Wolfgang Tillmans, 'astro crusto, a', 2012

German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans is known for his intimate portraits, landscapes and fascinating still lifes, but he also creates ground-breaking abstract works. In 2009, he began a four-year project called 'Neue Welt'. The aim was to look at the world through new eyes and to document how it had changed since he started out as a photographer in 1988. For this project, he exchanged his trusted analogue camera for a digital one.

In this work, astro crusto, a., Tillmans experiments with the enormous degree of detail a high-resolution camera can capture. It is an immersive still life of seafood in shades of pink - but an ordinary fly disturbs the scene. The insect becomes a metaphor for the information overload that characterises modern life, and for the way we see the world through the lens of digital photography.