- Article
- Vol. 3, no. 1
- 2018
- Online: April 6, 2020
This article presents an overview of the history, principles, and current developments in the media technological field of photogrammetry. By chronicling the isomorphic shift taking place in image capturing, we seek to show that photogrammetry has led the way forward in seeing technical images not only as two dimensional projections, but as three-dimensional model-based images. In the mid-nineteenth century, photogrammetry was first used for the documentation of architectural objects and it later became a standard technique in aerial photography. Although its fields of application have become more extensive, photogrammetry’s basic principle hasn’t fundamentally changed: it is still defined as the three- dimensional geometric reconstruction of two-dimensional photographs through the measuring of reference points. With digital technological standards and advances in camera technology, photogrammetric imaging nowadays is intensively used for object recognition in machine vision and robotics. Beside this, photogrammetry is also opening new possibilities for documentation in the fields of investigative arts, this being explored with a discussion on the “Ground Truth” project from Forensic Architecture.
- Keywords: investigative art, machine vision, object recognition, photogrammetry, photography
- Review
- Vol. 1, no. 1
- 2016
- Online: August 6, 2020
- y
The article that aims to analyse the artistic production of photographer Bojan Salaj is based on conversations and reviews of his archive. Among Slovenian photographers, Salaj is the one who has been seen as an embodiment of the decisive shift in perception of the photographic medium that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He has never worked as documentary photographer or photojournalist; his authorial practice has always been primarily focused on the context of exhibition and against unconventional solutions. Salaj is one of those photographers who are characterized by the deep reflection of the meaning and perception of image from different, mainly philosophical, viewpoints, while at the same time following the objectivistic principles of photography. At a glance, his practice is extremely eclectic and post-modern, which is due to the fact that he is not looking to find an individual and recognizable artistic voice; he dedicates his focus to individual projects, bringing into his work various different references and themes. Nevertheless, a central motive can still be perceived throughout his output. In the past 25 years, Salaj has mostly been attracted to the here and now; this includes the fundamental problems of representation of photography in mass media, iconography of power structures, models of construction of history, and ways of establishing national and cultural identities.
Artist Biography
Bojan Salaj (born 1964) is a photographer, who since the early 1990s continuously creates and exhibits his artistic projects. In his works he highlights and questions the representation of photography in mass media, iconography of power structures, models of construction of history, and ways of establishing national and cultural identities. He commonly follows distinctly conceptual approaches and objectivistic principles. Since 1994, he is employed as a photographer at the National Gallery in Ljubljana, and is the author of numerous photographs from the field of Slovenian fine art cultural heritage. He lives and works in Ljubljana.
- Keywords: cultural identities, here and now, philosophy, photographer as the author, photography
- Article
- Vol. 3, no. 2
- 2018
- Online: June 5, 2020
This essay traces the resurrection of the fotoescultura, a three-dimensional photographic portrait popular in rural Mexico in the early 20th century, as interpreted in recent works by Performing Pictures, a contemporary Swedish artist duo. The early fotoesculturas were an augmented form of portraiture, commissioned by family members who supplied photographs that artisans in Mexico City converted into framed sculptural portraits for display on family altars. We compare these »traditional« photographic objects with “new” digital forms of video animation on screen and in the public space that characterize Performing Pictures work, and explore how the fotoescultura inspired new incarnations of their series Men that Fall. At the intersection between the material aspects of a “traditional” vernacular art form and “new” media art, we identify a photographic aesthetic that shifts from seeing and perceiving to physical engagement, and discuss how the frame and its parergon augment the photographic gaze. The essay is accompanied by photos and video stills from Performing Pictures’ film poem Dreaming the Memories of Now (2018), depicting their work with the fotoesculturas.
- Keywords: fotoesculturas, frame, parergon, vernacular photography, videoart
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- Project
- Review
- Vol. 2, no. 1
- 2017
- Online: August 6, 2020
- y
Although the interpretations of Koštrun’s works and his entire opus are undeniably multifaceted and open to different interpretations and readings, the article suggests that all his word does share a common meditative stillness and sense of solitariness. Peter Koštrun’s opus lingers on the intersection of pristine nature and cultural landscape, on the intersection of the impact of humans on the environment and the insignificance of the individual in relation to nature. Even if Koštrun’s photographic motifs allude to archaism and romanticism, and are at first glance connected to the tradition of photographic pictorialism, they are in their essence distinctly modern, attached to the reality of the here and now. His expression is completely non-narrative in the classic sense of photographic representation, as the images do not tell a linear story, but are dedicated to visual language, which is (as opposed to the written word) always ambivalent and layered.
- Keywords: Anthropocene, landscape, melancholy, mortality, nature photography
- Review
- Vol. 3, no. 1
- 2018
- Online: August 6, 2020
- y
Artist Biography
Amalia Ulman (1989) is a visual artist born in Argentina. In 2011 she graduated from the Central Saint Martins College in London. In her author’s practice she addresses phenomena such as class struggle, social gender, representation of individual in mass media and on social networks, while using photos, videos, performative practices and modern communication tools, which often go beyond classical gallery practices. Ulman lives and works in Los Angeles.