Photo Lab @ Schmiede26

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After 20 years of Schmiede, the first we all wall and 10 years if imaGEN, say hello to: AiAiAi Photo Lab 26
 
 
Photography used to be evidence. Then it became memory. Then content. Then synthetic. What will it become next? 
 
The Photo Lab at Schmiede26 explores photography in a moment where images are simultaneously everywhere and increasingly unstable. Between camera, machine vision, archives, AI image generation, documentary practice, post-photography and visual overload, the lab becomes a temporary playground for experimentation, critical reflection and collaborative image production. This is not a classical photography workshop – it is a space for image thinking. The lab welcomes photographers, artists, filmmakers, designers, coders, theorists, AI experimenters, visual archivists, accidental image-makers and everyone interested in the evolving role of the photographic image.
 
Together we will investigate questions such as:
* What is a photograph in the age of AI?
* What happens to truth, memory and authorship?
* Can photography still document reality?
* How do machine-generated images influence politics, aesthetics and identity?
* What remains physical in digital image culture?
* What happens when cameras stop being tools and become collaborators?
 
The Photo Lab is intentionally open in format and outcome. Participants may develop individual or collaborative projects ranging from:
* photographic series
* experimental imaging processes
* AI-assisted visual works
* archive interventions
* installations
* publications and zines
* projection experiments
* hybrid analog/digital workflows
* speculative image systems
* performative or participatory formats
 
The lab will also function as a shared infrastructure node for visual production at Schmiede26 – offering feedback sessions, spontaneous shoots, image discussions, technical exchange, field trips, rapid prototyping and collective image reviews. We are interested in imperfect processes, unfinished ideas, visual accidents and unexpected collaborations.
 
Bring cameras.
Bring hard drives.
Bring broken archives.
Bring strange images.
Bring unfinished thoughts.
 
Photography is no longer only about capturing the world. It is increasingly about imagining reality itself.

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Schmiede focuses on diversity and cooperation Labs at Schmiede are focus groups and more.

Schmiede26: Ai Ai Ai  will host a wide array of labs, ranging from personal interests over project development to institutional cooperation. The idea being, what do we know what you want. Schmiede is about you, the Smiths, not the vase.

join the experiment. contribute. enjoy time shared.

 

Schmiede26: Ai Ai Ai
SEP16 – 26 2026
Apply till MAY31

 

Currently:

AkademieAIR  2026 Call is open, till MAY31
subnetAIR 2027 Call is open till JUN15
SuperCALL not Schmiede but Tennengau and in September for 27.

We continously collect calls here.
our call collection form in case you see something of interest for the Smiths