| Beschreibung |
Architectural representation has served as a primary communication instrument for old and new megaprojects, including airports, dams, highways, and extensive housing developments, most of which are categorized as infrastructure. The images, maps, and renderings associated with these projects function not only as technical documents but also as promises of potential futures. Project imagery operates within a regime of expectation: it constructs visual narratives of what is to come, informs or pacifies the public, and builds consensus through the persuasive power of visual representation. This seminar is looking at the how large-scale projects are represented through architectural media. It interrogates the content and production characteristics of promotional images, seeking to identify patterns, visual grammars, and shared logics across these representations, such as cropping, composition, lighting, surface smoothness, etc. The course further considers what is rendered visible or obscured, and analyzes how modes of architectural representation are instrumentalized to generate specific forms of imagery, through which political agendas are inscribed in space. Over the course of the semester, students will select case studies, such as airports, dams, railways, or new cities, and develop critical analyses of their representational regimes. Through an integration of theoretical and practical approaches, participants will investigate how images function as arguments, how renderings construct notions of futurity, and how the aerial view serves as a technology of power. The course will culminate in a collective publication: a zine that combines the semester’s investigations as both a documentation archive and a potential exhibition format. Each participant will contribute a case study in the form of a visual essay, integrating found imagery, analytical text, and critical reflection on the politics of representation. The course aims to render the dominant visual language explicit through critical deconstruction. |
