Fotografie Forum Frankfurt
Braubachstraße 30-32, 60311 Frankfurt am Main
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Lecture
ANDRÉ GUNTHERT“THE NEW ILLITERACY OF IMAGES”
“THE NEW ILLITERACY OF IMAGES”
Thursday, July 19, 2018, 6pm
Location: Fotografie Forum Frankfurt
Admission
5 EUR, reduced 3 EUR, for members of the FFF and students with valid ID card admission is free
André Gunthert, © Stephanie Di Rollo
Mark Zuckerberg, Samsung press conference, Barcelona, February 2016
The digital transition has improved in an unprecedented way our capacity to produce, share or consume images. This growth could be expected to lead to a proportional increase of our visual skills. To judge by the debates about images in the public sphere, this is not what is actually happening. On the contrary, examples of lack of understanding or mistrust of visual forms are multiplying. Failure of technical projects like video surveillance, incoherent laws like the obligation to mention retouching in advertising, or the withdrawal of self-images in political movements are signs of a new illiteracy of images. What appears here are the limits of an aesthetics of transparency. Believing that images are a natural language has contributed to the decline of our visual culture. Some new image knowledge is necessary to avoid it.
Agence Havas Paris, anti-harassment campaign, March 2018
André Gunthert, born in 1961, is a French researcher at the EHESS in Paris, where he teaches at the Visual Studies-chair. The photo historian has extended his field of scientific research to include ways of social use of images and was one of the first to examine their conversion in the digital age. His current research focuses on narrative systems in visual culture.
In 1996 he founded the scientific journal Études photographiques. Amongst his most notable works ranges the book l’Art de la photographie – edited together with Michel Poivert (Paris: Citadelles-Mazenod 2007). His latest book is L’Image partagée. La photographie numérique (Paris: Éditions textuel 2015), which presents a first history of the reception of digital images. André Gunthert regularly publishes in the blog L’image sociale.
FOTOGRAFIE FORUM FRANKFURT
The Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) is one of the leading centres of photography in Europe. As an exhibition space, institution and event forum the FFF deals with all aspects of photography. Since its founding in 1984 it has presented more than 260 exhibitions with historic and contemporary artists. Additionally, the programme of the FFF comprises of regular workshops, talks and discussions with internationally renowned photographers, artists and experts.
