Step 13
Step 13 sets out to explore the virtual depth of a LED display – in this case, a common iPad – through an experimental photographic process where a macro-lens camera, positions to face the tablet, repeatedly captutres a zoomed-in portion of the screen, relaunching that detail to display back on the iPad, for the next capture to be taken. As steps add up, a sequence is created which leads to the ‘collapse’ of all visual data hitherto collected by the camera, bringing us back to the initial step of a data-less, blank iPad displaying the color white.
The procedure devised by Mittwoch in his studio is completely automated, allowing the paired devices to continuously trigger one another without exterior interference. Starting from the initial white that displays on the tablet, the camera reciprocates by recording a portion of the screen in 4 times the original size, promptly re-sending the image to the iPad. The re-displayed portion is then zoomed into and captured again, in a progressive process that continuously splits the red, green, and blue of the LED screen as it delves deeper.
This back-and-forth proceeds until the 14th step in the process, where, owing to the programming and high precision of the devices involved, we witness something of a collapses: Digging deeper into the display’s electroluminescent lamps, we are thrown out instead reaching closer; the mutually prompted systems of display and capture seem to nullify one another, as if erasing all data; we revert back to the white of the initial frame, as if going 13 steps backward.
Identical in size, the 15 prints that make up the series are hung in the order of their consecutive capture, bookended from left and right by the first and last. As we follow the series, an abstract-like formation of horizontal and vertical lines begins to surface, only to suddenly 'collapse' into itself. The result of a highly-regulated technical process, the sequence demonstrates the gaping void inscribed into the working protocol of so many devices meant to interface to the human eye the world around us.

“STEP-13” est composée de quinze images de taille présentées encadrées et dans un ordre séquentiel. La première image et la quinzième sont similaires, tendant vers le monochrome blanc. L’artiste fournit ici une sorte de plongeon dans les profondeurs de l’écran tactile d’une tablette. La première image montre un écran blanc photographié avec un objectif macro, puis chaque image représente un zoom de 25% plus profond que celle qui la précède. L’image qui s’ensuit n’est donc qu’un détail de celle qui la précède, un quart de l’image initiale qui saisit chaque pixel reconstitué par une triade rouge, vert et bleu, et ainsi de suite, chaque image allant plus loin dans les profondeurs de l’écran jusqu’à ce que la distance entre les pixels soit telle que les composants électroluminescents, rendant des tons rouge, vert et bleu par excitation électrique, ne soient plus visibles.
Pour mieux comprendre ce qui nous est donné à voir, osons la comparaison avec les remèdes homéopathiques qui, à la base, ont subi une telle dilution que plus aucune molécule de la toxine n’est présente dans la solution. Les homéopathes considèrent que les préparations diluées sont susceptibles de contrecarrer les symptômes de la maladie selon un principe datant de l’antiquité grecque : « similia similibus curantur », c’est-à-dire soigner par ce qui est similaire. Chez Matan Mittwoch l’idée consiste à explorer l’image, en plongeur avisé, pour mieux démontrer que les appareils digitaux qui sont nos principaux outils aujourd’hui n’ont de cesse de coder l’information et de la crypter tout en nous faisant croire que la réalité est à portée d’écran.

"STEP-13" is a series of 15 framed pictures of the same size showed in a sequential order. The prints start with a white almost monochrome image and finish with almost an equivalent image. The artist provides here a sort of dive into the depths of the touchscreen of a tablet. Each level is an immersion proportional to one fourth of the previous image. The first image shows the state of a white screen such as approached by the macro lens of a camera. The second that follows is only a detail, a fourth part of the initial image that captures every pixel reconstituted by a triad of red, green and blue, and so on. Each image goes further into the imaginary depths of the screen until the distance between pixels in such electroluminescent components carried by electronic signals are not to be seen any longer.

To understand better what is given to see, let us dare establish a comparison with homeopathic remedies that basically underwent such a dilution that no molecule of the toxin is present in the solution. Homeopaths believe that the diluted preparations are likely to counteract the symptoms of the disease according to a principle dating back to Ancient Greece: "similia similibus curantur", that is to say, to care and to cure with what is similar.

Matan’s idea is to explore the image, as a specialist diver, to prove better that digital devices that are our main suppliers nowadays, constantly encode and encrypt the information while we believe that the reality is right at our fingertips.