Philosophy of Photography

Rolf Lauter
Peter Fink: Photographs.
A survey exhibition of photographs by Peter Fink from the 1950s and 1960s. Amerika Haus Frankfurt, January 25 to February 26, 1999; German-American Institute Heidelberg, March 12 to April 12, 1999; and Städtische Galerie Brückenturm Mainz, August 28 to September 26, 1999.

Discovering Fink’s work for the first time, I immediately wanted to see more of it. Fink’s brother-in-law put me in touch with the photographer’s widow in New York. When I then visited Monique Fink5 in New York, she proved very helpful. Not only did she show me many of her late husband’s photographs, but she also discussed his work at length, helping to give me a deeper insight into the broad scope and powerful expression of his work. In the course of my visits it soon became clear that architectural photography represented only a fragment of his oeuvre. Viewing the material as a whole, a number of focal themes and directions emerged. There were photographs taken on his extensive travels throughout the world, showing people, their lives, and landscapes; portraits of famous people from the field of politics and film; pictures of children; male and female nudes; flowers; New York cityscapes scenes and shots of Manhattan’s skyscrapers; Refractions.

An important stylistic element to be found in all of Peter Fink’s photographs is the quest to capture the subtle nuances of everyday reality and, in doing so, to render an the positive or negative aura of an image. Fink thus goes beyond photographic reportage and demonstrates with what is often iconic clarity the beauty, sadness, specialness or uniqueness of a situation, an event or an individual. This clarity is best expressed in his black-and-white photographs. He always used natural daylight as his only source of lighting, rather than imposing any form of ”artificiality” or ”abstraction” on the people and things he photographed.

Although the photographs from the later series of Refractions may be described in some degree as a homage to the optical beauty of Manhattan’s skyscrapers, whose outer mirroring appearance fascinated Fink far more than the world within them, this series is actually related to earlier architectural photographs which adopt the same visual approach. For example, Fink photographed the World Trade Center during the day in a way that highlights the geometric stringency and perspective of the architecture, whereas his night-time shot of the same building emphasizes its planarity.

In his series of New York cityscapes, most of them studies of the changing chiaroscuro of the skyline in different lighting conditions, there is one photograph that stands out from the others. It is a tender, almost romantic view of the city under a cloudy sky, in which only a bridge jars the tranquillity of the scene.

This profoundly emotive and atmospheric view of the city he loved bears affinities with a series of flower studies that reveal the beauty of nature in a very specific way. Plants and blossoms are shown against a black backdrop in the kind of intense and almost painterly purity that can be found, albeit in a different constellation, in the work of the Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. Some of his female nudes possess the same organic beauty as his flower studies. Fink photographs the female body with an emphasis on its softly sculptural qualities, highlighting a certain ornamental naturalness. The result is on the one hand a touch of eroticism and on the other hand an intense admiration for its beauty. In the same vein, his nude studies of the dancers Godfrey Holder and Charles Moore possess an extraordinary presence in terms of black and white photography. The muscularity of their dance-trained bodies, the figura serpentinata of their pose, and the enormously powerful expressiveness convey a sense of physicality in an aesthetically qualitative way.

The human image was always important to Peter Fink, as witnessed by his arresting portraits of Irene Papas, Sophia Loren, Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Kwan, Tammy Grimes, Stella Jobb - Madame de Rosnay and Mijko Taka in the sixties. What they have in common is the strong and representative physical presence of those in the public eye, as well as the inner mental and psychological individuality that lies behind their outward appearance. In the series of travel photographs, most of them taken in Tunisia, Egypt, Hong Kong, Portugal and France, we recognize Fink’s special insistence on the acceptance of reality and his affectionate representation of the individual. Each of his many pictures of children tells a very personal story. Young and beautiful women show themselves with pride and grace in worlds that are unfamiliar to us and often marked by poverty. Old women and men, their faces worn by time, tell of their work, life and fate in images of great visual density.

Rolf Lauter
Peter Fink: Fotografien.
Eine Überblicksausstellung mit Fotografien von Peter Fink aus den 1950er und 1960er Jahren. Amerika Haus Frankfurt, 25. Januar bis 26. Februar 1999; Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Heidelberg, 12. März bis 12. April 1999; und Städtische Galerie Brückenturm Mainz, 28. August bis 26. September 1999.

Als ich Finks Werk zum ersten Mal entdeckte, wollte ich sofort mehr davon sehen. Finks Schwager vermittelte mir den Kontakt zur Witwe des Fotografen in New York. Als ich anschließend Monique Fink in New York besuchte, erwies sie sich als sehr hilfreich. Sie zeigte mir nicht nur viele Fotografien ihres verstorbenen Mannes, sondern besprach auch ausführlich sein Werk und verhalf mir so zu einem tieferen Einblick in die Bandbreite und Ausdruckskraft seines Werks. Im Laufe meiner Besuche wurde mir schnell klar, dass die Architekturfotografie nur einen Ausschnitt seines Schaffens darstellte. Betrachtet man das Material als Ganzes, kristallisierten sich verschiedene Schwerpunkte und Richtungen heraus. Dazu gehören Fotografien seiner ausgedehnten Reisen durch die ganze Welt, die Menschen, ihr Leben und Landschaften zeigen; Porträts berühmter Persönlichkeiten aus Politik und Film; Kinderbilder; männliche und weibliche Akte; Blumen; New Yorker Stadtansichten und Aufnahmen der Wolkenkratzer Manhattans; Brechungen.

