KOSMOS (2010-2017)
“I once ruled the worlds. Not just one, but many. I ruled them with mirrors and lenses. I ruled them with light and shadow and time. Sometimes I ruled with a trick of the eye. Through my camera, an entire kosmos took shape, and each world within it seemed to operate by a certain unfamiliar logic.” – Jan von Holleben

Jan von Holleben has constructed a kosmos of six planets with little more than a box of props, a team of willing humans, some clippings from the garden, and his camera. Click, click, click and strange things happen, right before the camera, with no digital manipulation: Ghosts flash through the Berlin cityscape. Plants cast shadows on the sky. Many places gather in the same place at once. The monsters imitate the flowers (or is it the other way around?). Each planet is an optical riddle. The only clues are visual. No answers are provided. This is a book for intrepid discoverers.

Note: the inventor of these planets avoids all references to god and to the cosmos. His kosmos is spelled with a K and is something quite different.