Editorial Note

Abstract

This issue concludes the guest edited volume “Shaping Time” and extends the reflection on photography and the artistic construction of the contemporary initiated in the previous issue. This time, it does so by bringing together papers that deal with the complex relationship between photography and temporality and a visual essay about the attempts of ‘shaping time’. All of them consider ways of visually reflecting and experimenting with time, from ontological approaches, to post-photographic practices, networked images, performativity, and investigative practices of repetition and duration. Such ideas are discussed in the interview with W.J.T. Mitchell, a key figure in the field of visual culture, conducted by guest-editor Paula Ribeiro Lobo.

To close this issue, the photographic work by guest artists whose practice plays a significant role in the ongoing artistic landscape are featured. Joachim Schmid, a pioneer in the appropriation of found-photography, whose conceptual practice around vernacular imagery and photographic mass production accompanied the shift from analogue to digital culture, through which the globalised context of visual production is observed and scrutinised. Evan Roth and Viktoria Binschtok, two ascending artists in the contemporary scene, whose work explores the context of the networked image, from the everyday digital production of images to the present algorithmic cultural condition and its relations to the personal and the global.  

The subject of this guest-themed volume was the departing idea for the upcoming edition of the interdisciplinary symposium Reframing the Archive, entitled “Time after Time: pictures between instant and duration”, with an artist-talk by the artist duo Cortis & Sonderegger. Further contributions peer-reviewed from a call for proposals will be added to the symposium’s programme, including both academic and practice-led presentations. The symposium will be held online on November 19th, 2022. Attendance is free but registering is required through the link below.

[RSVP] Reframing the Archive