Week 1: Picturing the city, Photographing the Urban Experience

Picturing the City, Photographing the Urban Experience 

The modern city, has been and still is in progression throughout time, developing itself as as the world of technology progresses.

In the mid 19th century architect Baron Hausmann started to re-build the centre of Paris, making architecture, this offered a new way of seeing the world. The rebuild of Paris offered a new way for artist to visualise the world due to the way the urban landscape was changing, offering the people who live in the environment a new horizon than what they are use too. Photographers had the opportunity to photograph the urban landscape. Due to the new way of viewing the world and the new architecture and rebuild of Paris, the middle class society were getting  pushed to outer side of paris, to the suburbs, they were being forgotten this was until someone called Charles Baudelaire asked the painters and photographers to focus on the suburbs, paint the underclass; underclass meaning the not so well off people.

Photographer Nadar and Degas captured the true essence of the surburbs

Nadar 1864 'The Sewers'

Degas 1882 'Women in Front of Cafe'

Photographs and paintings like the ones above by Degas and Nadar were only a two of the photographs and paintings that were created during this time. Charles Baudelaire known as the 'Painter of Modern Life',  he opened the eye to many people encouraging them to look at the little detail rater than the bigger picture. The main reason for the photographs and painting of the suburbs was to make people aware and the slums cleared. 

During the 20th Century technology progressed and so did communication between countries, this was another input into the 'modern city. The start of the technology increasing meant the start of the city coming together, being a nicer place to live. technology encourages painters, artists, photographers and film maker to expedient, these too be shown through cinema, showing the fast development and collision of the city, also known as film montage. Films that aired are Metropolis, 1926 and october 1920s and so on.. Between 1940/1950s, a movement called Film Noir, showing the place of disruption, chaos. 1998 is when everything started to reflect what happened in the past, showing the social anxieties about the city. Looking back at cities in todays world, representation has changed again, today we look at the world as being soulless, alienating and desolate. Throughout time whilst technology and people interpretation of the world changes, photographer of the urban reflects on how people react differently to technology compared to when everything started to change.