Neues Amtsgericht Nürnberg by ZILA architects. Documentation of the Building-process, 2018 — 2020

Mediathek Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle by ZILA architects, 2019

Ocap is Jakob Argauer and Florian Merdes. Our educational background is in fine art photography, which we studied at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, Germany. The collaboration, established as Ocap in 2017, works on behalf of architects, city planners and architectural theorists. Our artistic practices have long been engaged with architectural discourse, visiting, photographing and filming some of the most diverse buildings worldwide.

These explorations drive our high creative and technical standards. Representing architecture poses challenges: often there is a lack of atmosphere in architectural imagery, which is only formed by context. Weather, light, a stretch of road or a field, the view along the horizon or a narrow street - all these details contribute significantly to the impression and experience of a building.

We consider these details in our photographic and filmic practice. Rather than capturing a building in its entirety in a single image, we concentrate on different parts of the architectural process: the construction of the building, its environment, its use and ageing. Our film work extends this approach into time: shot from a fixed position, each frame maintains the compositional precision of a photograph while revealing how architecture is inhabited, how spaces are traversed and occupied, how buildings age and transform. Architecture is thus shown not as an isolated object but as something lived. Instead of an assumed objective representation, we allow space for subjectivity, so that architectural experience can be visualised.

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