Dr. Philipp Goldbach studied media art with a focus on photography at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. At the same time, he studied art history, philosophy, and sociology at the University of Cologne. There, he earned his Ph.D. in 2016 with his dissertation “Foto/grafie: Motiv und Metapher der Schrift in der Fotografie”. Prior to that, he served as an assistant professor of photography at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (2008–2009). He was also a lecturer in film and photography studies at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) at Leiden University (2017–2019) and a visiting professor of photography at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (2022).

He is a visual artist who focuses on photography as both a material and a metaphor. In his art, he draws on selected sources from philosophy and art and reinterprets them to explore the intellectual history of storage media, the materiality of information, and the physical processes of recording within a field of tension between physicality and digitized technological (re)production.

Goldbach has exhibited his artworks internationally at numerous institutions, including: CCCB Barcelona, Centre Pompidou Paris, DZ BANK Art Foundation Frankfurt am Main, EPFL ArtLab Lausanne, FOTO|RAUM Vienna, Riga Art Space, Irma Vep Lab Reims, ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Hessisches Landesmuseum in Wiesbaden, Museum Folkwang in Essen, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum in Ludwigshafen, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Museum Weserburg in Bremen, Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, and Haus der Photographie – Deichtorhallen in Hamburg.

For his work, he has been awarded, among other honors, the Vordemberge-Gildewart Scholarship (2009) and the Ars Viva Prize for Fine Arts (2011/12). In addition, he was an artist-in-residence at Q21 MuseumsQuartier Vienna in 2019 at the invitation of EIKON.

As part of the Centre for Advanced Study, he contributed to the exhibition “Re:Set: Vom Dia zur Datenbank – Medienwandel in der Kunstgeschichte”.