British Journal of Photography - April 2016

Portfolio: Reiner Riedler

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Re-designed.

Re-imagined.

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Portfolio: Reiner Riedler

Editor’s Introduction Weird Science

Six years and 72 issues on from our last major redesign (the one where we switched from 150 years as a weekly to the monthly format we began with in 1854), we’ve gone about a complete refresh.

Truth is, we never really felt we’d finished what we started.

And in the time since, there’s been a massive revival of interest in print, led by an army of small independent publishers with uncompromising standards and the shared belief that provocative photography, sharp design and intelligent wordcraft is an art form in its own right. Three years ago we became a small indie publisher ourselves, and it’s time to up our game. So we began our ‘undesign’ by going back to our original ideas and objectives – to excite, surprise and inform readers – decluttering the pages and making the photography king. We’ve added some change of pace to the different sections with the layouts and use of three different paper stocks, and there’s more heft to the magazine, so expect a longer read, run across up to 50 percent more pages.

Fittingly, we’re heading into new frontiers with this month’s edition and its science and technology theme, taking in subjects ranging from outer space to the insulated bubble of young entrepreneurs in San Francisco Bay. Add to that expanded Agenda, Projects, Intelligence and Technology sections, some new features and renewed focus on bringing you insights from the people who commission work, and we hope that you have a magazine worthy of the creative community we serve.

Simon Bainbridge, Editor

Cover Romeo, manufactured

by Aldebaran in Paris, is being used in an EU-wide research project studying the interaction between humans and humanoid robots. Photographed at the Technical University in Vienna. From the series The Lifesaving Machines © Reiner Riedler. anzenberger.com

Portfolio: Reiner Riedler

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Featured

40 – 53 From Darkness into Light Michael Benson, whose remarkable exhibition of space imagery is on show at the Natural History Museum in London, tells of the “audacious, utterly consequential story” that has made our nearest planetary neighbours tangibly, visibly manifest 54 – 66 Trial and Error The experiment as art form: Daniel Stier presents the strange underground basements where pure scientific research is performed, alongside his own studio practice

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Featured: April 2016

68 – 81 Lifesaving Machines Inspired by the medical technology that helped his newborn son through his first days, Austrian photographer Reiner Riedler embarked on an investigation into the humanoid qualities of lifesaving machines 83 – 91 The Dreamers Living, working and socialising together – Laura Morton captures life inside the bubble for the new crop of young tech entrepreneurs in San Francisco Bay hoping to become the next Mark Zuckerberg

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Index

Agenda 11 Deutsche Börse Prize at

The Photographers’ Gallery 12 Any Answers: Erik Kessels 14 Hyères International Festival

of Fashion and Photography 16 William Henry Fox Talbot at the Science Museum 18 Broomberg & Chanarin’s Spirit is a Bone, a cautionary tale of state surveillance 20 Thomas Struth’s latest photobook, Nature & Politics Projects 23 David Fathi’s Wolfgang delves into CERN’s photography archives in search of an illusive figure 26 False Positives by Esther Hovers is a study of people and public spaces, based on the eight anomalies that surveillance systems deem ‘deviant’ behaviour 30 Nick van Tiem’s The Star Disappeared observes amateur astronomers and their relation to the constellations 34 Technological Exaptation

by Maxime Guyon considers the aesthetic values of Hitech and how it influences the function and feeling of new products

Features 40 Michael Benson’s Otherworlds takes us into outerspace 54 Daniel Stier draws surprising parallels between scientific and artistic research, examining the experiment as an art form in its own right 68 Reiner Riedler makes a long-term photographic investigation into the evolving medical technology that saves lives – including his own newborn son 83 Laura Morton chronicles the ‘commune-like’ bubble of young tech entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area aiming to launch the Next Big Thing 93 Montreal-based art duo

After Faceb00k consider how

lives are shaped by social

media – even after death Intelligence 99 Virtual Reality Storytelling: we talk to the producers placing viewers directly into the lives of people at the centre of global news stories 103 Photojournalist turned VR

frontiersman Robbie Cooper

on his new venture into the

lucrative market for

immersive video content 106 Creative brief: Peta Bell.

