livestream

Foam x The Hmm:

Photography is...

Foam joins forces with digital culture platform The Hmm for a series of online talks. In Photography is..., we investigate how internet culture permeates and alters different layers of photography—extending the photographic field exponentially. How does our relationship with the photographic image shift and change to the internet's cultural and technological developments?

This online event series is designed for everyone curious about the photographic medium's evolution in the digital age. Are you intrigued by the future of visual culture online? Join us as we examine photography's changing face in our image-saturated world.

11 September 2024: Photography is... reflective

What can the past tell us about photography's future?

Building on photography’s inherent reflective nature, sometimes it's worth 'looking backward to the future'—to examine our past as a way to look ahead. In the first event of the Photography is… series, we will take stock of the current landscape of photography by reflecting on the ways in which internet culture has shaped photography in the past 30 years.

The entanglements between the internet and the photographic image have led us to question what is even considered a photograph and to redefine how photographic images are created, consumed, and communicated online. During this event, we'll return to Foam Magazine #29: Curating the Future—an issue dedicated to envisioning the future of the medium. At that time, nearly thirteen years ago, the introduction stated that “the digitalisation of the medium brought about fundamental changes that have redetermined our entire visual culture, utterly transforming what we consider to be a photo".

What should photography have been like today, according to the past? Which topics and questions do we return to repeatedly when thinking about the internet's impact on photography? Which questions are still left unanswered? Together with a handful of the original contributors to the issue, we will peek back into the past to reflect on what has occurred since to speculate what might come.

Speakers

Fred Ritchin: Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography School. Author of four books on photography. His newest book, The Synthetic Eye, is forthcoming in 2024.

Constant Dullaart: Artist, director Distant.Gallery and professor Networked Materialities at ADBK-Nürnberg.

Marisa Olson: Artist, writer and curator.

Cover of Foam Magazine #29: Curating the Future, 2011 © Foam.

Full programme

11 September 2024: Photography is... reflective
What can the past tell us about photography's future?

Speakers: Fred Ritchin, Constant Dullaart and Marisa Olson.

More information coming soon:

16 October 2024: Photography is... hoarding
Navigating the endless flood of digital images

13 November 2024: Photography is... text
Exploring text as an image-making technique

11 December 2024: Photography is... surreal
(Re)interpreting reality in photography

Gif image of words flying in a blue sky

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Foam x The Hmm:

Photography is...