About the Event
It’s difficult to imagine contemporary photographic image culture outside the seismic velocity of circulation that has characterized pictures and their display. Any online search will reveal a surplus of discarded imagery: a seemingly ahistorical and authorless junkspace of commodities. Yet beyond lamenting the heap of visual spam that has characterized our image economy, how might this landscape of photographic excess connect to other systems predicated on a similar logic of disposability and accumulation? This talk reflects on this current condition by examining photography’s evolution as an industrial commodity during the twentieth century, produced in tandem with the plastics industry and driven by petromodern values and infrastructures. By exploring photography’s relationship with its plastic substrate, the talk proposes that we can gain insight into the philosophical connections between the two mediums and their shared principles and promises.
