T66. Deprogramming the Black Box with Wendel Alves de Medeiros

In this workshop, participants will explore a critical and experimental rethinking of the Camera Obscura as an unstable and playful image making laboratory. Instead of treating it as a tool for faithful representation, the device is approached as a system open to error, distortion, multiplicity, and uncertainty.Participants will work with the Camera Obscura as something that can be manipulated, hacked, and reconfigured, allowing images to shift, dissolve, overlap, or fail. The aim is to question conventional models of vision and unlearn habitual ways of seeing through both material and conceptual interventions.The workshop combines theoretical references with hands on construction and experimental image production. Analog manipulation is paired with digital tools, including smartphones, editing apps, and generative AI, to expand the expressive possibilities of the Camera Obscura across different media.

Cronograma

1. Introduction and conceptual framework based on Techniques of the Observer (Jonathan Crary) and Towards a Philosophy of Photography (Vilém Flusser), focusing on the Camera Obscura as a model of visual control
2. Presentation of materials and their functions within the Camera Obscura system
3. Hands-on construction of portable and modular Camera Obscura devices using accessible materials, emphasizing cutting, folding, and manual assembly
4. Practical exploration of image formation and enlargement through tracing paper and perforated surfaces
5. Experimental exercises to subvert figurative representation by introducing multiple perforations and interferences
6. Image production using smartphones, image-editing apps, generative AI, and short experimental video
7. Review of results and discussion on perception, control, and visual experimentation

Participants must bring:

• Their smartphone with an image-editing app installed (such as Snapseed, Lightroom Mobile, the Gemini app, or any preferred generative-AI app)