Ein wichtiges Stilelement aller Fotografien Peter Finks ist das Bestreben, die subtilen Nuancen der alltäglichen Realität einzufangen und so die positive oder negative Aura eines Bildes wiederzugeben. Fink geht damit über die fotografische Reportage hinaus und zeigt mit oft ikonischer Klarheit die Schönheit, Traurigkeit, Besonderheit oder Einzigartigkeit einer Situation, eines Ereignisses oder einer Person. Diese Klarheit kommt in seinen Schwarz-Weiß-Fotografien am besten zum Ausdruck. Er nutzte stets natürliches Tageslicht als einzige Lichtquelle, anstatt den fotografierten Menschen und Dingen irgendeine Form von „Künstlichkeit“ oder „Abstraktion“ aufzudrängen.

Obwohl die Fotografien aus der späteren Serie „Refractions“ gewissermaßen als Hommage an die optische Schönheit der Wolkenkratzer Manhattans bezeichnet werden können, deren spiegelnde Erscheinung Fink weit mehr faszinierte als die Welt in ihrem Inneren, ist diese Serie tatsächlich mit früheren Architekturfotografien verwandt, die denselben visuellen Ansatz verfolgen. So fotografierte Fink beispielsweise das World Trade Center tagsüber und betonte dabei die geometrische Strenge und Perspektive der Architektur, während seine Nachtaufnahme desselben Gebäudes dessen Flächigkeit betont.

In seiner Serie von New Yorker Stadtansichten, die meist Studien des changierenden Helldunkels der Skyline bei unterschiedlichen Lichtverhältnissen sind, sticht ein Foto besonders hervor. Es ist eine zarte, fast romantische Ansicht der Stadt unter bewölktem Himmel, in der nur eine Brücke die Ruhe der Szenerie stört.

Diese zutiefst emotionale und stimmungsvolle Ansicht seiner geliebten Stadt weist Ähnlichkeiten mit einer Reihe von Blumenstudien auf, die die Schönheit der Natur auf ganz besondere Weise offenbaren. Pflanzen und Blüten werden vor schwarzem Hintergrund in einer intensiven, fast malerischen Reinheit gezeigt, die sich – wenn auch in anderer Konstellation – auch im Werk des japanischen Fotografen Nobuyoshi Araki findet. Einige seiner weiblichen Akte besitzen dieselbe organische Schönheit wie seine Blumenstudien. Fink fotografiert den weiblichen Körper mit Betonung seiner sanft skulpturalen Qualitäten und hebt eine gewisse ornamentale Natürlichkeit hervor. Das Ergebnis ist einerseits ein Hauch von Erotik, andererseits eine intensive Bewunderung für seine Schönheit. In ähnlicher Weise besitzen seine Aktstudien der Tänzer Godfrey Holder und Charles Moore eine außergewöhnliche Präsenz in der Schwarz-Weiß-Fotografie. Die Muskulatur ihrer tänzerisch geschulten Körper, die figura serpentinata ihrer Posen und die enorm kraftvolle Ausdruckskraft vermitteln ein Gefühl von Körperlichkeit auf ästhetisch qualitative Weise.

Das menschliche Bild war Peter Fink stets wichtig, wie seine eindrucksvollen Porträts von Irene Papas, Sophia Loren, Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Kwan, Tammy Grimes, Stella Jobb – Madame de Rosnay und Mijko Taka in den 1960er Jahren belegen. Gemeinsam ist ihnen die starke und repräsentative physische Präsenz der im Rampenlicht stehenden Personen sowie die innere mentale und psychische Individualität, die sich hinter ihrer äußeren Erscheinung verbirgt. In der Serie von Reisefotografien, die größtenteils in Tunesien, Ägypten, Hongkong, Portugal und Frankreich entstanden, erkennen wir Finks besonderes Beharren auf der Akzeptanz der Realität und seine liebevolle Darstellung des Individuums. Jedes seiner zahlreichen Kinderbilder erzählt eine ganz persönliche Geschichte. Junge und schöne Frauen zeigen sich mit Stolz und Anmut in uns unbekannten, oft von Armut geprägten Welten. Alte Frauen und Männer, deren Gesichter von der Zeit gezeichnet sind, erzählen in Bildern von großer visueller Dichte von ihrer Arbeit, ihrem Leben und ihrem Schicksal.

Rolf Lauter
Peter Fink: Photographs.
A survey exhibition of photographs by Peter Fink from the 1950s and 1960s. Amerika Haus Frankfurt, January 25 to February 26, 1999; German-American Institute Heidelberg, March 12 to April 12, 1999; and Städtische Galerie Brückenturm Mainz, August 28 to September 26, 1999.

Discovering Fink’s work for the first time, I immediately wanted to see more of it. Fink’s brother-in-law put me in touch with the photographer’s widow in New York. When I then visited Monique Fink5 in New York, she proved very helpful. Not only did she show me many of her late husband’s photographs, but she also discussed his work at length, helping to give me a deeper insight into the broad scope and powerful expression of his work. In the course of my visits it soon became clear that architectural photography represented only a fragment of his oeuvre. Viewing the material as a whole, a number of focal themes and directions emerged. There were photographs taken on his extensive travels throughout the world, showing people, their lives, and landscapes; portraits of famous people from the field of politics and film; pictures of children; male and female nudes; flowers; New York cityscapes scenes and shots of Manhattan’s skyscrapers; Refractions.

An important stylistic element to be found in all of Peter Fink’s photographs is the quest to capture the subtle nuances of everyday reality and, in doing so, to render an the positive or negative aura of an image. Fink thus goes beyond photographic reportage and demonstrates with what is often iconic clarity the beauty, sadness, specialness or uniqueness of a situation, an event or an individual. This clarity is best expressed in his black-and-white photographs. He always used natural daylight as his only source of lighting, rather than imposing any form of ”artificiality” or ”abstraction” on the people and things he photographed.

