Here is our latest news.
Lab updatesfragments in transit
Follow the conversations with the artists of the Masters of Photography and Society after their field trip in Thessaloniki, in Northern Greece. Presented here are most of the projects that they created and produced in less than a week. They exhibited their work in the pop-up exhibition “Fragments in Transit” at Beetroot Design House for a day. We designed together an exchange of views in regards to their work to keep the images travelling outside the city walls and outside the time frame of the exhibition.
Lab updatesPhilosophy and Photography Panel Discussion at the Society for European Philosophy, Cardiff 2-04/07
Visual artist Spiros Hadjidjanos along with philosopher James Lewis and Alex Athanasiadou, PHLSPH Lab, discussed about the philosophical questions that his work has been posing since the seminal ‘Where are the people that talk on the radio?’ [2008] up until his latest “Forward/Reverse Diffusion” [2023-2024] at the Society for European Philosophy Annual Conference held at Cardiff on the 2nd of July. Spiros’ approaches the image not as representation but as information to be transfigured through his aesthetic gestures into presence; in that way by using and ‘misusing’ information he explores the potentialities and challenges of the way our world is currently designed.
Lab updatesLive talk
Phlsph Lab in conversation with international visual artist Aikaterini Gegisian on expanded photography, information and structural relations, and much more..Live in Thessaloniki as part of tinytalksthessaloniki by beetrootdesign. [5/06/204]
Talk
We ‘make’ and store memories like never before. Do we still wonder how melancholy and nostalgia come into play? Do we try to restore, to reflect or do we distort? In this discussion over coffee between philosophy professor Hans Maes and photographer @atelier_juliescheurweghs, the PHLSPH Lab makes room to discuss the scope of melancholy, nostalgia, the bittersweet, the way they are elicited, how there is no nostalgia when there is no experience and much more. Julie’s images operate as a springboard while Hans navigates us in a succinct and simple manner through the different concepts. Follow the link on our bio to be inspired! Many thanks to Hans and Julie for this discussion and all their support.
Play
Great to do some conceptual rewiring with artists from IDEP Barcelona once again! PLAYING with ideas, opening up concepts and looking at the conceptual structures lying behind images and words! Many thanks to Moritz Neumüller for the invitation!
Lab updates
PHLSPH Lab went to Helsinki. This year it was just me, but setting a goal that next time we will have a project co-created from the couplings of our growing community to present! Thank you @sarahritterart for using your work as a springboard to investigate the parallels and cross-overs in modeling in science and modeling in research-based projects. A bit of philosophy of science in the mix by using the wonderful insight by Professor Nancy Nersessian, with the firm belief that the constructed image has a lot of dormant information, waiting to be unleashed!
Play
Playing with the ideas of your project and/or your text. Connect with us to organize one-on-one mentoring and group workshops. We have invited Karin van de Wiel, from the Master Photography & Society to share her thoughts on the process!
TalkRefractions of Information Revealed
‘How do we connect with this new, rapid and almost violent explosion of this new world racing?’ Follow the link to read a short interview by PHLSPH with Berlin based Greek visual artist Spiros Hadjidjanos. If you are interested in the transfiguration of the photographic image and its hybrid use, then this talk is right down your alley. Thank you KAPUT online art journal for the invitation and Spiros Hadjidjanos for JOINING IN!
ExpandCollecte
Check out our contribution in the NEW SECTION of ‘Photomonitor:’ entitled EXPERIMENTS considering the photographic work of Sarah Ritter in the context of philosophy, language and its sensory expression. Thank you @photomonitor.co.uk for all your support!
Lab updates
It is out! The special issue on ‘Violence, Part 2’ of Philosophy and Photography journal, includes the discussion between philosopher Stefanie Bauman and artist @harri_palviranta co-organized by PHLSPH – Philosophy & Photography Lab and @imagolisboa during the international photography festival in Lisbon. The discussion was edited by PHLSPH.
Thank you ‘Philosophy of Photography’ journal, Stefanie, Harri, and Imago Lisboa.
Lab updatesPlay at Fotodok
Phlsph Lab presents PLAY at Lighthouse artists of FOTODOK, Utrecht [15.11.2023]. Taking a step back and observing the ideas depicted in the artists’ on-going projects, the way they are used and linked visually and in relation to their text. ‘Playing’ with questions in the space created between image and logic.
Lab updatesOpenfolio #3 Jury Member - Institut pour la Photographie, Lille.
‘Playing’ with ideas and the power of the image in the ‘spaces’ opening up with every portfolio. Connecting with and for photography for two days, 11 & 12 November.
TrackAeternitatis
Emilio Pemjean reconstructs Wittgenstein’s “life-houses” (non existent today) in an attempt to make them our own. One more artist inspired by a philosopher contributing to the PHLSPH Lab; this time by his ‘ life – houses’. Because to conquer the forgetfulness of men, Pemjean notes, “it is well to have, not only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands have handled, and their strength wrought, and their eyes beheld, all the days of their life.”(John Ruskin)
ExpandIn Memory's Garden
Does a picture of melancholy constitute in and of itself a melancholic picture? Hans Maes, Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of the Aesthetics Research Centre at the University of Kent, talks about aesthetic melancholy and offers philosophical insight into photographer’s Julie Scheurweghs work In Memory’s Garden.
