Tag: Image

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Apocalypse Depicted

At the beginning of the 21st century we have a renewed interest in depictions of the Apocalypse. “L’Apocalisse di Giovanni” has been illustrated in various Christian monasteries and some traveled quite a bit. The version of the Apocalypse (Link) which was attributed to Cambrai is a copy of the older original version found in the City library of Trèves, which dates back to the year of about 825. A flemish version of the 16th century is to be found at the BNF in Paris. Throughout the centuries the “Apocalypsis”has been reworked. The version of Trèves has the “carolingish” depiction characteristized by a presentation of image on one page and text on another page. Nowadays we are used to futuristic images and have known even worse experiences of apocalyptic events (Nazi terror). Earth quakes or man-made climate change with heating of the planet, storms, draughts and floods testify for the renewed interest in the Apocalypse. Other man-made technological innovations like rockets. atomic bombs, chemical and biological weapons overshadow even the “natural” ones. The potential of AI to cause destruction is not fully assessed until today. Swarms of drones guided by AI might reach apocalyptic levels as well. We just remind ourselves of the bombing of walls of a water reservoir by Russia in Ukraine. The Apocalypse will remain the original example of a horror story and our strange fascination for such texts, images or movies is likely to stay. (Image: extract of anonymous 1st quarter of 9th century. Trier Stadtbibliothek, Schatzkammer. Wikipedia public domain).

Apocalypse
Screenshot
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Digital Visions

Urban planning has been digitalized for a long time. 3D modeling of places and buildings including their interiors are state of the art. As urbanization is also about investment, speculation and anticipation, digital imaging has entered the public spheres in form of cover up of building sites behind fences and in form of large digital prints for information, curiosity and advertising purposes. The inner cities are frequently an avantgarde and microcosm of societal developments. Some dream of full or total flexibility for office spaces (see image below), others experience the inner cities as the spotlight of inequality in society. The best paid executives are catered for by the worst paid delivery personnel. The photographers of the Landesarchiv Berlin, Grönboldt and Wunstorf, brought together a documentary exhibition entitled „Pixel aus Beton“, pixel made of concrete.

With a bird‘s eye view they reveal past, present and future details of how Berlin is experienced and envisioned by investors, architects and people living through the seemingly endless construction going on in the city. The keywords list as part of the exhibition creates a link to scientific literature and to the TU Center for Metropolitan Studies. Photography and even more so digital photography offers a social science perspective to the digital images exhibited. Cities are data spinning areas and a formidable place for digital visuals and visions.

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Text to Image

Long before everybody started to discuss Artificial Intelligence, which in many applications takes the form of transformation of a textual prompt into an Image, Photographers have had literature or quotations in their mind that shaped their images. This was a kind of poetic imagery not always easy to recognize. The exhibition in the „Institut de France“, Bibliothèques Mazarine (LINK), with photographs by Nicolas Fève (LINK) offfers a great insight into this way to conceive of an image and its realization through photography. Exposing the sources of inspiration as well as the photo is like adding textual citations to an image in a much more inspirational and transforming manner than AI is doing these days in 2025. 

Text to image is only one out of the many ways texts might guide imagination, but it is a powerful and gripping one. The history of literature is full of other forms like videos based on novels, comic strips to make classic texts in Latin more accessible. As we shall ask AI products like texts and images to cite their sources and honor authorship, photography as art and science might enhance the literary experience by adding citations to an image. This has the additional advantage that more people will follow up on the sources of inspiration.

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Artists Intergenerational

Generations influence each other. That’s a very simple general statement. Biographies, auto-biographies and life course research have all established sometimes more, sometimes less direct influences between the generations. The exhibition “A partir d’elle. Artists and their Mother“, curated by Julie Héraut, combines literature, photo and video that speak to the rather complex psychological or sociological issue. Visits in 2025 available at Stichting A, Brussels.
The starting point of the inquiry into the nature of photography by Roland Barth is chosen like an investigation into a crime. Sophie Létourneau had written an essay which proposes to read the original text by Barthes from this perspective. The artists in the exhibition seem to follow this process of asking themselves what their relationship to their mother is like and how to represent this in an artistic form.
A life course perspective, which takes images or videos with 10 or about 20 years difference, offers a kind of analytical as well as artificialized vision of the evolution of the artists’ relationships with their mother. Realistic images with a morphing backwards from old to young is presented next to images confronting young and old next to each other. “Words don’t come easy to me” could be the title of one of the videos where a young artist has a particularly hard time to talk to his/her mother.
Just after the celebrating Franz Kafka last year and his famous “Letter to my father”, the inquiry into artists and their mothers complements the analytical and artistic vision and interpretations of the child and parent intergenerational relationship.