Although the photographs from the later series of Refractions may be described in some degree as a homage to the optical beauty of Manhattan’s skyscrapers, whose outer mirroring appearance fascinated Fink far more than the world within them, this series is actually related to earlier architectural photographs which adopt the same visual approach. For example, Fink photographed the World Trade Center during the day in a way that highlights the geometric stringency and perspective of the architecture, whereas his night-time shot of the same building emphasizes its planarity.

In his series of New York cityscapes, most of them studies of the changing chiaroscuro of the skyline in different lighting conditions, there is one photograph that stands out from the others. It is a tender, almost romantic view of the city under a cloudy sky, in which only a bridge jars the tranquillity of the scene.

This profoundly emotive and atmospheric view of the city he loved bears affinities with a series of flower studies that reveal the beauty of nature in a very specific way. Plants and blossoms are shown against a black backdrop in the kind of intense and almost painterly purity that can be found, albeit in a different constellation, in the work of the Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. Some of his female nudes possess the same organic beauty as his flower studies. Fink photographs the female body with an emphasis on its softly sculptural qualities, highlighting a certain ornamental naturalness. The result is on the one hand a touch of eroticism and on the other hand an intense admiration for its beauty. In the same vein, his nude studies of the dancers Godfrey Holder and Charles Moore possess an extraordinary presence in terms of black and white photography. The muscularity of their dance-trained bodies, the figura serpentinata of their pose, and the enormously powerful expressiveness convey a sense of physicality in an aesthetically qualitative way.

The human image was always important to Peter Fink, as witnessed by his arresting portraits of Irene Papas, Sophia Loren, Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Kwan, Tammy Grimes, Stella Jobb - Madame de Rosnay and Mijko Taka in the sixties. What they have in common is the strong and representative physical presence of those in the public eye, as well as the inner mental and psychological individuality that lies behind their outward appearance. In the series of travel photographs, most of them taken in Tunisia, Egypt, Hong Kong, Portugal and France, we recognize Fink’s special insistence on the acceptance of reality and his affectionate representation of the individual. Each of his many pictures of children tells a very personal story. Young and beautiful women show themselves with pride and grace in worlds that are unfamiliar to us and often marked by poverty. Old women and men, their faces worn by time, tell of their work, life and fate in images of great visual density.

Rolf Lauter
Peter Fink: Fotografien.
Eine Überblicksausstellung mit Fotografien von Peter Fink aus den 1950er und 1960er Jahren. Amerika Haus Frankfurt, 25. Januar bis 26. Februar 1999; Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Heidelberg, 12. März bis 12. April 1999; und Städtische Galerie Brückenturm Mainz, 28. August bis 26. September 1999.

Als ich Finks Werk zum ersten Mal entdeckte, wollte ich sofort mehr davon sehen. Finks Schwager vermittelte mir den Kontakt zur Witwe des Fotografen in New York. Als ich anschließend Monique Fink in New York besuchte, erwies sie sich als sehr hilfreich. Sie zeigte mir nicht nur viele Fotografien ihres verstorbenen Mannes, sondern besprach auch ausführlich sein Werk und verhalf mir so zu einem tieferen Einblick in die Bandbreite und Ausdruckskraft seines Werks. Im Laufe meiner Besuche wurde mir schnell klar, dass die Architekturfotografie nur einen Ausschnitt seines Schaffens darstellte. Betrachtet man das Material als Ganzes, kristallisierten sich verschiedene Schwerpunkte und Richtungen heraus. Dazu gehören Fotografien seiner ausgedehnten Reisen durch die ganze Welt, die Menschen, ihr Leben und Landschaften zeigen; Porträts berühmter Persönlichkeiten aus Politik und Film; Kinderbilder; männliche und weibliche Akte; Blumen; New Yorker Stadtansichten und Aufnahmen der Wolkenkratzer Manhattans; Brechungen.

Ein wichtiges Stilelement aller Fotografien Peter Finks ist das Bestreben, die subtilen Nuancen der alltäglichen Realität einzufangen und so die positive oder negative Aura eines Bildes wiederzugeben. Fink geht damit über die fotografische Reportage hinaus und zeigt mit oft ikonischer Klarheit die Schönheit, Traurigkeit, Besonderheit oder Einzigartigkeit einer Situation, eines Ereignisses oder einer Person. Diese Klarheit kommt in seinen Schwarz-Weiß-Fotografien am besten zum Ausdruck. Er nutzte stets natürliches Tageslicht als einzige Lichtquelle, anstatt den fotografierten Menschen und Dingen irgendeine Form von „Künstlichkeit“ oder „Abstraktion“ aufzudrängen.

Obwohl die Fotografien aus der späteren Serie „Refractions“ gewissermaßen als Hommage an die optische Schönheit der Wolkenkratzer Manhattans bezeichnet werden können, deren spiegelnde Erscheinung Fink weit mehr faszinierte als die Welt in ihrem Inneren, ist diese Serie tatsächlich mit früheren Architekturfotografien verwandt, die denselben visuellen Ansatz verfolgen. So fotografierte Fink beispielsweise das World Trade Center tagsüber und betonte dabei die geometrische Strenge und Perspektive der Architektur, während seine Nachtaufnahme desselben Gebäudes dessen Flächigkeit betont.

In seiner Serie von New Yorker Stadtansichten, die meist Studien des changierenden Helldunkels der Skyline bei unterschiedlichen Lichtverhältnissen sind, sticht ein Foto besonders hervor. Es ist eine zarte, fast romantische Ansicht der Stadt unter bewölktem Himmel, in der nur eine Brücke die Ruhe der Szenerie stört.

