Artist: Philipp Schaerer

Schaerer's work is attractive to me on a purely aesthetic level, but also poses interesting questions that make me think about the concepts of my own work. He examines the difference between reality and the image. He creates fictional architectural forms specifically to photograph and modify in order to challenge his viewer. I like to think of my process in a similar way. 


Bio from Schaerer's website:
After graduating from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL) as an architect in 2000, Philipp Schaerer (1972) worked as an architect and knowledge manager for Herzog & de Meuron in Basel (2000-2006). During his four years working as a research assistant at the chair of Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) at the Faculty of Architecture (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) under Prof. Dr. Ludger Hovestadt, he was able to continuously develop his knowledge in the area of digital image processing. Working as a freelance architect and image creator today, his main interest lies not only in design and in the execution of small scale projects, but also in creating images of architecture and the built environment. His work comments on this issue.


Quotes:
"The main focus of my interest lies in the creation of images which try to reflect a built, exaggerated reality. Today, digital image editing allows the creation of images which are nearly impossible to distinguish from a photograph. But what other image strategies and esthetics can be pursued with the help of digital image techniques – image strategies which are not only aimed at the most exact realization of photographic rendition? Working with images, I am interested in the creation of images which in fact are based on a photographic language, but which can be abstract, model-like and exaggerated and try to reformulate the question of the differentiation between reality and image."
-Statement from Schaerer's website


"I really love 'BILDBAUTEN' the architectonic photograph series by Philipp Schaerer. The series of images with the title "Bildbauten“ deals with the effect and the claim to credibility of images of architecture that appear to be photographs. It further questions the medium “photograph” as a documentary piece of evidence depicting reality.
Frontal views of fictional architectures serve as an example. By means of their exaggerated and orchestrated way of representation, they model themselves on the object-like appearance and the formal language of contemporary architecture in a rather ironic way. All images try to reproduce a reality. They are not a photograph; instead, they were newly designed and constructed from scratch by means of image synthesis and digital image editing."

-(http://www.triangulationblog.com/2010/09/bildbauten-by-philipp-schaerer.html)

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