Let’s Talk about Images

Heba Y. Amin, Terje Abusdal, Khaled Barakeh, Delphine Bedel, Marianne Hultman, Bouchra Khalili, Eline Mugaas, Elise By Olsen, Maria Pasenau, Tine Semb, Sara R. Yazdani, Knut Åsdam 

Weekly programme*

“For one to whom the real world becomes real images, mere images are transformed into real beings—tangible figments which are the efficient motor of trancelike behaviour.”
– Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, 1967

“The danger of this emphasis on the coproduction of physical and cultural space by computation is that it, in turn, occludes the vast inequalities of power that it both relies upon and reproduces. Computation does not merely augment, frame, and shape culture; by operating beneath our everyday, casual awareness of it, it actually becomes culture.”
– James Bridle, New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, 2018
 

Fotogalleriet is pleased to announce Let’s Talk about Images, our newly launched discursive programme. Examples of artistic practices that critically engage society and its representations are explored in these weekly events grounded in photographic and cinematographic works produced in recent years. Moreover, the programme explores the embodiment of the image and the abandonment of spectatorship. Let’s Talk about Images aims to analyze and explore the world of the perceptible; to rethink how ocularcentrism has taken over the human reign of senses, through artists’ presentations, discussions and screenings. Strategies discussed in this series of programmes will range from cultural hacking, the construction and negotiation of identities in relation to normative power structures, asserting presence by absence of words, objects, victims and bodies, techno-utopian visions, creative storytelling, and narrative rifts.

50 years after Debords’ revolutionary analysis the global effects of image production has to be retranslated into what has been recently defined as the “new dark age,” where computerized technology transforms the world in ways divergent from human perception and comprehension. As an easily deceived sense, sight is readily adaptable to present day societies opaqueness. In this overwhelming torrent of images, can we discern “artistic approaches” to this new image environment, to world events, and to history in general? Is art an antidote to this one-way street image production, or capable only to document the scars which are left behind? Do we live in a depopulated “world of images,” the violence of which bears witness to a metonymical mode of representation? And is the role of art to humanise the violence of the imagery we are subjected to, or to instead shape different ways of seeing?

To access the full weekly programme please click here.

As a prelude to the weekly series Let’s Talk about Images on Friday, September 14, 2018, Andrea Lissoni, Senior Curator at Tate Modern, held a presentation titled The Sound of Screens Imploding. The event was organised by Fotogalleriet in collaboration with Kunstnernes Hus and Ultima.

Concurrently, during the period November 3, 2018–January 12, 2019 and launching on November 1, 2018, Fotogalleriet is presenting two additional projects: Thumbing The Library: Gardening Networks and Generational: An Anthology Of Nordic Photobooks.

Please feel free to contact Fotogalleriet’s Head of Communications Hans E. Thorsen (hans [​at​] fotogalleriet.no), if you have any further queries about Fotogalleriet and the events.

About Fotogalleriet
Started in a basement in 1977 by renowned artists Dag Alveng and Tom Sandberg together with Bjørn Høyum as the first institution of its kind for hothousing cutting-edge photographic practices in Norway, Fotogalleriet has since then been dedicated to exhibiting local and international art practices, and analysing the rapidly expanding nature of a field unrestricted by technological and aesthetic shifts. Through its commitment to research and engagement with artists, Fotogalleriet is a leading institution within the field of image making. Its current Artistic Director is Antonio Cataldo.

Acknowledgements 
Fotogalleriet is grateful for its continued support from The Arts Council Norway, as well as the Norwegian Photographic Fund (Nofofo) and Oslo Municipality. It is also indebted to The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Culture for their exhibition honorarium pilot programme. Let’s Talk about Images is made possible through additional, generous grants by Fritt Ord Foundation, Oslo, and the Norwegian Photographic Fund. It also benefitted by the kind collaboration of Kunstnernes Hus, Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, Oslo World Music Festival, and SPACE (Syrian Peace Action Center).    

* With the exception of Thursday, November 8 and Thursday, December 6. In addition Fotogalleriet will be closed December 19, 2018–January 8, 2019 for the holiday season.