Diese zutiefst emotionale und stimmungsvolle Ansicht seiner geliebten Stadt weist Ähnlichkeiten mit einer Reihe von Blumenstudien auf, die die Schönheit der Natur auf ganz besondere Weise offenbaren. Pflanzen und Blüten werden vor schwarzem Hintergrund in einer intensiven, fast malerischen Reinheit gezeigt, die sich – wenn auch in anderer Konstellation – auch im Werk des japanischen Fotografen Nobuyoshi Araki findet. Einige seiner weiblichen Akte besitzen dieselbe organische Schönheit wie seine Blumenstudien. Fink fotografiert den weiblichen Körper mit Betonung seiner sanft skulpturalen Qualitäten und hebt eine gewisse ornamentale Natürlichkeit hervor. Das Ergebnis ist einerseits ein Hauch von Erotik, andererseits eine intensive Bewunderung für seine Schönheit. In ähnlicher Weise besitzen seine Aktstudien der Tänzer Godfrey Holder und Charles Moore eine außergewöhnliche Präsenz in der Schwarz-Weiß-Fotografie. Die Muskulatur ihrer tänzerisch geschulten Körper, die figura serpentinata ihrer Posen und die enorm kraftvolle Ausdruckskraft vermitteln ein Gefühl von Körperlichkeit auf ästhetisch qualitative Weise.

Das menschliche Bild war Peter Fink stets wichtig, wie seine eindrucksvollen Porträts von Irene Papas, Sophia Loren, Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Kwan, Tammy Grimes, Stella Jobb – Madame de Rosnay und Mijko Taka in den 1960er Jahren belegen. Gemeinsam ist ihnen die starke und repräsentative physische Präsenz der im Rampenlicht stehenden Personen sowie die innere mentale und psychische Individualität, die sich hinter ihrer äußeren Erscheinung verbirgt. In der Serie von Reisefotografien, die größtenteils in Tunesien, Ägypten, Hongkong, Portugal und Frankreich entstanden, erkennen wir Finks besonderes Beharren auf der Akzeptanz der Realität und seine liebevolle Darstellung des Individuums. Jedes seiner zahlreichen Kinderbilder erzählt eine ganz persönliche Geschichte. Junge und schöne Frauen zeigen sich mit Stolz und Anmut in uns unbekannten, oft von Armut geprägten Welten. Alte Frauen und Männer, deren Gesichter von der Zeit gezeichnet sind, erzählen in Bildern von großer visueller Dichte von ihrer Arbeit, ihrem Leben und ihrem Schicksal.

In writing Notebooks and Tractatus, Wittgenstein is clear on two points: First, the world is made up of facts without any ethical or aesthetic distinctions. Second, the world is unresponsive to the wishes of the willing subject-my will and your will.

John Berger's writings on photography are some of the most original of the twentieth century. This selection contains many groundbreaking essays and previously uncollected pieces written for exhibitions and catalogues in which Berger probes the work of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith - and the lives of those photographed - with fierce engagement, intensity and tenderness.

The selection is made and introduced by Geoff Dyer, author of the award-winning The Ongoing Moment.

How do we see the world around us? This is one of a number of pivotal works by creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision for ever.

John Berger was born in London in 1926. His acclaimed works of both fiction and non-fiction include the seminal Ways of Seeing and the novel G., which won the Booker Prize in 1972. In 1962 he left Britain permanently, and he now lives in a small village in the French Alps.

Geoff Dyer is the author of four novels and several non-fiction books. Winner of the Lannan Literary Award, the International Centre of Photography's 2006 Infinity Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters's E. M. Forster Award, Dyer is also a regular contributor to many publications in the UK and the US. He lives in London.

Reacting against the view expressed by the British art critic John Ruskin that "the whole technical power of the painting depends on our recovery of what may be called the innocence of the eye", Gombrich and Goodman initiated in the 1960s several decades of intense discussions aiming to show that Ruskin was wrong and that pictorial perception is never innocent. This paper intends to partially reinstate the innocence of the eye, by giving a novel account of depiction that argues that pictorial perception is not a special kind of perception but rather perception through a special kind of medium. This account appeals not at all to resemblance, symbolic systems, make-believe, illusory experiences or recognitional abilities but relies instead on the phenomena of transparency and causal mediation. It argues that a painting depicts a scene only in virtue of its instantiation of some visual features that are independent of the existence of symbolic systems, artistic movements and styles, the nature of aesthetic experience and the psychology of the artist.

Claudia Andujar, sua mirada sobre os deserdados e a centralidade paulistana Yara Schreiber Dines
A fotógrafa imigrante Claudia Andujar no ensaio o "Trem do Diabo"  (1969) foca migrantes que sofreram revéses e retornam de trem para suas cidades de origem. Configura-se como um jogo de espelhos para a fotógrafa trasladada, que acompanha os deserdados para seus territórios primeiros. Já com outras lentes, a fotógrafa passa a considerar São Paulo como o seu espaço, realizando experimentações imagéticas no ensaio sobre a Rua Direita e seus pedestres, muito fecundas nas suas angulações e abordagem, inovadora para os anos 1970. Aborda a metrópole e seus habitantes e pedestres com um olhar incomum no uso da centralidade urbana. Claudia tem o seu foco voltado para o "outro", a alteridade.

