Architecture nominee

Technology and algorithm have played a huge role in reshaping the way we think, exist and operate. “Digital Alchemy” is a series of photographic artworks that revolve around observations within the human landscape where technology appears dominant; it explores technology’s integration into the urban landscape, the evolution of our processing capabilities, as well as the contemporary interdependency of society and technology. It represents the fabric of the built environment as digital and contrived - presented as territories, detached from their immediate context, and existing as environments of their own. What will one day be the relics of the digital era currently stand as mediators between the real and the virtual world.
The body of work portrays graphical patterns captured photographically within real and existing urban spaces and structures, referencing digital data that has been materialized within the real world, and exists in the grey-area in between the physical and the intangible. This explores the impact of algorithm within global spectacles undergoing fast growth and expansion; from urban sprawls to mass markets, from technological to cyber expansion. Devoid of human existence, “Digital Alchemy” represents the by-products of our interventions on the environment, revealing digital artifacts that govern our urban morphology today.

Bahaa Ghoussainy was born in Lebanon and currently lives in the UK. He is completing his MA in Photography at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) after having received his degree in architecture from the Lebanese American University. Building on his interests in the visual dynamics of design, architecture, and photography, he uses the photographic medium as a non-verbal language to communicate ideas and observations. Ghoussainy tends to incorporate digital technology and other alternative image-making methods within his practice, including photomontage, moving image, and animation. He believes that there is an intrinsic relationship between imagery and architecture, which he communicates through his work, in terms of both the themes of his projects and the methods utilized in their production.

His recent work, 'Digital Alchemy", focuses on the evolution of the built environment and the effects of technology on the physical world. It explores the transformation of spatial and material qualities of architecture and their translation into two-dimensional photographic works.

Ghoussainy’s commercial practice includes architectural and interior photography. His work has been featured in many international platforms and magazines.