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Spectacularization

Guy Debord (1967) has outlined in “In the society of spectacle” the importance to analyze societies from the perspective of “le temps spectaculaire”. Today we might frame this as “eventism” or the running of society through events. The regular spectacle of religious festivities, new year’s celebrations, Olympic games or even elections and election campaigns have been transformed into ceremonies of enthronization, where the reach to ever larger crowds is the prime goal. The critique of mass media of the 1960s can be deployed to the criticism of the facebook, Instagram and tiktok media campaigns of today. If you are not present on these platforms, you do not seem to exist in the view of the many. Debord highlights under his concept of separation the increasing isolation of persons and thereby a domination of people through technology (Debord para 24,27). Put in today’s terminology form of psycholinguistics we speak of loneliness of the old and young who, through the use of social media technologies, are prosumers even or especially in their free time. They serve the accumulation of massive benefits to the platforms of the spectacle more than their own fulfilment or socializing experiences. The consequence is the isolation of persons, with the paradox to be potentially the winner in the lottery of the algorithms to suddenly reach millions of people. The ephemeral popularity is a curse more than a blessing for most persons. The result is the “singularization” of crowds and within society.
Spectacularization is a process that is accompanied by singularization. Both terms have the merit to stress the process of evolution of societies. Comparing societies turns into an empirical exercise to measure amounts of spectacular events, degrees of spectacularization of individuals and the singularization of individuals within society. The antidote of solidarity and sharing is on the rise as well, which is reason to believe that not all is lost.
(Image: Debord’s annotation on extract of image by Gozzoli, BNF Manuscrit, Paris)

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Masculinity Photos

After the turn of the millennium we keep questioning us about basic principles of humanity, previously called mankind as well. The Zeitenwende has occurred through Putin and other male warriors and warmongers 2 years ago. This is reason enough to keep asking us what is behind the male visions of life and living together. Any hints from social sciences, biology and media studies are helpful to broaden and deepen our understanding of what constitutes masculinity and how it evolves over the life course and within or between societies. The collection of photographs from Jérôme Prochiantz currently exposed at the BNF enlightened the issue. Ever since Max Frisch wrote „Homo faber“ we are aware of the technological transmission process a man might be subjected to. Capturing single moments or arrangements with a lot of care for details shows maybe otherwise hidden male predilections and leaning towards abstraction. An idea or undefined vision, maybe an illusion are depicted in this revelation of masculinity at the turn of the century. Creative and destructive forces are jointly presented in this continuous questioning of masculinity. (Image: BNF, exhibition 2024-11 Jérôme Prochiantz)

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Of or about

There exists a fundamental difference between taking a picture of something or someone as opposed to taking a picture about someone or something. With the term about we denote or refer to a more abstract category of trees, animals or human beings. The use of of, however, refers to a specific realization within a specific category. Painters or photographers have applied this distinction for a long time. It is similar to social scientists who consider persons or relationships as belonging to more general categories. Gender is such a category which has preoccupied us for years before concluding that just 2 gender categories are not enough to come up with reasonable descriptions and predictions of behavior. The realizations of gender are manifold and not necessarily or only binary in nature as well appearances. Eventually social categories are enlarged to fit empirical patterns in more adequate ways. The image of someone/something therefore is something very different from an image about someone/something. (Image of: Children’s corner at Musée Rodin Paris. Image about: Pedagogic approaches to art, here sculptures « Le penseur », Rodin 19th century)

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Painter Sociologist

In going to a gallery and exhibition of paintings from the 17th century (Gemäldegalerie Berlin) you do not really expect to attend a class of sociology. However, this is exactly what the Flemish painter Frans Hals does with his paintings of various genres of society of his time. His sociological categories are for example unmarried young persons, married couples or pensioners living in a shared home. Other social categories of interest to him are a caregiver or, more common for the time, persons from noble or wealthy families. His painting „The Regents of the old men’s Almshouse” (ca 1660), the male pensioners home is one of his last paintings when he himself was already about 80 years old. Similar to a College of students the elderly home was run by a house father and house mother who took care of the daily living. The paintings of Frans Hals covered the entire life course with a cross-section perspective of society at his time. From few of his supporters he painted even several images moving towards a kind of longitudinal perspective on a person’s life course. Certainly, with “Oude-mannenhuis” (image below) he was interested not only in individual life courses, but of the conditions, forms or images of aging at his time. He probably was one of the first to challenge the negative stereotypes of aging.