The art director of Wellcome

Trust’s online magazine,

Mosaic, talks commissioning 108 Meet the team behind The California Sunday Magazine, a new print title winning plaudits for its cinematic approach to photography Technology 113 Camera news from

Canon, Sony and Alpa 115 Exclusive test of the

Phase One XF 100MP

camera system 120 Eight of the best digital

compact cameras 123 Yuneec Typhoon Q500+ Pro

drone camera tested Archive 130 A 1982 edition highlights

a long-burning feud between

Bradford and the V&A

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30 – 33

108 – 110

115 – 118 Index: April 2016

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The 10-strong shortlist for Hyères’ emerging photographer prize focuses on image-makers presenting a new vocabulary, says the festival’s photography art director 1

Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography Words by Diane Smyth

“It’s a good one!” says Raphaëlle Stopin of this year’s photography shortlist for the Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography – the 31st edition of the festival, and the fourth she’s looked after as the sole photography art director. The shortlist of 10 emerging photographers includes two from countries that have never reached the final before – Vendula Knopova from the Czech Republic and Sasha Kurmaz from Ukraine.

Stopin is very glad to have the Eastern Europeans on board, and very happy to have such “a good mix”.

As the festival’s full name suggests it is closely associated with fashion, running a prize for emerging fashion designers and sponsored by companies such as Chanel, LVMH and Chloé. But the photography award has long danced to a different beat, shortlisting interesting photographers whatever their focus, and recognising image-makers such as Jessica Eaton, Anouk Kruithof and Thomas Mailaender long before they hit the big time. This year, the full shortlist is: Anaïs Boileau; Jojakim Cortis & Adrian Sonderegger; Maja Daniels; Louise Desnos; Jason Larkin; Emilie Regnier; Ilona Szwarc; Fleur van Dodewaard; plus Knopova and Kurmaz. They have been nominated for documentary projects such as Larkin’s series on South Africans sheltering in the shadows, and more conceptual projects such as Knopova’s eccentric take on family life.

“We focus on emerging photographers but we have no age restriction and no [fixed ideas on] genre,” says Stopin, who is also art director of the Pôle Image Haute-Normandie centre. “What matters is the sense that they are presenting a new vocabulary or a new way to look at the world, and that this aesthetic is 14

Agenda: Photofestivals

not only on the surface or visual, it is also an interesting subject matter.

“For example, I was quite happy to see the kind of photographers who engage with the world [shortlisted this year]. But still the focus is on the way people look at the world, their stylistic approach and aesthetics.”

The 10 shortlisted photographers will now exhibit their work at Hyères in the striking Villa Noailles. They’ll spend the opening weekend of the festival, from 21-25 April, discussing their works with the jury – photographers William Klein and Clare Strand; curators Susan Bright and Christopher Littlewood (director of photography at Flowers Gallery); founder and director of Webber Represents agency, Chantal Webber; set designer Jean-Michel Bertin; and illustrator and stage director Jean-Paul Goude. “The idea is not to have a portfolio review – it’s very informal,” says Stopin. “That’s what makes the difference between Hyères and other portfolio events.”

The winner will be announced at the festival, but prior to that, one of the shortlisted photographers will be commissioned to shoot the shortlisted designers’ work for the catalogue and, in a new feature this year, all

10 will be asked to take two still lifes with fashion accessories, also for the catalogue.

In doing so, Stopin hopes to encourage the fashion editors and designers attending the festival to think more widely about the kinds of image-makers they can work with.

“Ten years ago or so the fashion industry was rather different – the editorial industry was engaging more with young photographers, and was more willing to commission them,” says Stopin, adding that even those who had only done personal work could still land a project.

“We commission these fashion shoots as an example – to show that even though they [the shortlisted photographers] don’t usually take fashion pictures, their specific visual language can be applied to a commission, if the commissioner has an open mind.”

William Klein’s work will also be on show at Hyères this year, in an exhibition focusing on his fashion photography and his film Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? – a satire of the fashion industry that is 50 years old this year. Last year’s winning photographer Sjoerd Knibbeler will also have a solo show. The exhibitions are open to the public until 22 May. villanoailles-hyeres.com

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1 From the series Waiting © J ason Larkin.

2 From the series Hair © Emilie Regnier.

3 #7 Biscuits, 2015 © Fleur van Dodewaard.

4 From the series Plein Soleil © Anaïs Boileau.

Agenda: Photofestivals

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Sat in a neonatal intensive care unit keeping watch over his son, Reiner Riedler felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards medical science and the technological advances that would eventually pull his newborn through.

