Matthias Koch

Photographer
   
Twelve hours or Transit
Public Project
Twelve hours or Transit
Copyright Matthias Koch 2024
Updated Nov 2024
Topics Aerial, Art, Aviation, Black and White, Editorial, Essays, Fine Art, Globalization, Isolation, Photography, Transit, Transition, Travel
Summary
They are those ephemeral places of transit that are only connected by the journey and exist in an interim period. One is not really there yet and actually already gone again. A metaphor of life,  you know that you won't stay long.
At two o'clock in the morning local time one is still awake. The TV is on and fills the silent emptiness. At home it is only six o'clock in the evening. You eat alone and drink a last beer at the hotel bar.


Twelve Hours explores those spaces suspended in time and place, where one exists both everywhere and nowhere. Hotel rooms, anonymous bars, airport lounges—these are the settings of lives momentarily put on hold, shaped by the disjointed rhythm of time zones and the heavy stillness of universal silence.Through these images, you feel the texture of a sleepless night: the harsh glare of artificial light casting sharp shadows on sterile walls, the sheen of a solitary meal tray, or the soft blur of curtains filtering the glow of a bedside lamp. These seemingly mundane details transform into fragments of visual poetry, revealing the intimacy of in-between moments.Here, the notion of travel transcends physical movement—it becomes introspective, a dive into isolation and estrangement. Each photo captures not a place, but an emotion—that sensation of being out of sync, never fully present, caught between leaving and arriving."One is not really there yet, and actually already gone again." This paradox lies at the heart of the series, illustrating a shared human experience. These stolen moments, where time stretches and feels both insignificant and infinite, become a mirror reflecting our own thoughts on the fragility of the present and the fleeting nature of our passage through it.Twelve Hours is a story of universal pauses, of places where we are left alone with ourselves—in waiting, in transit, always in the temporary.
Twelve Hours or Transit — MATTHIAS KOCH
They are those ephemeral places of transit that are only connected by the journey and exist in an interim period. One is not really there yet and actually already gone again. A metaphor of life, you know that you won't stay long.
Matthiaskoch.co
Twelve Hours explore ces lieux suspendus dans le temps et l’espace, où l’on est à la fois partout et nulle part. Ces chambres d’hôtel, ces bars anonymes, ces salons d’aéroport : autant de décors qui deviennent des reflets d’une existence entre parenthèses, habitée par le rythme syncopé des fuseaux horaires et le poids d’un silence universel.À travers ces images, on ressent la texture d’une nuit sans sommeil : la lumière artificielle qui découpe des ombres nettes sur des murs froids, la brillance d’un plateau-repas solitaire, ou le doux flou des rideaux sous la lumière filtrante d’une lampe de chevet. Ces détails, si banals en apparence, deviennent des fragments de poésie visuelle, révélant l’intimité des moments d’entre-deux.Ici, l’idée du voyage dépasse le déplacement physique : il devient introspectif, une plongée dans l’isolement et l’étrangeté. Chaque photo capte non pas un lieu, mais une émotion—cette sensation d’être à contretemps, de ne jamais vraiment appartenir à l’instant présent.

“One is not really there yet, and actually already gone again.” Ce paradoxe, au cœur de la série, illustre une humanité partagée. Ces instants volés, où le temps s'étire et semble à la fois inutile et infini, deviennent un miroir de nos propres réflexions sur la fragilité du moment présent et la fugacité de nos passages ici-bas.Twelve Hours, c’est l’histoire de ces pauses universelles, de ces lieux où l'on est face à soi-même—dans l’attente, dans l’ailleurs, mais toujours dans le provisoire.
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