The article critically addresses Boris Groys' interpretation of photographs by Alexandre Kojève. In 2012, Groys organized the exhibition After History: Alexandre Kojève as a Photographer, which intended to demonstrate the "posthistorical" dimension in Kojève's artistic output. The article questions the adequacy of that perspective, given the somewhat tendentious curatorial presentation of the photos as showing an empty, dehumanized world. Considering the aesthetic and ontological aspects of the analysis of visual images that were central to Kojève's brief account of his 1920 visit to the Borghese Gallery in Rome and to his 1936 article on Kandinsky, Groys' reading of Kojève's photographic stance is subject to revision. The notion of aura, as proposed by Walter Benjamin, is operative in a comparative treatment of the photos by Kojève and Eugène Atget.

Entre os anos de 2011 e 2013, a fotógrafa mexicana Aglae Cortés Zazueta se dedicou à realização de três séries fotográficas que a princípio intitulou "Tratado Visual sobre el vazio", mas que durante seu processo, ganharam o nome definitivo de "Aforismos Visuales". No encontro com esse conjunto de três séries, em que cada uma trata especificamente de um elemento -corpo, paisagem, casa -, mas se conectam a partir da necessidade da fotógrafa em explorar relações ontológicas da imagem fotográfica em sua relação com o tempo, com o espaço e com a narrativa, nos chamou a atenção a presença da palavra em relação à imagem. Na escolha dos dois títulos, as palavras "tratado" e depois "aforismos" nos indicam certa relação com o discurso filosófico, apontando para formatos opostos: se inicia pelo tratado, tomada talvez pela necessidade de uma argumentação eloquente e exaustiva de seus temas, no fim opta pela concisão fragmentária do aforismo, que está presente como estrutura da própria imagem, mas também em relação a ela como palavra, na escrita de oito aforismos que passaram a acompanhar as séries em suas exposições. Nos interessa buscar como essa relação se deu no trabalho de Zazueta, e por essa via da análise específica dessa produção, movimentar a relação entre a fotografia e a literatura. Nas exposições de Aforismos Visuales 1 , Zazueta não estabelece ordem na sequência de apresentação das imagens com relação às três séries de que está composto esse trabalho, mas em conversas por e-mail 2 , afirmou que começou com a série "Silêncio Angular", que está profundamente articulada a partir de elementos que entende como constructos de sua própria subjetividade, como seu fascínio pelos espaços arquitetônicos, 1 Aforismos Visuales foi exposta na Galería ALMANAQUE Fotográfica en 2018, Feria de Arte Salón ACME (2015), Photo España 2013 dentre outras exposições e feiras de fotografia, foi selecionada para a XVI Bienal de Fotografía del Centro de la Imagen, no México ( ), e faz parte da coleção Alain Servais Collection, de Bruxelas. 2 Conforme fui pesquisando sobre Aforismos Visuales e o trabalho de Zazueta, as informações que conseguia eram repetitivas e se restringiam mais a dados gerais e de apresentação breve. Entrei em contato com ela primeiro pelo Facebook e Instagram, meios pelos quais me enviou seu email, e passamos a conversar sobre seu trabalho por essa via. Aqui me refiro especificamente ao e-mail de 19 de junho de 2023.

Vilém Flusser, češko-brazilski filozof, književnik i novinar, obično se smatra jedim od najznačajnijih teoretičara medija druge polovice dvadesetog stoljeća. Referirajući se na njegovo djelo Filozofija fotografije. Uvod (njem. Für eine Philosophie der Fotografie, 1983.), u ovom radu govorit će se o (I) filozofsko-fotografskom negativu (tj. širem kontekstu javljanja potrebe za filozofskim promišljanjem fotografije), (II) filozofsko-fotografskom pozitivu (tj. konstituiranju filozofije fotografije kao nove filozofske discipline) i (III) filozofsko-fotografskoj ekspoziciji (tj. temeljnim pojmovima i njihovim
definicijama (tj. značenjima), koji bacaju jedno novo svjetlo kako na razumijevanje Flusserove filozofije fotografije, tako i na mogućnosti i granice filozofskog promišljanja fotografije uopće). Pored kritičkog tumačenja refleksija koje nerijetko zalaze s »druge strane fotoaparata«, cilj je rada ponuditi kratki pregled osnovnih pretpostavki i glavnih pojmova filozofije fotografije Viléma Flussera.

Formalism in modern art originated with the Abstractionists, and due to the impact that abstract art had on the form of works during this period, the analysis of these artists' works has led to the external and internal manifestation of form. In the present study, three examples of paintings by Rothko and Kandinsky have been analyzed. The primary purpose of this study is to analyze and compare the forms in the works of Kandinsky and Rothko. The method of collecting library information, along with observing and analyzing the works, is qualitative, and the sampling is also purposefully selective. This study reveals that the commonality between these two artists stemmed from their shared views. These views disregarded the ideals of the work of art and merely represented nature. Their works are similar in terms of form, spontaneity, and subconsciousness.

This article presents a semiotic analysis of the mobile applications employed by various European exhibition spaces, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the History Museum in Vienna, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, to examine how these digital tools participate in the configuration of the visitor experience. The study examines the design of these mobile applications, with a particular focus on the activities that they propose during the museum visit. The analysis delves into the types of interactions that they propose with the museum’s architectural, curatorial, and artistic discourses, as well as between the visitors themselves. It seeks to address the following research question: How do museum applications, strongly linked to the use of social networks and access to online content, transform visiting practices and expand the museum experience beyond its physical confines? The findings indicate that while these applications can enhance the accessibility and personalization of the content available during the exhibition, their design disregards the spatial and material dimensions of museum visits, which involve the presence of other individuals with whom visitors interact and share the exhibition spaces. By interrogating the enunciative strategies of these digital tools, it becomes evident that the actions promoted by mobile applications involve practices whose spatio-temporal dimensions are incompatible with those of physical visits. This highlights the challenges of integrating mobile applications into contemporary curatorial practices.

