The Universe of Images

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The Universe of [ ] Images

A collective and hands-on exploration of [technical] images.

While the long-held idea that images are a proof of reality is increasingly challenged, this publication presents methods and processes of hands-on learning and unlearning concerning the production and reception of digital images.

The projects, tools and methods detailed here were developed in the context of a workshop, which took place in Amsterdam and Cologne in November and December 2018. The aim of the workshop was to collectively develop an understanding about the (de)construction, accumulation and manipulation of images and image production, including the dominance of certain technologies relating to image making, the power structures inherent in images, and omissions that are produced in processes of image creation.

This publication should be approached as a collection of tools and ideas that invite the readers to use and appropriate whatever they find useful. The binding method and standard paper sizing allows for a compiling and reshuffling of the content depending on the purpose, and even allows for to add own the addition of new tools and methods of image making.

The readers are therefore simultaneously addressed as users and makers, and invited to join the conversation and ask questions such as: how can the tools we build and use shape how we publish and consume media? How can we trust our perceptions when conceptions of, for example, truthful visual representation have vanished? Can notions of subjectivity and partial perspectives replace those of objectivity and rationality … ?