Greif Alumni: Q&A with Tobias Kappel

Tobias Kappel “inthein” as a quest for a hybrid visual language between analogue and digital systems

We periodically invite our alumni, artists we have featured in the past, to share their new work and projects with us. Tobias Kappel was among the artists selected by Robert Morat in his Guest Room back in 2015. A Berlin-based artist, Kappel explores the translation processes between different image forms and digital media. He employs various imaging methods, photo editing tools, and printing techniques within a process-oriented approach to image-making. Kappel appropriates the prevalent feeling of being ‘in-between' to address questions related to photography, painting, and perception. The result is a genre-fluid body of work that engages with contemporary discourse on images and imagery that has lost its categorization. Kappel recently had a solo show at LOWW Gallery in Tokyo: “inthein” explored a process of images appropriation, reproduction, and manipulation of original and found photos, both analogue and digital. By using everyday tools like printers, scanners, and software, Kappel investigates how machines interpret and reproduce visual information.

Der Greif: What's your relationship to photography as an artist producing photographic works?

My relationship with photography has evolved significantly. While I began working within the confines of traditional photography, I’ve since moved beyond it, engaging in a more expansive image-making process. My practice follows a hybrid approach, blending analogue and digital elements and methods, generating, appropriating, and manipulating existing visual material, and incorporating tools—aside from a camera—such as scanners, printers, and image editing software. This process is fluid, and I treat these tools as equally valid components within my constant work-in-progress state. In this sense, photography is one of many mediums in my artistic practice that allows me to transform and question how images are produced, viewed, and interpreted.

Der Greif: Could you elaborate on the "Big Flat Now" concept you mention being a source of inspiration for your current research?

“The Big Flat Now” is a term coined by the media platform 032c to describe the synchronicity and flatness in contemporary cultural production. It suggests that traditional boundaries between different forms of artistic expression – whether photography, painting, or digital media – have collapsed. Consequently, hierarchies or distinctions between media are absent, making interaction within a flattened space the norm. Everything exists simultaneously, and anything can become something else. This aligns with the democratic approach to image-making that I aim to embrace in my work, where analog and digital or self-taken and found visual forms coexist and interact without privileging one over the other.

Der Greif: And how does that influence your research?

The concept of “The Big Flat Now” informs my research by encouraging me to break free from the constraints of traditional artistic categories. It reflects the fluid, interconnected nature of the digital age, where creative processes are no longer linear but multidirectional. I aim, therefore, to move fluidly between different media and techniques without any predefined notion of what an image is or should be. This openness to possibility is central to my exploration of the ‘in-between,’ where I focus on the transitions and transformations that occur as an image moves through various stages of reproduction and manipulation. It influences how I think about image-making – not as a final, fixed outcome but as an ongoing, dynamic process that can continually shift and evolve.

Der Greif: Where do you feel "traditional photography" stands today? And your work? Would you still define it as ‘photography’ in the traditional way?

I believe traditional photography still holds a place in today’s world, but its role has shifted. It’s no longer solely about capturing ‘objective reality’ but about engaging in a broader conversation about images and their meaning. While my own work often begins with photographic elements, it quickly transforms into something else through processes of deconstruction and/or translation. I don’t see my work fitting within the category of traditional photography; instead, I think of it as existing in a limbo of the in-between – where the boundaries of photography, painting, and digital art blur and merge.

Der Greif: What did you show at your recent show at the LOWW Gallery in Tokyo?

The exhibition, titled "inthein," presented 20 works from the last eight years or so, in which I have been revolving around the aforementioned questions and themes surrounding the idea of an ‘in-between,’ and which I see, therefore, as part of an ongoing body of work under the same name. One part of the exhibition, for example, presented works from the “ brother” series (2017), which was created using an all-in-one printer’s scanning, printing, and copying functions as a means of generating and manipulating images by having them interact, compete, and interfere with each other. The show also featured more recent works like "tokyo noise" and "gyakusou" (both 2024), which continue my interest in the idea of images that are open-ended, always in the process of becoming something else.

Der Greif: Are you working on any new projects?

Yes and no! I’d say that my whole approach leads to a constantly evolving work-in-progress, like a rhizome. So, in that sense, I am continuously navigating the space between analog and digital, between photography and other forms of visual art, and finding new ways of including that in my work is simply an ongoing endeavor. I’ve had a bit of a hectic year, for which I’m still more than grateful in many respects, but I will take a moment here and there to digest the massive input I’ve received while also working on a first artist book.