Over more than 30 years of commercial and fine art photographic practice, I have often noticed remarkable disparities between the scenes, objects, events or moments 'out there' I had attempted to recordand the images within the resulting photographs. These (sometimes subtle, sometimes profound, but rarely anticipatable) disparities between what I had seen and what the photograph shows me offer the tantalising suggestion that there may be something else going on herebut something which the popular conception of photography may hinder our ability to recognise. This article explores the implications of four central assumptions implicit within the popular conception of photography that may impede alternative ways of thinking about photographic practice. Supported by a number of photographs that depict scenes, events and 'moments' that I will argue were not 'taken' but were instead created by the act of photographing them, I will suggest that new opportunities for practice may be available by 'reimagining' the practice of photography as an activeor as an act ofcollaboration between medium and practitioner.

The first issue of the online journal kunsttexte's "section photography" edited by Katharina Günther and Jule Schaffer is dedicated to the theme of Re:Visions. In four essays and two interviews, working methods and concepts of the 20th century are linked with ideas of the 19th century, the historical roots of prominent photographic phenomena of our time are examined, and the relationship between temporality and photography in photographic practice is also addressed. It turns out that a look back is always fruitful and sometimes opens up surprising new perspectives.

AN ARCHIVE OF ARCHIVES LOST 'An Archive of Archives Lost' is an affective autoethnographic visual essay that examines the devastating impact of climate change through the lens of personal loss. The Philippines is among the countries most vulnerable to the ongoing climate crisis, with tropical storms getting stronger and more frequent. As a result of the intensified damage, many homes have lost their personal photographic archive, which used to bring together families and community through shared memories. The repeated experience of typhoons, flooding, and loss has made the community attuned to a routine cycle of letting go. The destruction of photographs symbolizes a deeper loss of cultural and social ties whose affective impact I explore.

Translated by See Ling QUEK, edited and introduced by Charmaine TOH, this is an English translation of Chinese photographer Long Chin-San’s (Lang Jingshan 郎靜山, 1882-1995) essay, “Photography and Chinese Painting Art” 攝影與中國繪畫藝術, which was originally published in Chinese in 1955. Long was one of the most influential Asian photographers of his time and the essay reveals much of his thinking behind his work, particularly his composite photographs.

Since the inception of photography and cinema, light has been the essential element that enables cameras to capture and transform reality into images. This paper explores how light interacts with camera components to capture still images and video.
It briefly explains the nature of light and the camera’s optical principles (lenses, shutter, sensor or film), contrasting analog and digital systems. Furthermore, it examines the applications of photography and cinematography in various fields: as artistic and creative media, in journalism as an informational tool (photojournalism), and in entertainment (film, television, advertising). Historical and conceptual aspects are highlighted, as well as the advantages of digital technologies for instant image availability. The paper concludes with reflections on the influence of visual media in contemporary society.

Inspired by Derrida's elaborations in Demeure, Athènes: Photographies de Jean-François Bonhomme (1996), this text initially takes up Derrida's remarks in “Résistances” (in: Résistances de la psychanalyse, 1996) about the relationship between analysis and resistance, and questions the nexus between singularity of the event and its ordering. This theme will be unfolded, based on Derrida's thoughts on the photographic work from Jean-François Bonhomme, in which ruins of Athens are highlighted: around this theme, the book Demeure, Athènes enables us to rethink the relationship between photography and philosophy, as well as shifting to the indiciality of images the themes of infinite analysis and reflexivity of the subject. Part of this text results from my modified translation of the final topics of my book Bildgeschehen (Serra, 2024), which are dedicated to the photographic image and have been reread in the context of my current research.

Con el objetivo de transformar el sistema del arte y, con él, la sociedad Andrea Giunta revela en su última obra Feminismo y arte latinoamericano. Historia de artistas que emanciparon el cuerpo, cómo el feminismo se ha estado gestando en las producciones de los años sesenta y ochenta para emerger con fuerza en la actualidad. Se trata de un valioso aporte historiográfico, construido a partir de un corpus de obras que utilizan el cuerpo como soporte principal, desmontando estereotipos caducos e invitando a la reflexión.With the aim of transforming the art system and with it, society, Andrea Giunta reveals in her latest work, Feminism and Latin American art. History of artists who emancipated the body how feminism has been brewing in productions of the sixties and eighties to emerge strongly today. It is a valuable historiography contribution, built from a corpus of images that use the body as a support, dismantling outdated stereotypes and inviting reflection.Reseña a Andrea Giunta (2...

