This course explores visual strategies and techniques for creating apparent reality. The course concentrates on the field of 3D computer graphics and the production of still lifes as computer-generated images (CGI). In the first theoretical part of the course, various concepts and methods involving analogue and digital image-generation techniques are introduced and compared. The focus is on the seemingly realistic image. Historical references and examples of artworks from the fields of painting, photography and computer graphics aid further investigation and are examined with regard to various aspects of visual aesthetics. The second part of the course addresses 3D computer graphics. Students receive an introduction to the 3D graphics program Blender (or Cinema 4D), which serves as the foundation for developing a series of computer-generated still lifes as their final project The aim is to examine the extent to which atmospheric visual aesthetics can be created using computer-generated images - visual aesthetics which, although based on a photographic language, have an expressiveness capable of overcoming the often lifeless and cool visual language seen in examples of calculated images. The course encourages the use of digital instruments at the extreme limit of the interplay between reality and fiction.
