Last October, FilmEU co-organised with the Ph.D. in Media Art and Communication of Lusofona University a four-days workshop dedicated to Artistic Research in Optical Media. The first part of this workshop was dedicated to “Taking Shades and Making Silhouettes”. This was the opportunity to let the American photographers Mark and France Osterman take us back to pre-photographic times, showing the charms of the silhouette portrait and its technical challenges by using the pantograph.
The second and longest part of the workshop proceeded with “Seductive Artefacts: Paradigms of Representation and Perception 1637-1860” taught by the researchers Rod Bantjes and Ana David Mendes. This consisted of a hands-on workshop building on experimental research with optical media such as camera obscuras, stereoscopes and optical theatres. Some of these apparatuses were redesigned or readjusted to challenge depth perception and to foster new artistic approaches in photography or drawing.