Ear Conditioning

Lukas Strebels explains.

Forty years ago, I went travelling with a table. It was an incredible, animal-like object and I carried it around, taking its photograph in different landscapes. I also took along a broomstick in an instrument box. As you can imagine, it was quite amusing going through customs.

I had two sets of horns in different sizes that I would screw on to it and have bullfights with it. At one point, I lost one of its legs: somebody stole it in a pub for fun, and I had to remake it. It was a surreal altar and I called it Antoglyph. Don’t ask me why: it just came to me. This picture is entitled Meus Volatus Magicus Supra Antoglyphum, or My Magic Flight Over the Antoglyph.

It was the summer of 1971 and my girlfriend and I were at the Tuscan beach resort of Forte dei Marmi. At the time, many of my contemporaries were very political, but I was somewhat detached and just followed my own instincts. Witchcraft fascinated me, and I wanted to get a picture of myself flying over the table in the sea.

I set up my camera on a tripod, took the table out into the water and climbed on. Then I jumped up while my girlfriend pressed the button. We had just one roll of film: in those days, you couldn’t check you had got the shot, so I only found out when I returned to my darkroom two weeks later.

I love the way the sun is right behind me, with water surrounding the table, and you can see its reflection in the sand – all pure coincidence. Most people think it looks like a montage. It’s definitely not.

Spotted in The Guardian