[ 1 | 2 |
3 ]
To an ever-increasing extent, applied photography
is making use of urban space as a surface on which to
project images. These are dedicated to the advertising
of products of one kind or another, but while image
files individually will contain logos embodying objects
or signs, collectively they have the effect of transforming
numerous locations into aesthetically configured surfaces.
In the project SIGHT.SEEING however the methods of art
photography will be used in an intensive exploration,
on many levels, of the urban environment, which will
figure as something more than a carrier of images. This
exploration is to result in the production of enlarged
"picture postcards" depicting the body of a city, into
which they will be integrated by the manner in which
they are displayed. Within these general aims the Triennial
will concentrate on two particularly significant and
topical approaches. The first of these, which observes
the city as a complex organism whose elements ( architectural,
socio-(multi)-cultural, social and aesthetic) are linked
by more or less functioning articulations, proposes
that while the study of urban space, like sightseeing,
is an externally introduced
|
|
activity, its portrayal should take place
first and foremost within its own physical and societal
setting, and at the same time in the print media and
in virtual space.
This leads directly to the second, and equally relevant,
approach, which is concerned with the photographic image
as an artistic form of "pictographic writing in space".
Ever since the invention of photography, the basic constant
at the centre of various medium-related theories of
what is required to make a photograph, as distinct from,
say, a painting, has been the fact that there is a camera
lens pointing at something and that this Something is
the subject of the photograph. Today there is an ongoing,
strongly committed discussion centring on this specific
"indexical presupposition" - that there is a connection
to a referent, in other words that the photograph has
a subject - and on the other specific characteristics
which photography as a medium of creative art shares
with photography as a medium of everyday depiction.
In art today - and this applies to still photography
as well as to video - there is an increased concern
with the complex character, and the economic and social
determinants,
>> more
|