Presented by Aperture and the International Center of Photography
November 30–December 2, 2021
Join Aperture and the International Center of Photography for the second convening of The Lives of Images Symposium Series. Taking place Tuesday, November 30 through Thursday, December 2 after its first iteration in late August, the online event series addresses key issues in the second and third volumes of the Aperture Reader series The Lives of Images: Analogy, Attunement, and Attention (Vol. 2, November 2021) and Archives, Histories, and Memory (Vol. 3, Spring 2022), edited by artist and critic Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa.
The Lives of Images explores the roles, histories, and contemporary uses of reproducible images in relation to specific grounding themes. To speak of the reproducible image in this moment is to address not only photographs, film, and videos, but screen prints and billboards; GIFs, memes, and emojis—a wide array of technically mediated scripto-visual forms that together constitute and remake both our visual landscape and image economies. The Lives of Images aims to gather together recent and contemporary scholarship that helps to animate and inform a rich dialogue on the role of the image in contemporary culture. Both the series and the symposium will engage theorists, scholars, and artists whose practices move fluidly between a focus on still and moving images. Symposium discussions will range across an array of uses of reproducible images that include, but regularly extend beyond, traditional fine art.
In each session, Wolukau-Wanambwa and David Campany, Managing Director of Programs at ICP, serve as interlocutors for invited guests whose work is either published or discussed in the series. The talks aim to delve in greater depth into these thinkers’ and artists’ contributions, and to provide a space for discussion as to their resonances in artistic practice and social life more broadly.
Schedule for Vol. 2: Analogy, Attunement, and Attention:
Session 1: Tuesday, November 30, 2:30–4 PM ET
Sarah Cervenak and Tom Holert on modes of attending to images of pain & racial violence
Session 2: Wednesday, December 1, 1–2:30 PM ET
Ariella Azoulay and Saidiya Hartman on archives and new histories of the present
Session 3: Thursday, December 2, 12–1:30 PM ET
Thomas Keenan on seeing, shame and state power
Please note that schedule and speakers are subject to change. Registration includes access to the three-day online event.
Purchase The Lives of Images: An Aperture Reader Series, Vol. 1: Repetition, Reproduction, and Circulation and pre-order The Lives of Images: An Aperture Reader Series, Vol. 2: Analogy, Attunement, and Attention (November 2021) through ICP’s shop.
The Lives of Images symposium series has been made possible through the generous support of Marina and Andrew Lewin.
About ICP
The International Center of Photography is the world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture. Cornell Capa founded ICP in 1974 to champion “concerned photography”—socially and politically minded images that can educate and change the world. Through our exhibitions, education programs, community outreach, and public programs, ICP offers an open forum for dialogue about the power of the image. Since its inception, ICP has presented more than 700 exhibitions, provided thousands of classes, and hosted a wide variety of public programs. The International Center of Photography (ICP) launched its new integrated center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side on January 25, 2020. Located at 79 Essex Street, ICP is the cultural anchor of Essex Crossing, one of the most highly anticipated and expansive mixed-use developments in New York City. Visit icp.org to learn more.
About Aperture
Aperture, a not-for-profit foundation, connects the photo community and its audiences with the most inspiring work, the sharpest ideas, and with each other–in print, in person, and online. Created in 1952 by photographers and writers as "common ground for the advancement of photography," Aperture today is a multi-platform publisher and center for dialogue within the photo community.
