Photofields at Powerhouse Sydney starts 15 September

 

Presented by Powerhouse, Photofields is an industry-centred program that engages with contemporary issues and ideas at the intersection of photography, architecture and design. The program examines a range of image-making practices, and how they affect the way we relate to natural and built environments.

 

The highlight programs include: 

 

• Translating Space: Working with Powerhouse Ultimo as the site of exploration, acclaimed photographer Tom Blachford leads a specialised workshop that seeks to translate architectural environments through a focus on space, texture and design. Blachford shares insights on his industry experience, his graphic approach and his extensive knowledge of image-making from capture to postproduction. Powerhouse is inviting expressions of interest from established, emerging and student practitioners with an interest in photography and the built environment, architectural visualisations and rendering.

• Homo Urbanus: Homo Urbanus is a cinematic odyssey offering a vibrant tribute to public space. Taking the form of a free-wheeling journey around the world (10 films, 10 cities, 10 hours of films), the project by artist-filmmakers Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine invites a closer look at individual and collective behaviour, interpersonal dynamics, social tensions and the economic and political forces that play out on city streets.

• Big Ears Listen with Big Feet: Acclaimed filmmakers Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine take us to Bangkok on a chaotic one-day journey through the concrete jungle of the South-Asian megacity, led by the moving personal story of Boonserm Premthada, one of Thailand’s most important architects. Born deaf, the architect shows how his disability led him to develop an alternative way of listening using his whole body as a resonance chamber of sound vibrations. Despite their large ears, elephants also perceive sound mostly through their feet: learning from elephants, Premthada has developed an architecture of the senses where sound vibrations become the voice of space.

• Arresting Light: Artist Dr Izabela Pluta is developing a new body of work in association with Powerhouse, focused on photographic Lumen printing. This workshop will explore how the photographic Lumen process can generate images from the interaction of a light source, light-sensitive photographic paper and an object to create a unique trace of that object. Lumen prints rely on the principle that photographic paper, if exposed to enough light, will produce an image without developer chemicals being required. The photographic paper’s colour continues to change the longer it is exposed to light, unless chemically ‘fixed’. Pluta instead asks: ‘What happens if the image is left unfixed and preserved in a dark environment?’

• Realtime Technologies and Design: A workshop exploring the tools available in the Epic ecosystem to enhance traditional design and accelerate processes. With a focus on photogrammetry, virtual collaboration and virtual production, this workshop delves into case studies to explore current industry applications. Real time demonstrations of real-time visualisation tools Twinmotion and Unreal Engine provide insights for designers, architects and creative practitioners who are interested in harnessing these technologies within their practice.

• Photofields Session 1: Octagon's Twin - Hosted by Powerhouse senior curator Sarah Rees in conversation with Cara Stewart, Ben Waters and Nathan Lane, this discussion examines how photogrammetric vision systems and 3D scanning technologies work, and explores their history, potential applications and shortcomings. New Realities - Good Design Australia Ambassador Nicola Mansfield leads a discussion with Tom Blachford, Barbara Humphries, Katrina Sluis and Dario Valenza on how technologies including AI, drones, 3D scanning, and photogrammetry have affected image-making practices and will consider their current and potential applications.

• Photofields Session 2: Grandeza Studio - In this keynote address, Grandeza Studio, a collective of architects and artists who work between Sydney and Madrid, will give insights into their interdisciplinary practice and share the process of making their video and mixed media installation, Pilbara Interregnum: Seven Political Allegories. Out of Sight - Journalist and documentary filmmaker Yaara Bou Melhem hosts a conversation on how Photographic and moving-image practices can provide audiences with unique insights into remote environments.