The Symposium 2018 Programme
The Fotobiennalen Symposium 2018 was held in Copenhagen on
August 31, 2018
9:00 – 16:15
You will find the detailed programme for the day below and a quick time table at the very bottom.
The Symposium Schedule
9:15 – 11:15 Morning session “Post-photography”
Welcome
Geoffrey Batchen (NZ)
Kirstine Autzen (DK)
Kristoffer Ørum (DK)
Coffee
11:40 – 13:25 Mid-session “Disseminations of the Image”
Cecilia Grönberg (SE)
Eva Stenram (SE)
Jana J. Haeckel (BE)
Lunch
14:15 – 16:15 Afternoon session “Beyond the Index / Beyond the Pictorial Plane”
David Bate (UK)
Robert Overweg (NL)
AVPD (DK)
Closing remarks by Mette Sandbye (DK)
16:15 – 16:45 Network Opportunity

Courtesy of Eva Stenram & Ravestijn Gallery
The Post-photographic Image
In our hyper-digitized contemporary societies how are photographs made, distributed, used and perceived? And what is a photograph if it is no longer to be understood as a printed image on the wall – or even a defined image on a (single) screen? And what are the consequences and possibilities on a societal and an artistic level?
The Fotobiennalen Symposium 2018 seeks to delve into such questions to better understand the ontology of the contemporary photograph by revisiting post-photographic discourse and tracing recent developments of the lens-based media as well as the current relation between irl and url. In so doing we hope to better understand the potential of the Post-photographic Image.
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“Post-photography”
9:15 – 11:15
“Disseminations of the Image”
11:40 – 13:25
“Beyond the Index
/ Beyond the Pictorial Plane”
14:15 – 16:15
Sessions & Content
The Fotobiennalen Symposium 2018 is divided into three sessions with one keynote in each.
Post-photography
9:15 – 11:15
Geoffrey Batchen “The Post-Photographic Image. A Little History”
A tracing of that history might allow us to address what is at stake in the use of such a word, and what questions can and should be asked about that use. I will argue that, in the context of a nuanced understanding of the history of photography, the kind of self-reflexive attitude to the photograph I first described as post-photographic in 1992 continues to be relevant, perhaps even essential, today.
9:35 – 10:15
Kirstine Autzen “Disseminations of the Image”
The curatorial process was inspired by a shift in wording, from talking about photography ‘converging’ with other media to defining photography in the post-photographic era as ‘porous’, a word borrowed from an essay “Post-Photography” by Geoffrey Batchen. It is a term that denotes physical matter more than representation, and which also references the permeability of and overlap with the body, and the new works created for the exhibition show great sensitivity towards the qualities of surface, materiality and movement.
In conversations with the exhibition’s artists Nanna Lysholt Hansen, Kristoffer Ørum, Sandra Vaka Olsen and Valérie Collart it is evident that they each define their role as artists as resonance boards, librarians of our visual image history and hackers in our visual culture today.
10:20 – 10:40
Kristoffer Ørum “Putin’s Nose”
On my way home I look into a bag full of groceries and notice a beetroot. For a moment. It looks like my Russian grandmother’s nose. Later, at home I slice the beetroots to make soup, studying a random online recipe under the watchful gaze of my laptop’s webcam. I wonder if the computer vision software might also detect something Russian in my facial features, or the nose of someone long lost in one of the beetroots?
From the cover of the newspaper that the greengrocer wrapped the beets in, the Russian President Vladimir Putin looks up at me. His face is now covered in beetroot juice splatter. The headline reads “The Inscrutable Face of Russia”. I wonder how much difference there actually is between the paranoid gaze of computer surveillance technologies and that of human beings.
10:45 – 11:05
Disseminations of the Image
11:40 – 13:25
Cecilia Grönberg “Gelly index, inscription->transmission, photography as publishing”
Her presentation will gravitate around some of these renegotiated photographic concepts and practices where the photographic index is being reshaped into a more gelatinous existence, where inscription becomes transmission and publishing a decisive aspect of the photographic act.
11:45 – 12:25
Eva Stenram “Drapes, Shutters, Screens”
In her works we often encounter images from popular representations of the female body from vintage erotic magazines widely distributed and consumed. Through manipulations of such photographs she conceals the body as object for the male gaze and evokes a different kind of desire than the mere libidinal. In her presentation she will talk about this tactic of detournement and her subversive position vis-à-vis consumption.
12:30 – 12:50
Jana J. Haeckel “(Un-)masking digital face culture. On the politics of the image overflow in the work of Ryan Trecartin”
For these artists, smartphones and social networking play an essential role in their image production and distribution. Looking both at the ‘selfie’ and the self-representational shift in the new-media art Haeckel will share her perspectives on the collective group-videos of interchangeable bodies by Ryan Trecartin (US), whose work is included in Brandt’s exhibition for Fotobiennalen 2018, “Photography to end all Photography”.
In Trecartin’s cosmos the face becomes a total mask as part of a system of digital self-promoting, differing from earlier conceptions and employments of the mask as a means to question personal and sexual identity, famously demonstrated through the works by Gillian Wearing or Cindy Sherman. Trecartin’s installations celebrate the image overflow and play with uncanny and grotesque media caricatures. By integrating excessively new media formats like 3D cinema, drone and GoPro cameras, Trecartin presents a non-immersive but disturbing setting and confronts the spectators with a flip-side of digitization.
12:55 – 13:15
Beyond the Index / Beyond the Pictorial Plane
14:15 – 16:15
David Bate “Fotofication – We are All Artists Now”
14:20 – 15:00
Robert Overweg “Goodbye Reality”
His talk will be about how Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality will influence our photography and images. Where can we already encounter this influence? What Hollywood tech is slowly flowing into the hands of consumers? We take a step back and sketch out a possible future where digitization could alter our notion of what is ‘real’. — if it hasn’t already. Where doubt and uncertainty will be paramount. But don’t worry it’s not all dark and gloomy there is a silver lining.
15:05 – 15:25
AVPD “Thawed Time”
AVPD presents us with a radical departure from photography as an image and at the same time an ontological scrutiny of the photograph as traces of light. With an emphasis on the photographic processes of light and time, they deconstruct our understanding of photography as well as our perception of space within the ‘white cube’ of the art gallery. .
15:30 – 15:50
Moderator, Professor Mette Sandbye, will lead the Q&A and add the closing remarks
After the symposium, there will be half an hour where guests and speakers are given the opportunity to intermingle.
17:00 – 19:00 All are welcome to join the opening of the exhibition “AVPD – Thawed Time” at Fotografisk Center, in Staldgade 16, a two-minutes stroll down the road.
Time Table
August 31
9:00– 9:15
9:15 – 11:15
11:40 – 13:25
14:15 – 16:15
The Venue
DGI-byen is located close to Copenhagen Central Station.
To reach “Forsamlingshuset” in DGI-byen use the entrance on the corner of Tietgensgade and Ingerslevsgade next to the climbing wall. Turn right when inside.