CGI
Bildkultur der Zukunft, 3. Semester, FHWS, Fakult채t Gestaltung, WS 2014/2015
Generative Photography
Generative photography
Left and right: Peter C. Ruppert collection “Concrete Art in Europe after 1945” in the Museum im Kulturspeicher (Museum in the Storehouse for Culture), Würzburg, with a separate section devoted to Concrete Photography
Concrete photographs analyze the pictorial system in their own way, dissect and deconstruct it and access its elements and structuresnonse magnia simus.
Concrete Photography represents: the concretization of photography, a form of fundamental artistic
self-examination and self-reflection aiming to foreground its very own conditions. The photographic means thus
become the object of photography, and the medium itself the object. It is a subdivision of photography. It is also a
subdivision of Concrete Art, just as Concrete Painting is subdivisions of Concrete Art.
Concrete photographs exclusively use the most elementary, innate means of the discipline, prima-
rily light and photosensitive paper. Its works are self-reflexive, self-referential, auto-dynamic and
universal. Concrete photographs are narcissistic and egocentric, they see only themselves:
absolute photographs, without the function of mediation, without an external message.
Generative Photography I introduced the term Generative Photography 1968 to describe the photographic process not as a reproductive, but as a productive system. Three developmental trends in art and photography in-
tersect in it: experimental photography, apparatus art, aesthetic theory. The medium photography has assimilated and developed each of these trends in its own specific way.
The generative aesthetic is an ‚aesthetic of production’ (not an aesthetic of interpretating beauty, G. J.), allowing for a methodical production of aesthetic conditions and structures by
dividing the production into finite, distinguishable and recordable steps. With the theories above, texts and poetry, MAX BENSE was increasingly regarded as the ‚father’ of the
Right- In January 1968, I brought together four young photo artists to exhibit at the Museum of Art, Bielefeld. These included PIERRE CORDIER
Generative photography
Tanz der Elektronen, 1961/622. Werkgruppe: Elektronische GrafikSilbergelatine-Barytpapierabzug23,9 x 18,2 cm
In this field, Generative Photography has developed
its own independent artistic program.
AboveKonstruktion, 1990FotogrammSilberge-
latine-Barytpapier. Unikat35 x 27 cm
Left- Reflexbild, 1965Silbergelatine-Barytpapier. Unikat36,1 x 28,8 cm
Middle-
3637Inverse Transformation, ca.1967Silbergelatine-Barytpapier. Unikat45,5 x 45,5 cm Right- Reflexro-
sette R – RN 3, 1966Rotatorische Mehrfachbelichtung auf Agfa Positiv Film30 x 30 cm. Unikat