JR: Can we consider Sebastião Salgado a Marxist photographer? How can we frame his work within the context of other politically engaged artistic expressions? Chat GPT: Salgado can be seen as a post-realist humanist photographer, with deep Marxian resonances, framed through a cinematic and literary sensibility that borrows from realism, flirts with neo-realism, and occasionally brushes up against the mythic scope of magical realism. He is not a Marxist artist in the orthodox sense, but he is a powerful visual chronicler of the structural violence that Marxism critiques. Salgado captures the erosion of dignity under capitalist structures, the robot says. Sebastião Salgado devoted large part of his professional career to photograph work, workers, working relations and political conflicts. Later on he would move to more environmental topics and the overexploitation and degradation of nature and ecosystems. Can we consider he is a Marxist photographer? Sebastião Salgado's work certainly resonates with many themes central to Marxist thought-such as labor, exploitation, class struggle, alienation, and environmental degradation-but whether we can categorically call him a "Marxist photographer" is more nuanced. Arguments in favor: Focus on Labor and Exploitation: Salgado's early projects, especially Workers (1993) and Migrations (2000), document the harsh realities of manual labor and displacement caused by global capitalist processes. These are subjects central to Marxist critiques of the political economy. Systemic Perspective: His photographic essays often avoid individual heroism or victimization, instead showing how entire communities are affected by larger economic structures-an approach compatible with Marxist analysis. Critique of Capitalism: While not explicitly didactic, his work reveals the consequences of unregulated market forces, such as poor working conditions, inequality, and displacement-issues Marxist theory aims to expose and oppose. Later Shift to Environmental Degradation: His project Genesis (2013) can be seen as documenting the remnants of a pre-capitalist or unspoiled world, potentially lamenting the destructive effects of capitalist expansion on nature, aligning with eco-Marxist critiques. Arguments against: Lack of Explicit Ideological Commitment: Salgado does not label himself a Marxist, and his public discourse avoids doctrinaire political alignments. His emphasis is more humanitarian and universal than explicitly ideological. Aestheticization of Suffering: Some critics argue that his highly stylized black-and-white images risk aestheticizing poverty and suffering, distancing the viewer from political action-a concern that some Marxist theorists have raised. Engagement with Global Institutions: He has worked with international organizations like the UN and various media outlets, which are not necessarily aligned with radical critique-although that doesn't inherently negate his critical stance.

This issue of Making and Breaking seeks to map out some of the dominant psychogeographies of the present. Reworking the Situationist heritage and applying it to our time, many of the approaches presented within it extend beyond the city and the physical environment, going into the virtual dimensions of digital socialities, social media infrastructures and their affects, exploring shifting sociopolitical grounds and socio-economic factors, identifying new forces of power and potential sources of emancipation.

At a time when it has become intellectually fashionable to celebrate the looming apocalypse as post- or transhuman payback, we urgently need to reinvigorate our desire for the future. Our inkling is that approaching cultural production in psychogeographic terms might help identify what blockages are at play in constraining it to addressing what feels like only a handful of topics, in a handful of ways.

During recent years, third—generation writers of the Armenian Genocide and
the Diaspora have created several novels, one of which is written by the Romanian-Armenian author V. Voskanean entitled “The Book of Whispers”. For writing
the novel, the author carried out research, resulting from which the novel is assigned
as a fiction-documentary. The purpose of our study is to examine the manifestations,
functions, and intertwinement of documentation and fiction in the novel. The study
focuses on the genre and textual characteristics which determine the documentary
nature of the novel. Of special interest is attested to the influence of documentary
sources on the writer’s imagery way of thinking. The analysis presents the functions
of documentation in the novel both in terms of overcoming the traumatic memory
of those people and their generation who experienced genocide through the light of
words and attesting to the role of a “microphone” of historical truth. The literary
work itself becomes a history documentation.

This article delves into the complex relationship between photography, political communication, and collective memory. It focuses on how political agendas and propaganda influence photographic representations, shaping individual and collective memory formation. The authors critically examine the changing per- ception of photography, moving from its presumed objectivity to a more nuanced understanding that challenges its ability to represent reality truthfully. To illustrate how photographs shape audience interpretation and either reinforce or challenge dominant ideologies, the paper introduces the concept of visual framing. The research also explores the significant role of family photography in constructing personal and collective narratives, often reflecting idealized cultural states rather than authentic lived experiences.
Additionally, the article examines how artists and critical theorists have used the materiality of photographs to construct alternative narratives and challenge official historical accounts. By presenting photography as both a tool for control and resistance, the paper underscores its paradoxical nature in reinforcing power structures and providing opportunities for subversion. The concept of hyperreality is invoked to explain how photographic representations have become fundamental in shaping perceived reality, blurring the boundaries between representation and the represented. In conclusion, the paper emphasizes photography’s dual function in shaping collective memory and social identity, serving as a potent instrument for both political propaganda and resistance.

In the last thirty years, the affirmation of digital technologies, the extensive use of social media and the related massive use of the production of images via smartphone, has determined an unprecedented scenario characterized by a radical fracture in the ways of production, circulation and fruition of images of the world. This state of affairs has triggered a broad reflection on their possible status as descriptions or representations of reality, therefore on their value as truthful and reliable testimony; that which in the time of photography (optical and chemical: analogical) was based on the recognition of its indexical value as a trace; on its ineluctable certification (in culturally and technologically varied ways), that what it showed had-inevitably-been. To indicate this new scenario made of ubiquitous and dematerialized images (at least perceptually), which can have an increasingly tenuous causal relationship with the represented, different terms have been used, among which that of "post-photographic" has prevailed. Its media and academic success, however, seems to have more conventional than substantial bases; the poorly thought-out fruit of a reflection that is as broad as it is, at times, superficial or not critically founded on the distinctive characteristics of this environment and the images that populate it. Particularly unsatisfactory is the theoretical verification of the consequences derived from the comparison with photographic modes of recording and representation, with respect to which the ontological fracture that distinguishes digital images has not been grasped or sufficiently considered, although these are also considered as representations of the possible.

Rosângela Rennó utiliza-se de fotografias encontradas em arquivos públicos com o objetivo de apreender um momento ou um instante antes que ele desapareça por completo. Ela as transforma em novas memórias a partir de outras lembranças, escolhidas pelos detalhes pungentes. As imagens da série Frutos Estranhos foram trabalhadas digitalmente de forma a ganhar movimento em suspenso e som em tempo real de forma que as duas linguagens sejam descontínuas.

Wozu analoge Fotografie in einer digitalen Zeit? Birgit Bornemann und Stilla Seis reizen die Grenzen der analogen Fotografie in ihren künstlerischen Arbeiten aus. Größe, Belichtung und Bearbeitung betonen die körperliche Präsenz die sonst bei Fotografie übersehen wird. Vorallem der digitalen Fotografie setzten sie damit einen Kontrapunkt entgegen.

