light-years pres. “The Process” book launch by Georg Gatsas + Marta De Pascalis + Sophie Vitelli

Georg Gatsas
Georg Gatsas (b. 1978, Switzerland) is an artist who uses still and moving photography to map the intersections between creativity, location, memory, and focus. A steadfast participant in DIY and underground creative communities, he has spent his life unveiling the connections that bind artists across genre, generation, and identity. 

Solo exhibitions of his work have been mounted by Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Switzerland; The Swiss Institute, New York; and JUBG, Cologne. His work has appeared in The Wire, zweikommasieben, and ANP Quarterly, and monographs dedicated to Georg’s photography have been published by Nieves (Switzerland) and Loose Joints (France and UK).

The Process
Spanning 2002 - 2007, The Process was Georg’s first major series, documenting five years of life in New York City. It’s an alienating span of time, bookended by September 11 on one side and the emergence of the smartphone on the other. The terrified, reactionary America of these five years craved comfort and safety, but a spiky, risky underground coalesced in that creative dead zone. In Georg’s words, “There was a sense of most of the world not understanding. And this is an opportunity.” The predominant culture’s patriotism and assuredness left a lot of unsupervised space for individuals interested in addressing fear and danger. It sometimes felt as if entire city blocks had been abandoned, the remnants corrupted and rebuilt by bands and artists, by concerts and exhibitions with small, dedicated audiences. This was the terrain of The Process.

Georg sought out the people wandering this terrain, and made portrait of them: Genesis P-Orridge, Black Dice, Antipop Consortium, Kembra Pfahler, Ira Cohen and Stephonik Youth. These are not artists bound together by generation or gesture, rather they are connected through their dedication and intention. They share a sense of refusal, and an ability to see the opportunity in not being understood, in not being recuperable. Everyone in these photos is on edge, tense and tightly-wound. Their faces display the same resistance that you hear in their songs and read in their words. Georg matched their focus and ruthlessness in his photographs. The direct eye contact is consistent. The camera’s unobstructed harshness is consistent. 

Marta De Pascalis
Marta De Pascalis’ sonic world acts as an uncanny translator that freezes and expands emotions, conveying them into unique soundscapes. Her solo works employ analog, fm synthesis, and a tape-loop system, whereby she carves waveforms to shape cathartic sound bodies. Sky Flesh, her latest album, has been published on Caterina Barbieri’s light-years imprint.

Sophie Vitelli
Sophie Vitelli is a Stockholm-based composer and sound designer. Her approach is informed by a background in film, anthropology, and classical guitar, while maintaining a focused engagement with musicality and sound. Working mainly with modular synthesis and guitar, she explores the spectral qualities and resonance of chords and patterns, guided by their potential synaesthetic and dramaturgical effects, often in minimalist structures. She has been on the board of Konstmusiksystrar since 2024, and Sound of Stockholm since 2025. She is half of the artistic duo PHANTA, with Frida Giulia Franceschini.