Two Times for the First Time

Having spent large amounts of time in virtual surroundings such as video games and internet chatrooms in his youth, Leppänen is interested in how memories and experiences created in those spaces affect life away from the keyboard. In the composed still-life images of the photo series Two Times for the First Time, real-world things are inserted into 3D rendering software’s virtual space, while digital phenomena is in turn introduced to the tactile world. The resulting images bind the two states of reality together and make a suggestion: creating photographic documentation could be a way to connect out-of body experiences with lived experience and, on the other hand, imbue virtual reminiscence with real world intensity.