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THEORY: "Through a Glass, Darkly: Photography and Cultural Memory" Through a Glass, Darkly: Photography and Cultural Memory By: Alan Trachtenberg, Social Research, Saturday, March 22, 2008 "I don't know why a Replicant would collect photos - maybe they were like Rachel - they needed memories." In the role of the bounty hunter Rick Deckard in Ridley Scott's 1982 cult classic, Blade Runner, Harrison Ford utters these words with a bitter edge. Assigned to "terminate" the beautiful Rachel, an "android" especially menacing because she's almost (almost!) indistinguishable from a "real" person, Deckard lusts after her and wants to be sure she's human, not machine-made, before bedding her. Based on Phillip K. Dick's brilliant science fiction novel of 1968, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the film adds the bit of sentiment about collecting photographs to the otherwise unmitigated darkness of Phillip Dick's vision of a near future. The year is 2021, and by means of mechanical replication--the electric sheep of Dick's title--warm-blooded animal life has been all but totally replaced by replicants, copies or duplications of almost forgotten originals. Memories of real sheep and toads and living human flesh are struggling against the irresistible tide of a programmed second-order reality unburdened by personal or cultural memory.

Brighton Photo Biennial Memory of Fire: The War of Images and Images of War festival review and interview with curator Julian Stallabrass by Guy Lane The Brighton Photo Biennial offers an in-depth exploration of the photography of war. Ten exhibitions, in locations across the South Coast, examine various aspects of the production, use and circulation of imagery during wartime. At the heart of the Biennial is a comparison of photojournalism from the Vietnam and Iraq wars, featuring - amongst others - the work of Larry Burrows, Don McCullin, photographers from the North Vietnamese Army, Bilal Hussein and Stephanie Sinclair. Harriet Logan's photographs of women in Afghanistan are afforded a solo show; as is Philip Jones Griffiths' Agent Orange project. Dutch photojournalist Geert van Kesteren presents edits from his books, Why Mister Why? and Baghdad Calling. Themes of censorship and obscenity are addressed in an installation by Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn. The representation of war by contemporary art photographers - including Simon Norfolk, Paul Seawright and Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin - is the subject of a further exhibition. Julian Germain hosts a display of pictures made by military personnel based in Portsmouth. And separate shows of material from the First World War (by Frank Hurley), and the Mexican Revolution, suggest historical parallels to the more recent work. The Biennial, titled Memory of Fire: the War of Images and Images of War is described as an opportunity for visitors "to experience a range of imagery and to reflect critically on the different elements and contrasts." It runs from the beginning of October for six weeks. Below, curator Julian Stallabrass discusses some of the diverse issues and topics raised by the show.

Wakes Gilles Peress September was already a dark month for New Yorkers. Then the bull market died. Gilles Peress attended the memorials at the World Trade Center and at Wall Street.

Containing the world's largest repository of information on the Holocaust, Yad Vashem is a leader in Holocaust education, commemoration, research and documentation. Located in Jerusalem, Israel, Yad Vashem's 45 acre campus comprises museums, exhibitions, memorials, sculptures, gardens, and world class research and education centers. Millions each year access Yad Vashem's vast resources in order to study, teach and commemorate the Holocaust.

We've all seen it: the photo of a teary-eyed African child, dressed in rags, smothered in flies, with a look of desperation that the caption all too readily points out.  Some organization has made a poster that tells you about the realities of poverty, what they are doing about it, and how your donation will change things. I reacted very strongly to these kinds of photos when I returned from Africa in 2008.  I compared these photos to my own memories of Malawian friends and felt lied to.  How had these photos failed so spectacularly to capture the intelligence, the laughter, the resilience, and the capabilities of so many incredible people?

George Eastman House, an independent nonprofit museum, is an educational institution that tells the story of photography and motion pictures-media that have changed and continue to change our perception of the world. We: George Eastman House The George Eastman House * Collect and preserve objects that are of significance to photography, motion pictures, and the life of George Eastman. * Build information resources to provide the means for both scholarly research and recreational inquiry. * Keep and care for images, literature, and technology to tell the story of photography and the motion picture in history and in culture. * Care for George Eastman's house, gardens, and archives, maintaining them for public enjoyment and as a memorial to his contribution to our lives and our times.

