vimeo.com/409211734
Timo Kahlen. Schrödinger's Cat, 2022
AI-generated 'quinces', with traces of mold and decay.
Objects without physical volume, or source, prompted
by the artist, and generated by Artificial Intelligence.
'Aiconic' synthetic images of pre-existing images, weightless pixels and illusions
data-mined from servers on the internet.
Work in progress. Also see Kahlen's seminal exhibition 'To See and to Be Seen: Artificial Intelligence and Human Perception'
at the Ruine der Künste Berlin in 2023.
Timo Kahlen. virtually no/thing, 2023
AI-generated images of 'quinces',
pixels conserved in small glass jars.
"ZeitSkulptur (TimeSculpture). 40 years of Ruine der Künste Berlin, 1985-2025", Berlin 2025
To See and to Be Seen: Artificial Intelligence and Human Perception
Ruine der Künste Berlin, September 2023
The conceptual exhibition and performance, curated by Timo Kahlen
at the Ruine der Künste Berlin in September 2023,
presented ca. 1200 AI-generations of a singular 'prompt':
resulting in an endless, multiple and diverse portrait
- all generated from one and the same, identical prompt -
of an early 1839 female photographer, at the invention of photography.
These hallucinations of the AI were set in contrast
to 40 anonymous hand drawings,
which likewise had been generated from one and the same, identical
portrait photograph - as their single source.
See the conceptual text of the invitation.
Timo Kahlen & AI. Pandora's Box, 2023
Bad News.
Timo Kahlen opens Pandora's Box.
The AI-generated series of 'insights'
into technological media, created from
the artist's coded prompts with the help of
Artificial Intelligence, presents a purposefully
self-referential and media-immanent, decidedly
dystopian view of the inner workings
and functioning of our electronic devices
- and of current AI imagery & clichés.
Timo Kahlen's & AI's conceptual text and images,
"Insights" (2024) from: "Pandora's Box",
were published at lexiconia.art/?page_id=194
Timo Kahlen. Vanishing
(im Entschwinden),
2023
Photographs of the (analog) scenery,
as the artist moves at approximately 200 km/hour
Work in progress
Timo Kahlen studied
experimental photography
and media art with film-maker
and photographer
Prof. Dieter Appelt at the Hochschule der Kuenste
(now University of the Arts) in Berlin.
Kahlen was awarded a Master
of Fine Arts (Meisterschüler)
degree at the Berlin University of
the Arts in 1993,
held a Lectureship
for visual media and video
art
at the Hochschule der Kuenste Berlin in
cooperation
with the Humboldt-Universitaet Berlin from
1993 to 1998;
and has continued to teach media art
for more
than 25 years, to the present.
Timo Kahlen
Works with Wind
Sound Sculptures