One of the main interests of this panel was to explore the relationships between virtual dimensions of photography and concrete physical realities in contemporary discourses on Architecture, City and Territory. We wanted to discuss, among other things, how constructed and manipulated images that suggest a new reading or create new idealised scenarios of existing architectural and public spaces may be used to cross or infringe certain borders people are bound in their daily lives as a way to act upon reality, fabricating new relationships between individuals and the collective public.
A number of relations between the artistic strategies developed by the authors of this panel could be examined, focusing on the various methods they used for the construction of visual narratives between the virtual world of photography, manipulated visual constructs and the field of architecture in contemporary discourse. In this way, it was possible to discuss and examine today’s possibilities of image creation with digital tools that expand and potentiate significantly the practice of photography on creating imaginary environments of present architecture and public spaces.
In fact, the projects presented went far beyond traditional objective approaches, exploring the fictional universe and making critical readings of existing spaces, going against the undiscerning saturated media consumption of architectural images.
Starting with the text “HC (hortus conclusus)” written by the panel’s keynote speaker Beate Gütschow – an amazing artist who came from the world of realistic painting towards photography medium, having studied with Bernhard Johannes and Wolfgang Tillmans – it can be said that her body of work questions in a very significant way the likeness of photography, being also political and critical towards the notion of truth associated to this media.
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