This paper examines the ontological and phenomenological shifts in digital photography within networked environments, exploring the tension between the visible simplicity of digital interfaces and the invisible complexity of algorithmic processes. Through a series of artistic projects—Send Some Candids (2011), Being Seen Trying (2014), and A Thousand Kisses Deep (2015)—the author interrogates how digital images, once uploaded, transcend their singular origins to become dynamic, self-organizing entities. These works reveal how networked images acquire organic lives, evolving through algorithmic interactions, metadata associations, and user engagements that destabilize traditional notions of authorship, meaning, and indexicality.

The analysis situates digital photography within broader theoretical frameworks, drawing on Wendy Chun’s critique of software’s ideological underpinnings, Daniel Rubinstein’s concept of the “undecidable” networked image, and Jorge Luis Borges’ Library of Babel as a metaphor for the internet’s chaotic information ecology. The author argues that the digital turn disrupts Cartesian perspectivalism, replacing linear causality with paradoxical oscillations between visibility/invisibility and simplicity/complexity. Projects like The Cassini Conspiracy (2016) further illustrate how algorithmic processing and apophenia—the human tendency to find patterns in randomness—reshape interpretations of scientific and spiritual imagery.

Central to this exploration is the collapse of photography’s indexical relationship with reality. The paper contends that digital images are no longer mere representations but processes entangled with algorithmic imperatives, metadata, and network dynamics. Emergent properties, such as self-organization and instability in viral images, challenge dialectical approaches, demanding instead a non-linear engagement with paradox. The author ultimately posits that the networked image’s undecidability reflects a broader epistemological shift, urging a reconfiguration of artistic and critical practices to navigate the interplay of algorithmic abstraction and human intuition in an era of computational ubiquity.

Jean-Luc Nancy's oeuvre, despite its fragmentariness, is made consistent by the concept of being-with. Nancy invokes this concept in reaction to the privileged status of the self in traditional philosophy. For him, there is no self without being-with, which is why in his ontology the latter is originary. Nancy, nevertheless, admits the existence of the self. The question, therefore, is what becomes of the self in relation to being-with? Although Nancy discusses the self, he does so in separate, albeit related, instances. In other words, he has no unitary account of the self and his discussions of it have yet to be integrated. This paper offers a synthetic account of Nancy's understanding of the self by tracing the continuity of his writings on being-with. This continuity reveals that the self for Nancy is not a pure self, but a self that is other than "self," viz., body. The self as body relates to itself and to other bodies, although the relation is not enclosed. A body is grasped only in its distinction from other bodies. The sense of self in Nancy's ontology, then, arises from the simultaneous co-appearance of bodies to one another.

This text was published originally in Spanish in the photo book PRELUDIO. https://www.armando-salazar.com/preludio PRELUDIO is the path from the empty classroom to the tunnel before going on stage. A photographic path made of 148 rolls of black and white film, 5180 shots and a final selection of 55 photographs that give shape to this book.

The legacy of Romanticism: Ladislas Xavier Chodźkiewicz - French photographer.
The article presents the activity of Wladyslaw Chodźkiewicz (1813-1898) shortly after his emigration to France, in particular presents him as a pioneer of photography, a member of the Parisian artistic community of the mid-19th century and the co-owner of the first Parisian photographic printing house.

RESUMEN: Se propone aquí que la comprensión y análisis del gesto depende de marcos no gestuales que, en cierta medida, “contaminan” aquello que pensamos de la gestualidad. Hablar de la mediación paradójica para entender el gesto significa que la naturaleza del gesto obliga a usar “un medio de contraste” para conceptualizarlo, es decir, tematizarlo desde la negación determinada. En el presente artículo se presentará la paradójica mediación de la fotografía en la comprensión de los gestos. Esta tarea se realiza con el marco conceptual fenomenológico de Martin Heidegger y Vilém Flusser, y se ejemplificará con casos extraídos del trabajo antropológico de Clifford Geertz y Alfred Gell.

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ABSTRACT: This paper proposes that the understanding and analysis of gestures depend on non-gestural frameworks that, to a certain extent, “contaminate” what we think of gestuality. To speak of paradoxical mediation to understand gesture means that the nature of gesture obliges us to use “a means of contrast” to conceptualize it, that is, to thematize it from a determinate negation. This article will present the paradoxical mediation of photography in understanding gestures. This task is carried out using the phenomenological conceptual framework of Martin Heidegger and Vilém Flusser, and it will be exemplified with cases drawn from the anthropological work of Clifford Geertz and Alfred Gell.

Tomando en parte su impulso del trabajo de Adriana
Cavarero, particularmente de su libro Inclinaciones,
el presente artículo se propone ampliar los alcances
de su crítica de la rectitud, recorriendo –desde la
clave de las poéticas de la inoperancia– algunas
reflexiones contemporáneas que convergen con
Cavarero respecto de la urgencia y los alcances de
la crítica de la verticalidad como esquema postural
dominante para pensar «lo humano». Textos como
«El cuerpo que no aguanta más», de D. Lapoujade,
«Desde mi cama, revuelta. Reflexiones tullidas
para una revolución en horizontal», de D. Méndez
de la Brena, o Metafísica de la pereza, de J.E. Valls
Boix, entre otros, tienen como denominador
común la puesta en escena de cuerpos que caen,
que se tumban, que se inclinan hacia el otro, y que
desde esas fluctuaciones contravienen a la fuerza
verticalizante del imaginario capacitista y patriarcal
del cuerpo que todo lo puede.