Photography as Visual Urbanism: Memory, Research, Mediation
In recent years, visual urbanism has emerged as a new research field. Being aware of the photography’s potentials and constraints in practice (such as photographic objectification) and being critical of street photography, researchers using critical visual methodologies in anthropology (Banks 2001; Pink 2007), cultural studies (Lister and Wells, 2000), sociology (Holliday 2001), and cultural geography (Rose 2012) have underlined the importance of reflexivity and questioned the uncritical use of both cameras and images. Yet, until now, a discussion of incorporating visual research methods into the knowledge of architectural design and urban planning has been very minimal. While researchers in other disciplines have already suggested possibilities for new visual methodologies, researchers in architecture and urban planning have not undertaken similar approaches in their disciplines yet.
In this conference, we aim to generate a new cross-disciplinary dialogue between theoreticians and practitioners of urbanism and photography in order to develop new collaborative methods for research on the visual, sensory and performative dimensions of urbanism through photography. Our aim is to reveal, that the practice of architecture and urbanism departs from a hybrid state in which memory, research and mediation are bound together in a specific operative mode. Photography, as a means of visual and performative urban practice, can be connected to the acts of remembering, of investigating or of planning. The main research questions to discuss during the conference are: What can architects, urban planners and designers learn from photographers and visual artists and vice versa? How might research methodologies of photographers and visual artists help us challenge existing research methodologies in urbanism and urban studies? How can we define a new common ground between making photography and the practices of designing / making / living urban spaces?
Organized by Prof. Axel Sowa (Department of Architectural Theory, RWTH
Aachen University)
and Dr. Ela Kacel (Faculty of Architecture and Design, Bahcesehir
University, Istanbul)
Venue: RWTH Aachen University
Haus Königshügel
Melatener Str. 31 52074 Aachen
PROGRAM
January 31, 2019
9:00-9:30 Registration
9:30-9:50 Welcome and opening of the conference
9:50-11:30 Panel 1. Constructing memories
Discussant/Chair: David Bate (University of Westminster, London)
Nicholas Boyarsky, The Ephemeral Imagination: The postcard and the construction of urban memory
Birgit Schillak-Hammers, Pictures of Berlin: Construction and conservation of a 1920s metropolis
Ela Kaçel, Self-positioning of Migrants and Photographers via Self-images in Metropolises
11:30-12:00 Q&A and Discussion
14:00-16:00 Panel 2. Photography as artistic urban research
Discussant/Chair: Sophie Wolfrum (Janson+Wolfrum Architektur+Stadt)
Elisabeth Neudörfl, Photographer’s Dilemma: „Good“ photography vs. „good“ architecture
Bettina Lockemann, Exploring the Urban Space: Methods for visual urban research
Davide Deriu, ‘Slowness of the Gaze’: On Gabriele Basilico’s city portraits
16:00-16:40 Q&A and Discussion
16:40-17:00 Coffee break
17:00-18:00 Keynote speech
Mary N. Woods (Cornell University, Ithaca, NY)
The City Has Memory: Images of ruin and redevelopment in post-independence and neoliberal Mumbai
18:00 Artist talk: Archeology of an Era: Socialist Modernism
Roman Bezjak in conversation with Axel Sowa
February 1, 2019
9:30-10:30 Keynote speech
Alexa Färber (University of Vienna)
Traces of the Future: Circulating urban development through city photobooks
10:30-10:50 Coffee break
10:50-12:30 Panel 3. Mediated photography
Discussant/Chair: Agnes Förster (RWTH Aachen University)
Clare Melhuish, Re-framing the Postcolonial Gaze: CGIs and the transformation of urban space in Doha, Qatar
Markus Lanz, Brasília: Photographing against the image
Lard Buurman, Capturing the City
12:30-13:00 Q&A and Discussion
13:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-16:00 Closing Panel. Photography as visual urbanism
Podium discussion
Moderator: Axel Sowa (RWTH Aachen University)
Participants:
David Bate
Sophie Wolfrum
Agnes Förster
Roman Bezjak
16:00-16:30 Closing of the conference
Quellennachweis:
CONF: Photography as Visual Urbanism (Aachen, 31 Jan – 1 Feb 19). In: ArtHist.net, 16.01.2019. Letzter Zugriff 29.03.2024. <https://arthist.net/archive/19926>.