In the coming weeks, we release a weekly video from our talk event titled Talks on Everyday Imaging vol. 2: The Self-Centred and the Networked held on February 13–14, 2025, at The Photographers' Gallery, London. The second lecture available to watch is Andrew Fisher’s one titled Vernacular photography: A “colossal and labyrinthine phototheque in whose depths stalks the prodigious image of our strangeness”. Watch it below!
This presentation will explore the situation of vernacular photography today through analysis of everyday uses of imaging technologies, especially as these bring small-scale individual actions into relation with massively scaled social and technical processes. In order to articulate the asymmetries, problems and possibilities opened up by the excessive scales at which these relationships are articulated, the presentation turns to Jean-Luc Nancy’s writings which view photography as a ubiquitous mode of being with others. Nancy offers two things in this context. Firstly, he gives a perspective from which to critically evaluate familiar and continuing debates about the bewildering numbers of images that comprise today’s visual milieu and that give shape to the worlds we suppose ourselves to share. Secondly, he offers a way of thinking about the small-scale actions and intimate relationships that combine to structure this massively determined and fast changing milieu. Drawing on everyday imaging practices, the presentation will outline a critical perspective on the excessive scales of contemporary photography and will suggest a theoretical framework for thinking in non-coercive and open-ended ways about the relationships this milieu entails.
Due to a typo, the name of the artists Eva and Franco Mattes was mistakenly written incorrectly in the presentation. Apologies for this mistake—the correct name is Eva and Franco Mattes.
You can watch all lectures from Talks on Everyday Imaging Vol. 2: The Self-Centred and the Networked on this YouTube playlist. (The recordings of the lectures are published weekly starting March 13, 2025.)
Conference Conveners:
Róza Tekla Szilágyi – Director of Eidolon Centre for Everyday Photography, Endre Cserna – Head of programming at Eidolon Centre for Everyday Photography, Sam Mercer – Producer of the Digital Programme at The Photographers' Gallery, Luisa Ulyett – Curator of Talks and Events at The Photographers' Gallery
Event Concept: Róza Tekla Szilágyi, Endre Cserna
Video: Zsuzsi Simon, Benedek Bognár, Márton Schneider
Music: Áron Lörinczi
Design: L2 Studio
The lectures took place on 13th and 14th of February, 2025 at The Photographers' Gallery, London.
