Between screen surfaces, photographic fragments, and narrative images, the duo exhibition BURN-IN by Jascha Froh and Jonathan Joosten unfolds around a state of visual afterimage. The exhibition takes as its point of departure the phenomenon of “burn-in”: the ghostly imprint of static images on digital displays, remaining visible long after their original content has disappeared. What initially appears as a technical defect becomes a conceptual figure for memory, repetition, and the persistence of images in a present defined by their constant circulation. Within a visual culture shaped by frictionless distribution and endless scrolling, Froh and Joosten are interested in moments when this flow begins to falter. Their works hold onto images, slow their circulation, or allow them to reappear in altered forms. The technical phenomenon of burn-in thus becomes a way of asking what remains of an image once its original context, function, or immediate presence has disappeared.

In Jascha Froh’s works, figures and motifs recur that originate in personal memories and images from his own perceptual archive. Rather than attempting to reconstruct these images as accurately as possible, his paintings ask what happens to them when they are repeatedly recalled. As if caught in a loop of memory, an image reappears, yet with each repetition it may shift, change, or lose clarity. Froh translates this process into painting by repeatedly returning to original motifs, reworking and concealing them, or altering them to the point of near illegibility. The disappearance of the image does not stand in opposition to its persistence but becomes part of it. Precisely because an image has inscribed itself into the perceptual archive, it can be recalled again and again without remaining unchanged. Burn-in thus becomes a mental process in which what has left an imprint is reshaped with each loop of memory.

This recurrence and transformation of images continues in a different form in Froh’s lightbox in the exhibition’s final room. Reached by a staircase, the work appears almost like something preserved and rediscovered: a luminous object recalling older screens on which burn-in was particularly visible. Through the light, the residual image takes on an almost magical presence, becoming a physical encounter with something that persists beyond its own time.

Jonathan Joosten’s works approach burn-in through the visual language of the film still and the process of cinematic editing. Their point of departure is a series of moments taken from an earlier video work by the artist, extracted from moving sequences and fixed as images. The works can therefore be understood not only as individual film stills, but also as the results of a process of selection inherent to video editing. The still occupies an ambiguous temporal position: it captures a moment between what has just happened and what might follow, while at the same time pointing to the longer sequence from which it was taken. As a deliberately selected frame, it is singled out from a multitude of possible images and placed within a new context. This relationship between holding on and withdrawing shapes Joosten’s approach to images and is also reflected in the logic of the digital editing interface, where a cinematic sequence appears not as continuous movement but as a succession of individual frames. These are separated, shifted, and reconnected. Editing thus always entails both separation and connection.

In Joosten’s wall works, the source material becomes increasingly concealed through abstraction, layering, and grid-like structures. The grids recall digital interfaces and the division of a sequence into individual frames, while the original image never disappears entirely but remains present as a trace. In this sense, Joosten’s works can also be understood as a form of visual archive: images are stored and carried forward without remaining fully accessible. Like cinematic editing, this archive is based on selection: certain images remain while others disappear.

Together, Froh and Joosten examine how images persist while simultaneously changing as they are repeatedly recalled, held onto, or transferred into new contexts. BURN-IN is therefore as much about preservation as it is about the transformation of what is preserved. As with burn-in itself, something remains even when the original image no longer exists in the same form. What remains visible is less the image itself than the trace of its persistence.

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Text by Emily Pretzsch