User:Ari Va

Concept

The image used in this project is a collage published by Amnesty International showing some of the victims of Iran’s 1988 prison massacres. Thousands of political prisoners were forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed. Their bodies were not returned to their families, and information about their fate and burial places has continued to be concealed.

I was interested in the connection between this political erasure and the physical degradation of an image. The experiment asks a simple question: how much can an image be weakened before it disappears completely? As the paper and print begin to change, the faces remain visible.

Process

I printed the collage in black and white on regular office paper and exposed it to water collected from the Ilm River, together with a small amount of natural sediment.

I started with a shallow container in which the print was kept continuously wet. I documented the sample through photographs over one week. As a second, spontaneous experiment, I placed another print around the inside of a glass jar, filled it with the same river water and kept the image fully submerged.

Shallow Sample — One Week

The first slide compares the complete sample on Day 1 and Day 7. The second slide shows a detail from the same area over the same period.

After one week, the contrast had become softer, some parts of the image had blurred or changed unevenly, and sediment had settled on the paper. The surface of the paper had also visibly changed, while the faces remained recognizable.

Shallow Sample

Shallow Sample - Closer look

Closed Jar Test

The jar test began as a parallel experiment to see how the same image would change when kept completely underwater in a closed container.

The print was placed against the inside wall of the jar and remained fully submerged in Ilm River water. The following videos document the condition of the image, water and sediment after one week. So far, the visible changes seem to come mainly from the action of the water and the degradation of the paper. There is little clearly visible biological activity at this stage.

Closed-jar immersion test

Closed-jar immersion test - Closer look

Ongoing Documentation

Both samples are still being observed. I will continue documenting their changes through photographs and video and add further material to this page.

Thirty-Day Update

The first samples were kept under the same conditions and documented again after 30 days. The following comparisons show the transformation of the complete image and a detail from the same area on Day 1, Day 7 and Day 30.

Shallow Sample

The first slide shows the complete sample over the three stages. The second slide focuses on the same detail in order to make the smaller changes more visible.

Most of the visible transformation happened during the first week. By Day 30, the image had become slightly lighter and more uneven, with further loss of contrast and changes to the surface of the paper. The later changes were slower and less dramatic, but the faces remained clearly recognizable.

Closed Jar Sample

The glass jar experiment was continued without changing the original setup. The print remained fully submerged in the same Ilm river water, and the jar stayed closed.

The following video documents the sample after 30 days. The transformation remained gradual. The image was still visible through the water and glass, while sediment and prolonged contact with the water continued to affect the paper. As in the earlier stage, there was little clearly visible biological activity; the changes appeared to result mainly from immersion and material degradation.

Comparative Immersion Test

To explore faster forms of image degradation, I prepared five copies of the same portrait. Each copy was immersed for approximately four hours in a separate mixture of water and one additional substance: Meister Proper all-purpose cleaner, Frosch dish gel, Brennspiritus, sodium hydroxide (NaOH), or acetone.

After four hours, the samples showed different kinds of transformation. The Meister Proper, dish gel and Brennspiritus mixtures caused relatively subtle changes in contrast, tone and surface texture, while the faces remained clearly visible. The NaOH mixture produced the strongest physical damage, including tearing, creasing and a partial breakdown of the paper structure. The acetone mixture affected the image differently: the paper remained more intact, but the print developed a strong bluish tonal shift and became visually softer.

The comparison showed that the same image can be altered in different ways depending on the material used—not only through fading, but also through changes in colour, surface and the physical structure of the paper.

Chemical Degradation with Sulfuric Acid

As a final laboratory experiment, printed images were exposed to 96% sulfuric acid under supervision in the BioLab. Unlike the earlier tests with river water and diluted household substances, this experiment focused on a rapid chemical degradation of both the paper and the printed image.

The process was recorded at different scales. For the macro recordings, the prints were placed in a shallow container and sulfuric acid was applied across the surface while the transformation was filmed with a camera and a macro lens. Further samples were observed through two microscope setups. In these recordings, the acid was added drop by drop directly onto the printed surface. One of the microscopes allowed the process to be filmed at several levels of magnification.

The recordings show the image changing unevenly rather than simply disappearing. The paper darkened, softened and gradually lost its structure. Printed colours moved across the surface, while fragments of ink and individual faces remained visible in some areas after the surrounding material had already broken apart. At the microscopic scale, the halftone pattern of the print, the texture of the paper, moving liquid fronts and small bubbles became part of the image.

This became the main visual outcome of the project. Moving between the complete collage, isolated faces and the microscopic surface made it possible to observe degradation not only as a final condition, but as an active process. The image is attacked and partly dissolved, but its disappearance is irregular: some faces fade, while others remain temporarily visible within the damaged material.

I have started editing the recorded macro and microscopic material into a short film. The film will bring together the different scales of the experiment and focus on the tension between material destruction and the continued presence of the faces.

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]]]] Image source: Amnesty International, Blood-Soaked Secrets: Why Iran’s 1988 Prison Massacres Are Ongoing Crimes Against Humanity. Cover collage of some of the victims of the 1988 prison massacres in Iran. © Amnesty International.