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What is the constituting moment of our perception of the city? We have mental images of numerous
cities of the world, that are fed by images that we have seen of these locations. At first
we remember the stereotypical images. Have we spent some time in a certain city the perception gets
more differentiated, the image gets sharper and differs from the common clichés. Is it possible to
take photographs of various places that do not show anything typical of the city depicted, but show
a generic picture of the city? In New York City, Berlin, London, Paris and Zurich photographs were taken that could have been made basically anywhere. International City consists of 81 black and white slides. It is not intended that the viewer searches for minute details in each picture, that might tell the specific city where the image was taken. Rather it is intended to generate an image of a Generic City – as Rem Koolhaas calls the internationalization of contemporary cities. For the piece it is important that it is purely photographic, the pictures were not digitally altered. The photographic idea of authenticity is an essential part. The indexical qualities of the media of photography and how they can be used for certain intentions are picked out as a central theme. |