A Code Without a Message: Photography’s Topological Turn in the Age of Machine Learning

A lecture by Bernd Behr, University of the Arts & Royal College of Art London Chair: Jakob Schnetz, Folkwang University of the Arts & KWI Essen – Institute for Advanced Study in the HumanitiesWhat if photography’s future lies in the autonomous car? In his lecture, Bernd Behr explores how self-driving systems turn seeing into a media apparatus, where perception, visibility, and misperception collide. From Niépce’s asphalt to today’s vehicle-mounted cameras, he explains how the shift from motor to camera fundamentally changes the way we understand the city.Follow Bernd’s session to discover how Daimler’s Cityscapes dataset exposes the hidden work behind »ground truth« – from human labeling to the choices that shape machine vision. What happens when humanities-style close reading meets autonomous perception, and what does it reveal about photography, seeing, and urban life in the age of AI? Join the conversation and leave a comment to speculate with Bernd and us.This session was recorded on February 4, 2026, on the occasion of the 3rd Essen Symposium for Photography »What Will Photography Be? An Invitation to Speculate«, hosted by the Essen Center for Photography. Photo Credit: Essen Center for Photography / Silviu Guiman