Description
This seminar will describe and analyze buildings through the medium of photography and
privilege the phenomenological (realism) over the conceptual (abstraction) within a
diagrammatic framework. ?Knowledge? will be exchanged for ?aesthetics? as a mode for making
the world sensible. ?Close reading? will be exchanged for ?intimate describing?, using various
techniques and accessories associated with the medium. Moreover, we will be constrained to
the use of the camera on our cell phones along with a range of economically available
accessories (clip-on lenses, spider tripods) and downloadable apps (photosphere, Google Earth
Pro, 360 panorama) as well as digital software for post-production and analytical purposes.
A common problem fundamental to phenomenology has to do with the perceptual
comprehension of an object in its entirety: the aspect problem. Every time we set our gaze on
an object what we see as ?this side? is often countered with an ?other side?. But when we turn
the