"(...) So, receiving a latent image is an invitation to creativity (shared creativity or as you like, "interactive" creativity). At the individual level, there are unlimited options with regard to these latent images. They can be kept as they are in a state of permanent latency, with all their promises and secrets intact. Or they can be developed by a standad procedure to satisfy one's curiosity. They can be developed heterodoxically, by modifying the habitual norms and introducing experimental variations. They can be dyed or coloured, drawm or written on. They can be made into pieces to create a collage. Or they can be put into the microwave oven. Or we can burn them and take pictures of their ashes. Or they can be covered with photographic emulsion so that another latent image can be exposed on them. Or...

We have entered an unending process, a manifold project that impinges upon many creative aspects and does not make a final statement about the much-trumpeted "death of the author". Let us realise that, here, the images, whether they be latent or visible are contingent as "works", traps an riddles presented to the viewers, whether or not they are participants. Theoretically the reason beind Photolatente has to be found in the elaboration of the process itself, which generates images and questions. In any case, then, the work is the process itself and the resulting images ar sheer accidents. What about the author? The author is in charge, by controlling, making the rules and watching over the procedure, even though as in this particular case, he might allow us a certain degree of participation because we are necessary as actors in this conceptual contraption he has created. Our inevitable, fascinated confusion is a requisite of his game -his work. (...)"

© Joan Fontcuberta, 2002
Complete text of editorial disposable in: www.photovision.es

(...) In my opinion, by explicitly concentrating on the latent image, Photolatente duplicates, the elementary structures of the photographic process. As if playing with mirrors, it places them in front of us and forces us to reflect on what has become, by force of habit, transparent and practically trivial in a world overloaded with images. Moreover, by inviting participants to act on the latent image, Photolatente confronts us with the process of compositions, decompositions and transformations involved in a concept of oeuvre in which there is always some quality of latency, a play on the unseen that gives rise to something not previously there. These are the issues I wish to consider, especially from the perspective of the consonances which, in my opinion, exist between Photolatente and some current ideas about experience and the artistic phenomenon (...)

©Rosemary Vargas,2002
Complete text in Photovision nº 31

(...) It is a well-known fact that people who do not give their names get a cool reception virtually everywhere, and the temples of art are not exception to this rule. Inasmuch as they are spaces where words struggle to erase images, they demand credentials.
Authorship is imposed as a visiting card, as a notary's affidavit, as an attribute which defines the work. We come to ask ourselves if authorship is the work, but if this is the case, it nevertheless ought to be pointed out that as a declaration of principles this must be a recent discovery, like taste, the figure of the artist, perspective or human rights. (...)

© Eduardo Momeñe,2002
Complete text in Photovision nº 31

(...) The rigorous structure conceived by Oscar Molina establishes the rules of a game of triangular relationships between artist, participants and receivers. The logic of the concepts that govern Photolatente, semantically and materially, gives rise to a group of transactions between these three actors. It is a transaction in all senses of the term, an exchange in this case, of papers and respective statutes - hence the difficulty in giving a precise name to each of these agents. Leaving that of artist aside, the names of author, photographer, co-author, spectator, all seem to be inadequate or exchangeable. It is equally a transaction when, at a certain point in the process, each one retires and renounces - as if in an agreement of reciprocal concessions- prerogatives and customary rights. Likewise, it is a transaction given that a contract stipulates the commitment of artist, collaborator and buyer. It seems only fair, then, that the latter should be entitled to finalise the process by revealing the photographic image: in its primitve sense, transaction denotes the action of finalising. (...)

© Natacha Pugnet, 2002
Complete text in Photovision nº 31

(...) The whole problem of authorship is virtually solved once and for all. Even if Oscar Molina does not take any of the photographs, even if he is not the owner of the envelopes or pursue any personal profit, he is still the author of the project. This puts us in a context where everything that can be questioned is questioned, including the value of creation itself, the importance of a brand as the substitute for an individual or a lifestyle, the power of money as an exchange symbol, the elimination of anticipation and the usual mechanisms of action/reaction, the essence of photography as a technical medium, visual language and artistic expression, etc. He has oganized all the participants as film extras who play roles that, notwithstanding a common origin, yield very different and independent results.

At the same time, Oscar Molina has pushed photographic aesthetics to an extreme. In a way, there is the purpose of recovering the aura of the work of art in the photographic medium, of which it is deprived by its own idiosyncrasy. (...)

© Álvaro de los Ángeles, 2002
Complete text in Photovision nº 31

(...) Photography's way of seeing allows us to talk about different types of speculation. That of the light reflected in the silver of the negative to form the first latent image, the first ghost, like images engraved in childhood. An image that is specular, like any other image in a mirror, an object that never exists in darkness. Speculation can also be reflection, using thought. Allthough it is not light that is reflected, clarity can still get through to illuminate what was in darkness before. That way lies knowledge.

Another type of speculation is to be found in all the arts and necessities of life, however basic these may be. (...)

© Cristina Pérez Andrés, 2002
Complete text in Photovision nº 31