The Lives of Images Symposium Series—Vol. 2 (November 30–December 2)

The Lives of Images Symposium Series

Coproduced by Aperture and the International Center of Photography

Join Aperture and the International Center of Photography for the second convening of The Lives of Images symposium series. Taking place November 30–December 2 after its first iteration in late August, the online event series addresses key issues in the second and third volumes of the 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.

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 Aïsha 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 is for the three-day online event here.

Missed The Lives of Images Symposium Series: Vol. I? Watch the conversations online.

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.

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.

About The Lives of Images: An Aperture Reader Series

The Lives of Images, edited by Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, is a set of contemporary thematic readers designed for educators, students, practicing photographers, and others interested in the ways images function within a wider set of cultural practices. The series tracks the many movements and “lives” of images—their tendency to accumulate, circulate, and transform through different geographies, cultures, processes, institutions, states, uses, and times.

This program will take place on Zoom. Those who register to attend will receive a confirmation email with a link located at the bottom of the email under ‘Important Information’ to join all three sessions through a computer or mobile device.

About the Program Format