Thankful for the apparatus that kept his son alive, he decided to embark on a long-term photographic investigation into medical technology, and the humanoid yet otherworldly qualities of these lifesaving machines.

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LIFESAVING MACHINES 68

Portfolio: Reiner Riedler

It was nightfall when Reiner Riedler arrived at the children’s wing of his local hospital in Vienna, yet his eyes struggled to adapt to the dark of the neonatal unit, despite the array of tiny lights that scattered the ward. As he took a moment to adjust to the serenity of the place, broken by the assuring sound of soft bleeps, he suddenly felt the presence of all the machines in the room, observing the babies in their incubators – one of them his own newborn son. “I am not sure what it was, but in this very special moment, when the future was so unclear, I felt a deep humility. I am not a person who talks a lot about personal things, but I felt deeply inside that I had to tell this story.”

It all turned out well with his son, but that feeling never left him.

Six months later, after photographing a surgical operation and feeling that he was intruding, he was drawn back to the machines and that sense of wonder and security he felt, knowing they were working quietly and efficiently at their task, protecting human life. He searched for the production facilities and laboratories of manufacturers of intensive care machines, far away from the theatre of their deployment. “Slowly, I began to collect images of historical and contemporary devices, models and prototypes, photographed before a dark background – isolated from the environment in which they were used – to direct the attention entirely to their function and their peculiar aesthetics.”

The crucial moment in the project came while visiting a company that repairs dialysis machines, where he found a piece of equipment standing open on a podium. “It was the first time I had looked inside a machine. With the two doors open left and right, it appeared like a winged altar. Again I felt something strange. It was like touching a secret that I could not understand, a secret few people understand – not even the single individuals who brought their knowledge together to create these lifesaving machines.” photography.at In print Lifesaving Machines will be published as a book by La Fabrica in June lafabrica.com

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1 The Caleo incubator helps premature babies develop. Dräger, Germany.

2 Da Vinci Surgical System, designed to facilitate minimally invasive surgery for prostatatectomies, cardiac valve repair and gynaecological surgery, is controlled by a surgeon from a console.

3 TORO (TOrque controlled humanoid RObot) at the DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.

4 Model of the heart for measurement of bloodflow patterns, assisted by a pump, at the Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University Vienna. The model of the ventricle is filled with a fluid containing micro-particles and lit by a pulsed laser. The pathways of the particles are recorded with a high-resolution camera and evaluated with computerised image analysis.

5 Found object at the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology.

6 Phantom Dental Station at the Bernhard Gottlieb University Clinic of Dentistry, Vienna, used by students to simulate surgery.

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7 Rear view of the ECCE (Embodied Cognition in a Compliantly Engineered) robot, one of the most famous robotic projects developed in the EU, modelled after the human anatomy to analyse how the body moves. Technical University of Munich, Department of Informatics: Robotics and Embedded Systems.

8 Object Nr. MUW 149 from the collection of wax anatomical and obstetric models at the Josephinum of the Medical University of Vienna. These models were produced in Florence between 1784 and 1788, intended to serve on the one hand as visual aids for teaching, but also, even then, intended for the general public.

9 Breathing helmet by StarMed used for the support of various breathing disabilities, for so-called CPAP-therapy. Mirandola, Italy.

10 Artis dialysis machine photographed with open front.

11 Manikin Hal at the Medical Training Center, Technical University Munich.

12 Manikin SimBaby at the Medical Training Center, Technical University Munich.

13 Cosmetic cover for hand prostheses by Otto Bock. The cover, made of PVC, is put over the inner hand of a myolelectric-controlled hand prostheses.

14 Werner is a robot designed to support staff at care facilities. Technical University of Vienna, Automation and Control Institute.

15 The humanoid Roboy robot was conceived via project co-ordination between international, leading research institutions and industry partners who are at the forefront of development in mechanics and electronics.

Photographed at the Technical University Munich, Department of Informatics – Robotics and Embedded Systems.

16 Controlled hand prostheses on a test station at Otto Bock. Each prostheses is being opened and closed 1000 times before delivery.

17 The MiroSurge System is a versatile research platform for minimally invasive surgery at the DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, Oberpfaffenhofen.

All images © Reiner Riedler, courtesy of La Fabrica

Portfolio: Reiner Riedler

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