Online Seminar PLAYTIME: PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE CITY by Niklas Goldbach

“We move through the city, we live in houses. Architecture is all around us, and always influencing our lives. Cities can provide safety, or they can be a threat; they carry uncountable stories, and they transport history. The connection between photography and architectural space is as old as the medium of photography itself: the oldest surviving camera photograph shows parts of the buildings and surrounding countryside of Le Gras, the estate of French inventor Nicéphore Niépce, as seen from a high window. Louis Daguerre shot his famous earliest known photograph of a person from a ”View of the Boulevard du Temple”.

With a series of 4 live sessions with lectures and assignments spread over the course duration of four weeks, we will explore the limits and possibilities of photography as an artistic medium. We will discuss the history of the medium and some of its protagonists.

Through the lens of your cameras, we want to use the architecture of your city as a backdrop or even as the protagonist of your interest. The choice of your location can range from a room to a specific street, it can be an architectural style, or a sociological observation in a specific part of town. Your approach can be personal or documentary, it can be conceptual, performative or fictional.

We will discuss the different subgenres and approaches of photography which often overlap: street photography, documentary photography and architectural photography. As a guideline, specific perspectives on your city are developed and implemented on concrete tasks: each lecture concludes in an exercise, which the participants can use as a guideline or inspiration for their next project. The assignments will be completed over the course of one week and have to be uploaded before the next session: they will be presented and discussed within the group.” (Text by courtesy of Niklas Goldbach)

More information on the NIKLAS GOLDBACH Website.