dESIGN12+ #8: Andy Scholz

We encounter photographic and photographed images everywhere every day. We carry them with us. We share them with friends, family and those who follow us. They are snapped, shot, generated, posted and stored in clouds. They are edited, composed, created algorithmically and distributed worldwide in a matter of seconds. They have become an international language.

Photographic images and imaging processes are shaping the debate surrounding 'AI-generated' images and texts. This reemerging discussion about the truth of photographic images is as old as photography itself. What is new about it is that it affects us all and can affect us personally in our comfort zones.

Doesn't everything that looks like photography have to be called something else? Or is that irrelevant? Does it make sense to differentiate between "photo-photo" and "artistic-photographic processes"? Between light-exposed and imaging processes?

"To paraphrase Marvin Heiferman: There is nothing in our lives where photography has not made itself useful in the meantime."
(Quote from the podcast Fotografie Neu Denken, Episode 114 with Michael Wesely)
"Freely adapted from Klaus Honnef: We see photographically."
(Quote from the podcast Fotografie Neu Denken, Episode 115 Review 01.02.)


About the person:
Andy Scholz first studied philosophy, German and media studies in Düsseldorf and then photography at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen until 2005 - under Bernhard Prinz, Jörg Sasse and Herta Wolf, among others.

As a freelance artist, he explores the photographic medium in the field of tension between artistic and applied photography.

As a lecturer, he has been teaching artistic photography, photographic image design and photographic theory at various institutions since 2012. These include the University of Regensburg, North Dakota State University Fargo (USA), Würzburg University of Applied Sciences, Ruhr University Bochum, Philips University Marburg, Ludwigsburg University of Education.

As a curator and festival director, he is interested in everything that looks like photography - regardless of how it was created. In 2016, he launched the INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES in Regensburg, which focuses on the significance of photographic images today and their future. An international group exhibition curated by Andy Scholz, an international symposium and a multi-day supporting program form the core of the festival. In November 2023, the festival entered its third round and the renowned German Photo Book Award was integrated into the festival program for the first time. In 2024, the prize will be awarded for the second time in Regensburg and festival edition number four will open in November 2025.

During the first lockdown in 2020, he also developed the podcast "Fotografie Neu Denken", which now comprises over 190 episodes in five categories and can be heard wherever podcasts are available. As an author, philosopher and theorist, he talks about photographic images and their social relevance with his guests from the fields of art, photography, media studies and the humanities, as well as from the German-speaking museum and art market landscape.