WorkOn the Scales of the Photographic
Commissioned workshop by the MA Photography and Society (MAPS) of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK). From the 25-28th of September the MA students of “Society and Photography” will be working with invited researcher Dr. Andrew Fisher ” On the Scales of the Photographic”. More to be posted soon!
TrackMonad
One more project tracked down. Photographer Mustapha Azeroual inspired by Gottfried Leibniz. Other projects so far are linked to Bruno Latour, Feminist Philosophers, Benjamin, Flusser, Byung-Chul Han, Phenomenology, and Nietzsche. Visit the section and if your work is linked to a philosopher or a philosophical concept/movement you are more than welcome to join in!
Play
PHLSPH Lab will be collaborating with Through the Lens Collective to organize one-on-one meetings for selected photographers to work on their artist’s statements and the conceptual structure of their project.
“Through the Lens Collective” is a collaborative educational and developmental photographic space created by South African visual artist and educator Michelle Loukidis, who shares a commitment to, and appreciation of, the photographic medium on the African continent.
The selected photographers for PLAY BACK are Ollie Walker, Maroula Lambis, Nadia Raaths and Maheder Haileselassie. [May 2023]
Play
On-line workshop, upon invitation by Moritz Neumüller, with the artist-students of IDEP Barcelona on the conceptual patterns and ideas included in their projects to create a clearer artist’s text. [18.05.2023 in English]
ExperimentPerseverance - Hacking the Glitch
An on-line discussion hosted at the International Book Fair of Thessaloniki with visual artist and professor Theodoros Zafeiropoulos and digital poet Thodoris Chiotis on the limits of seeing and recognition, the role of AI and the multiple and relational forms of intelligence, the intervention of imagination and its significant role as a mode of resistance and critical thinking.
Using as original material the images shared by NASA, the artists created a project where through appropriation and manipulation drew the images to their limits in an interplay between fiction and reality here and in outer space. The discussion, moderated by Alexandra Athanasiadou, is based on the research project subsidized by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports under the title ‘Follow the Glitch’. [4.05.2023, in Greek]
Lab updates
Despite the relentless power outages in South Africa, Through the Lens collective, carries on strong! Happy to join the group on March 15th to introduce PHLSPH to its artists and resist darkness. Many thanks to its director, Michelle Loukidis.
Lab updatesOn Fireflies
A discussion with philosophical insight on the creative practice with the photographers of the MA of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK), followed by a workshop. [16.02.2023]
Lab updatesPop-up discussion
Τeaming up with the journal Debates in Aesthetics on the occasion of its special issue on photography to organize a pop-up discussion revolving around the target paper “Music, Visualisation and the Multi-stage Account of Photography” by Dr. Dawn Wilson (University of Hull).
In this first event, out of a series of three, the discussion will develop amongst Dr. Wilson and Dr. Mikael Pettersson, Claudia Giupponi and Ben Campion. Philosopher, artist and co-editor of the journal Dr.Claire Anscomb will be moderating. Held on-line on the 27th of January.
Lab updatesWorkshop in Reykiavik
“Contemporaries out of the blue” was the title of the workshop which took place at Listaháskóli Íslands – Iceland University of the Arts from the 5th until the 15th of November, upon invitation by artist and tutor Claudia Hausfeld. What is the use of practicing the technique of the cyanotype during the era of the networked image? How much networked thinking is involved in making a picture instead of taking it and what makes a work contemporary? These were some of the open questions explored with the participants during their hands-on experience of producing new works with Claudia’s guidance.
Lab updatesFirst live event of the PHLSPH Lab in Lisbon
The international photography festival Imago Lisboa in collaboration with PHLSPH organized a discussion between Stefanie Baumann and artist Harri Pälviranta at Lusófona University in Lisbon, Portugal. The discussion revolved aroung the concept of violence as presented in Harri’s series “Battered”; “Choreography of Violence”; “New ‘s Portraits” showcased at MNAC (National Museum of Contemporary Art until August 2023).
[Photo: © PHLSPH Lab – Detail of a work/series New’s Portraits]
AskA question for artists working with digital tools:
In order for a viewer to fully appreciate your work, do you think it is important that they know something about the digital method of production — e.g., something about the coding or something about the functionality of imaging software/hardware?
ExpandVivants
Bill D’Alessandro, a philosopher of mathematics, offers his insight on an image from Matthieu Gafsou’s series Vivants.
TalkClaire Anscomb, Philosopher interviews Almudena Romero, Visual Artist
Almudena Romero’s diverse works represent a vast exploration of the social and physical possibilities afforded by analogue photographic methods and processes.
PlayArtist Text Workshop
Photobook Week Aarhus (15/09/2021) will host this creative writing workshop, which will help participants to follow the different steps necessary to build their theoretical outline and put it into words, creating a clear artist statement. Outlaid to be a practical experience, it will consist of an online party where attendees will expose their field of interest, generate ideas, and make connections with relevant concepts, and a two day workshop in Aarhus, where they receive interdisciplinary stimuli in an attempt to open new perspectives for their practice, and coaching for their writing process.