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Dietrich Gabin

In French cinema Jean Gabin is a much adored person. Equally, Marlene Dietrich had, probably an even more far reaching international career. Both were accomplished and successful actors long before the 2nd world war broke out. In the U.S both fell in love and had a long lasting romance together. Their war time activities and “engagement” in fighting Nazi-Germany were extraordinary. It meant that both took active roles to use their charisma to mobilize people and soldiers to fight for freedom.
Shortly after the war then, both made a last attempt to work together in a movie production, but it could not unite the couple again. The “Deutsche Kinemathek” displays currently a page from the Diary of the “Diva” to underscore to what extent “Dietrich” was depressed about the break-up of their longer lasting love affair. Some say Gabin was the only person who quit her, all (most?) other relationships were terminated by the Diva. The junctions of biographies are hard to predict. The circumstances of the 2nd world war and internalized civic obligations to fight for freedom and democracy were wholeheartedly shared by both, but eventually they grew apart nevertheless. Tough experiences even for the much adored persons on the forefront of the stages worldwide. There seem to be many instances of repetition of the same story not only in movies, but also in real life.
Image: Deutsche Kinemathek Museum 2024-5

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Image History

The archives of the history of movies and/or television show to us the multiple ways how images capture our attention and memories. Visual narratives are an own category of our personal and collective memory. The wide range of visual experiences are a powerful way to influence. Not only the movies and stories matter, but the whole range of images associated with the cinema world. Poster collections, newspapers and today the so-called social media multiply the original images. The Deutsche Kinemathek allows a special, critical understanding of image history as Germany has been using and abusing images and movies in a very manipulating manner historically. The message is: do not take images for face value. The ways and techniques to manipulate images have been widely used and are all around us today. Whereas the mass media in previous decades have dominated the collective memories we have entered into an era with many more subcultures that evolve within their own bubble of images. An original attempt to cut 65 movies of German film history into less than 4 minutes is presented in the exhibition (Milkowski and Simbeni). It focuses on gestures and “les regards”, “Blicke”, how the actresses and actors seem to look at us. Eyes capture attention, and this as soon as we open our eyes as children. Our brain works as image recorder and our memory algorithms tend to favor image recognition while processing images continuously. We do not know much about our own image sorting algorithm or algorithms yet. Research on aging of the brain gives some hints. With declining short term memory the images stored in long term memory take the upper hand. This makes an understanding of the history of images even more important.

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Selfie Museum

We have learned that games are not only played for fun. So-called serious games have found their way into health applications where we might learn while playing a game of how to integrate more walking into our life in the city. While walking after work I happened to pass the Selfie Museum in Zagreb. In fact despite carrying the name of museum it is more an assembly of scenarios in which you can realize many selfies in different settings that have been prepared for that purpose. Hence your production of photo shooting with yourself as the major character is facilitated and you no longer have to spend a lot of time on the setups. Call it a museum and you’ll have more visibility and visitors.

Styles of selfies have changed and shooting very short videos to post on tiktok is of course easy there. A real threat to huge and expensive cinema studios considering the enormous reach some of these selfies can reach. It is a bit like a theatre with multiple stages for everybody to use at moderate costs. Before long we shall come to realize the potential for many more interested in theatre to become actors and directors themselves. Democratize the world of theatre is the new social dimension here. Test yourself in another profession through playful interaction. Test and learn about other competencies. We are in the middle of the next wave of “gameification” previously reserved to people ready to accept higher risks of likely failure. The young can now take their parents to the museum and show off their culture and skills. Intergenerational learning has a new aspect as well. The sociology of the virtual has another phenomenon to evaluate.

Zahgreb 2023-12 Selfie museum
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Black and White

Nothing is just black and white. Some animals have a representation or vision of images in black and white. Just like in computing full color modes or high resolutions use more power of chips and memory. In short colors are computationally costly. For our brains this is unfortunately just as important. Therefore black and white images have a certain advantage. On the one hand they reduce an image to its essential elements, on the other hand they allow a faster grasp of the message or content at sight.

The BNF presents a wide range of images in black and white from the time that color photography has been available, but photographers consciously chose to represent their image in black and white (1907-). Obviously with black and white photography we maximize contrasts. An image can be converted into a graphical representation like a black and white pencil sketch or drawing. A few more nuances are introduced in applying perspectives to capture or to produce by use of lighting forefronts and shadows.