World is Witness, a new "geoblog" from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiatives, in partnership with Google Earth, documents and maps genocide and related crimes against humanity. The initial entries are from a Museum visit to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to learn about the legacies of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, and the most recent entries are from a Museum visit to South Sudan and a return visit to the Congo. Visit us again soon for more posts from the field.

The Panoramic Photograph Collection contains approximately four thousand images featuring American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. These panoramas offer an overview of the nation, its enterprises and its interests, with a focus on the start of the twentieth century when the panoramic photo format was at the height of its popularity. Subject strengths include: agricultural life; beauty contests; disasters; engineering work such as bridges, canals and dams; fairs and expositions; military and naval activities, especially during World War I; the oil industry; schools and college campuses, sports, and transportation. The images date from 1851 to 1991 and depict scenes in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. More than twenty foreign countries and a few U.S. territories are also represented. These panoramas average between twenty-eight inches and six feet in length, with an average width of ten inches.

Here's a nice service for anyone who wants to learn more about copyright law and how it applies to images. The Picture Archive Council of America has posted a free online video seminar by attorney Nancy Wolff. Watch it here. PACA is also making this presentation available on DVD. It is available by contacting the PACA Executive Director at 23046 Avenida de la Carlota, Suite 600, Laguna Hills, CA 92653, or by email: execdirector@pacaoffice.org. The video is part of the Jane Kinne Copyright Education Program, named in memory of the stock agency pioneer who died last year.

Wars have a way of reducing themselves to moments, single memories, tiny episodes. Here, pictures have a thousand-to-one advantage over words. The 10-year Vietnam War was summed up in four photographs: Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams captured the instant in 1968 when South Vietnamese Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed a Viet Cong prisoner on a Saigon street. Nick Ut snapped a picture of Kim Phuc, a Vietnamese girl, fleeing naked down a highway in Vietnam after a napalm attack in 1972. Ron Haeberle took a picture of the limp bodies of the My Lai massacre victims after they were shot in 1968. John Filo caught Mary Ann Vecchio screaming over the body of a fellow student slain by National Guardsmen during a war protest at Kent State University in Ohio in 1970. These photographs, it could be argued, tilted the whole balance of public opinion against the war. What occurred on the battlefield was rendered largely irrelevant by what occurred when certain photons massed themselves into images and rushed into the retinas and minds of the American public.

" Welcome to our portrait, in imagery and sound, of a refugee community. This presentation accompanies Wendy James' study of how Sudan's civil wars have affected just one among many minority groups who have lived through loss and displacement. You are invited to enter a series of eight clusters of video clips which illustrate the memory rich landscape of Bonga, one of several refugee settlements in Ethiopia where displaced Sudanese sought safety and assistance over the last two generations. To view the video clips, you will need a broadband connection and Flash 8 player. There are also a few audio clips which require a quicktime player. "

Death as Contributing Background By Dennis DunleavydennisdunleavycloseAuthor: Dennis Dunleavy See Author's Posts (20) Recent Posts * The Intelligent Machine: The Camera in the 21st Century * What Should Power Look Like? * Photojournalism in an Age of Contrivance * Rush of Innovation in Photographic Technology Shows No Sign of Slowing Down * Do Embedded Photojournalists Actually Work for the Pentagon? Dennis Dunleavy teaches and writes about visual culture, digital photography and ethics, new technologies, and society. For more than 20 years, he worked as a correspondent and photojournalist across the U.S., Central America, and Mexico. Today, he is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Southern Oregon University. He is the author of The Big Picture blog. in Photojournalism on May 27th, 2008 The body is lifeless - embedded into the concrete and dust that once was a school. Framing the faceless gray form, a handful of Chinese soldiers in green camouflage gently sweep the ground around her. There are five soldiers, two with shovels, one pointing at an object inches away from a limp hand. The viewer is forced to look down upon shadows and rubble. We do not know this person. She is one of thousands of victims from the earthquake that shook China to its core two weeks ago.