JUST THE TWO OF US: Photo book, self-published, 2014

Klaus Pichler was born 1977 and lives in Vienna, Austria. After graduating from university in 2005 he decided to quit his profession as a landscape architect and become a full time photographer- without any education in photography. The topics of his work are the hidden aspects of everyday life in its varying forms, as well as social groups with their own codes and rules. “Just The Two Of Us” was made and published in 2014 and is a handmade Leporello, that is 645cm folded to 38 pages, on hardbound paper. The black cardboard cover has a silver-metallic hot foil stamping. 26×16.6cm (open: 26x645cm), 38 images, printed on Munken uncoated paper. The Photographs and text are written and produced by Klaus Pichler, and are written in english.

“Dressing up is a way of creating an alter ego, a second skin which one’s behaviour can be adjusted to and causes a person to be perceived differently. ‘Just the two of us’ deals with both costumes and the people behind them.”

Colossal Magazine: Just the Two of Us: Portraits of Cosplay Enthusiasts in their Homes by Klaus Pichler

by Christopher Jobson on November 1, 2013

Jobson opens the article by stating this comparison to ‘Halloween‘:

“We’re less than a day past October 31st and it would be reasonable to assume the people depicted in these portraits are wearing Halloween costumes, but they’re not.”

This statement sets the reader up to expect the most ridiculed of concepts. Halloween is traditionally associated with things which are in opposite to things associated in love. Words like horror, terror and a dissimulation with nature, contradicts the juxtapositions Pichler makes with breaking the norms of traditional love. In Pichler’s ongoing series of portraits titled “Just the Two of Us”, photographer Klaus Pitchler gained access to the homes of Austrian costume play (cosplay) enthusiasts where he photographed the elaborately costumed individuals against the backdrops of their everyday life.

Jobs asks the question,

“Who hasn’t had the desire just to be someone else for awhile?”

To which he answers,

“Dressing up is a way of creating an alter ego and a second skin which one’s behaviour can be adjusted to. Regardless of the motivating factors which cause somebody to acquire a costume, the main principle remains the same: the civilian steps behind the mask and turns into somebody else. ’Just the Two of Us’ deals with both: the costumes and the people behind them.”

I feel here that Pichler has really governed the effects of Love’s truth onto Jobson as he understands the concept of ‘masking’ the truth by minipiulationg peoples normal expectations. By dressing up these characters in costumes, the reader is unable to comprehend what the real person his behind them. Yet Pichler isn’t worried about what people he represents through costumes, its what they do normally which makes people question the sanity of the act, its puts people in the position of allowing oneself to except the norms that have been pushed.

While the costumes are incredible, terrifying, and laughable, it’s the strange juxtaposition of ordinary home life and the unknown identities of each individual that create such great images.

My Interpretations of Pichler’s Algorithms 

I felt from researching Pichler’s work and his intentions have inspired me to be a bit more adventurous within my hypothesis. I feel this is a good opportunity to mask people in a way that puts them in a different frame of appearance against what they are really are like as a person. This could be a good way of confusing a reader and therefore manipulating the truth in a way people wouldn’t know. This could set my project out more personally then most.