Visual Language and Photodesign
Course 224453 Visual Language and Photodesign, summer semester 2025
Lecturers:
Prof. Gabriele Kille, Thomas Weccard, Kristof Lange, Jörg Rohrbacher
Unusual photo series - surprising, bold and experimentally interpreted. Students on the Werbung und Marktkommunikation degree programme reinterpreted a quote from Sebastian Fitzek's novel "Die Einladung" and turned it into a photographic series.
Interpretation of a quote from "Die Einladung"
The aim of the photo series was to visually capture the mood of a tense moment - not to retell it one-to-one. The focus was therefore on atmosphere and feelings rather than a linear plot.
Inspired by the book quote, a visual narrative was created that works with light and darkness, cold and artificial lighting, emptiness and threat. The chosen location, a petrol station at night, with its harsh light sources, dark corners and slightly surreal scenery, provided the perfect setting for a mysterious visual language.
Different camera angles and deliberate blurring create an unsettling feeling - a mixture of control and loss of control, tension and uncertainty. The series aims to capture precisely this unease: a diffuse, elusive sense of threat.
The dramaturgical structure of the series does not follow a classic plot, but works with a slow build-up of tension. The first images show only the surroundings - empty streets, neon light, the abandoned petrol station. This deliberate emptiness creates expectation and nervousness.
Only gradually do people enter the picture: Marla enters the scene. She has been summoned to this place without knowing why. The camera observes her from a distance, almost as if from a surveillance perspective.
The central moment: she hears a mobile phone ring. But the sound doesn't just come from her own device, she also hears it very close to her. This allows only one conclusion: the ringing mobile phone is directly behind her. She is not alone.
This moment of shock is the emotional climax of the series. After that, the story remains open. Whether she turns round, who is behind her, what happens - all this is left to the viewer's imagination. The photography does not replace the text, but deepens its effect by making the inner arc of tension visually tangible.
Student team:
Mehdi Akkamis, Jana Posedi, Alicia Moll, Noa Dimitriadis