Using different materials as support of photography allows us additional creativity and stunning effects. Lighting from behind the image is popular in advertisements on our high-streets. Last but not least using techniques of color photography gave rise in modern black and white photography to allow for chromatic transitions and contrasts within images.

All this is well documented in the exposition and ample examples make it a formidable visual learning experience. From the origins of just black and white we have come around to the fabulous and magical in black and white. In reducing to black and white the essential becomes more visible. The superfluous is blackened or whitened out. It is a skill of importance nowadays to focus on essentials and to find new ways to go beyond the obvious shot.

BnF 2023-11-10 B/W
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Barbie explore

The film on Barbie after more than 60 years of the first puppets to arrive on the market is a huge money spinning exercise. Hitting more than 1 billion $ is really a huge box office success. More interesting even is the banning of the film in some countries like Algeria. This gives the film an interesting subversive touch to it, which we in the Western countries no longer see as something special. Emancipated women pose a threat to authoritarian regimes.
However, we see in the stereotypes of beauty-driven dolls not that much of an emancipatory chance. To view emancipation independent of the looks of a person is another interesting twist to the role in stereotypes of beauty. It is not only fun to play around with stereotypes, that is mostly, if you are not negatively affected by them (age, gender, ethnicity, extraordinary persons). A nice task for sociology and psychology to explain the working of stereotypes in society and possible remedies. Tolerance is a competence that needs to be learned and updated continuously, from early age onwards.
Therefore, the website created by the US Design Agency Rvnway offers an entertaining way to play around and learn about stereotypes. Perceived, generalized beauty or gender roles can be explored using the tool. Maybe some see themselves differently after such explorations. Everybody is a model. This is the message. www.bairbie.me will let you explore other formats of yourself. After 3-D rendering and printing your children or grandchildren will decide what role they would like you to play in their playfull, or virtual “real” life. I suppose many of us will be up for a big surprise. Go on and imagine in 4D. In the age of selfies all around us, all the time, we believe we are very modern, but the artists of the 19th and 20th century following all great painters before, frequently started their careers with an “autoportrait” or “Selbstbildnis” or series of those as they were aging.

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Photo K

The self portrait is a timely topic for an exhibition of photography. As part of the European month of photography (EMOP), the PhotoBrusselsFestival offers a good overview of what photography deals with in the 21 century. The Korean cultural centre (KCC) in Brussels has a long tradition to serve as an exposition in the centre of Brussels (Sablon) and is joining this year’s photo festival. The 2023 photography festival has the “Self-Portrait” as a guiding theme. Rather than entering the debate about “portrait chosen or portrait endured” (Photographica 5,2022) the self-portrait has more degrees of freedom in it. Even if it is apparently a choice to portrait oneself, there are ample examples, where the urge to produce a self-portrait is part of a wider concern for fundamental issues.
The exhibition of 5 artists from Korea at the KCC invites us to reflect on the pervasive self-portrait practice all around us. The self-portrait is not only a tool of self-reflection, which has a long tradition in art (just think of a famous drawing by Albrecht Dürer of himself), but self-portraits are also pervasive on media and social media today. Additionally, the self-portrait is a powerful tool of thinking and imagining yourself at various stages of the life-course. For centuries it had been a social or political privilege to have your portrait taken. It still is to some extent, but only if the person taking the photograph, has a special reputation. In a market difference to the selfie, the exhibition of artists in the KCC highlights the process of self-reflection that is part of creating the portrait as well as the ensuing reflection by the spectator. In looking at the self-portrait of the photographer, we might involuntarily deal first with our own perception of the image. Danger, dreams, fantasy, sorrow, pain, self-assertion and reconstruction of the self, all these themes come to mind when confronted with the self-portraits of the 5 artists (Bae Chan-hyo, Jeong Yun-soon, Lee Jee-young, Ahn Jun, Choi Young-kwi).
KCC director Kim Jae-hwan names this collection, curated by Seok Jae-hyun, “An odyssey of images leading to self-re-flection”. In referring back to the protagonists in novels from Hermann Hesse, he points our attention to the “unique journey through images as they find themselves”. To embark on the journey visit KCC in Brussels, ask for a copy of the catalogue or start by reading the title of the exposition: “Who Am I” – it is apparently no longer a question after the journey. Is it for you?  More reflection on images and photos here.