House facades, reinforced concrete, nets, tarps and promotional banners. In his series „Proposal for a city“, Johann Husser examines aspects of urban development and its representation in photographs. Here, in various formats and on different image carriers, encounters take place between construction materials and states we find in the city profile day to day. In the process, the individual fragment´s specific materiality and haptics enter into a visual dialogue. In the 3D visualizations of fence tarpaulins, rendered, faceless figures reside in the future houses. Here the idealized visions are dissolved by digital editing Into shifted perspectives and swirling mist - and appear, all of a sudden, as brittle utopias. The mode of „deconstructing“ is made part of the artistic process: Buildings and banners are photographed re-composited with the aid of algorithms; in the process, the editing steps are made clearly visible in the image. They imitate the (open) building structures and, at the same time, unmask the photographs´ „documentary“ illustrative function. From urban space into image space: In this context, the building site proves itself, on several levels, to be a place of (de)construction. „Proposal for a city“ facilitates a rethink of urban spaces. In what form do the omnipresent conversions and new developments influence our interactions in and with the cityscape? To what extent do architectonic structures and their steady transformation shape our perception and visual memory? Not least, the series also lays open critical issues entailed by the construction boom and increasing gentrification processes: Who does the city belong to, who gets seen in it, and who can help shape it?
(Text: Daria Bona)