Urbanautica

PEDRO VICENTE. HOW IMAGES WORK

by Steve Bisson

«We must educate our students in a way that they are fully competent in not only writing with images but also in reading/understanding how images work and function in today's world. Those in control of how we perceive the world will have the world’s control.»

Hi Pedro, at a recent conference in Venice at European Cultural Centre you explained to me how robots are gradually taking the place of photographers. Even the use of computational simulators, and augmented reality, makes the figure of the photographer ever more "primitive". All this presupposes an evolution of the image-maker, or we are faced with the death of photography as we have understood it?

Pedro Vicente (PV): Photography is dead since it was born, and resurrects every time it dies. It is a matter of evolution, and in that photography is a good player. The world has changed more in the last 20 years than in the previous 200 years, so photography. And so photographers, or image-makers. Machines are taking over many of our daily duties and jobs, hotels without reception, restaurants in which the waiters are robots, supermarkets without human cashiers, cars without drivers... so, why photography has to be different from the rest of our lives? Earlier this year, Gary and Megan, an English couple, hired photographer Eva for their wedding, an AI-powered photography robot. the same is happening in fashion and product industries if a robot can take better and quicker pictures than a human, why companies should hire human photographers? We must strengthen those qualities that make us human, those abilities that machines don’t have such as creativity, critical thinking, empathy, cooperation, solidarity... these aspects are the qualities of the photographer of tomorrow.

Eva Photobooth robot makes its wedding debut in the UK - Service Robots

Eva the Robot Photographer—a 5-foot-tall android created by England-based Service Robots that are designed to take guests’ portraits.

An automated click-and-collect point at a Zara store in La Coruña, Spain. Photo: INDITEX. (Wall Street Journal)

As director of the Master of Photography and Design at ELISAVA, Barcelona and director of the Master in Photography Polytechnic University of Valencia, you have joined the project Blurring the Lines an academic network aiming at fostering talents and dialogue in visual culture. Why is networking important among schools? Is there a need to rethink the educational models? I know you attended a conference in November in Paris on this topic. What are your main takeaways?

PV: In my opinion collaboration and networking are key aspects for art schools, especially in this connected world in which most of our students are from all over the world. They are a generation for which the borders are not geographical anymore, so as educational institutions we should think of a borderless world. I truly think we have to rethink our educational models, at least in the Spanish context which is the context that I know better. Our models are based on models from 50-60 years ago, photography and students are very different from then. It is not only a technological issue, but it is also about engaging with students who every year have very different interests, abilities, and capacities that students had decades ago. What are the needs of photographers today? What do they need to have successful careers? What do they need to know? Which abilities and capacities do they need? What kind of photographers does industry need? How is going to be tomorrow's photographer?

These are some of the questions we should try to answer before we write our photography programs.

© Dalia Hussein from the series 'Silent Scream'. Every home is a world in itself and inside many Egyptian homes, reside many stories of women devaluation and degradation; some that leave marks on the body, and others remain as permanent scars inside the soul. All done, under the name of love, guardianship and social norm. Dalia Hussein is an Egyptian photographer based in Barcelona, graduated from ELISAVA.

© 'Silent Scream' by Dalia Hussein was shortlisted and published on 2019 edition of Blurring the Lines's catalog.

© 'Silent Scream' by Dalia Hussein was shortlisted and published for 2019 edition of Blurring the Lines's catalog.

© 'Silent Scream' by Dalia Hussein was shortlisted and published for 2019 edition of Blurring the Lines's catalog.

About education again, if today's world is more about what images do of us rather than what we can do with them, how can we help students develop a critical awareness and consciousness with regards to the use of images (perception, representation, production)?

Well, it's part of the same game, if being a photographer is not anymore about only taking pictures, we should educate our students about those abilities. It is true all the programs I know include theoretical and conceptual units, the question is if they are enough. In my opinion, they are not enough, both because of their extension and their approach. We must educate our students in a way that they are fully competent in not only writing with images but also in reading/understanding how images work and function in today's world. Those in control of how we perceive the world will have the world’s control.

You live in Barcelona. A city that is experiencing a phase of conflict between autonomous impulses and conservative visions. How do you see the relationship between image and geopolitics? I know that with Marta Deho you held a seminar on this topic. Can you tell us something?

PV: Following from the previous question, the one controlling the image controls what the image represents. So, if you want to control the world, you should take control of how the world is represented through images. There is a long history of manipulation and using images for political reasons, and images are an important element of the current political situation in Catalunya. For both parts, it is crucial the image the rest of the world gets of the political and social situation here, because the image a person in another country gets of what is happening in Catalunya is actually what is happening in Catalunya, despite if it is or if it isn’t. So both parts make huge efforts in controlling those images that will (re)present the reality in Catalunya.

Among your many activities, there is also that of the director of ViSiONA - Programa de la Imagen de Huesca. This year a 5-year cycle dedicated to the theme of the family album, memory, autobiography, and personal experience has been completed. Somehow it places importance on archive materials. Why in an age of oblivion and instant memory is it important to turn to the past, to our history?

Most of the images we produce and consume today don’t have memory themselves, and won't produce any memories. That’s why for us it's important in ViSiONA to work with images that “are” memory. We are how our family album says we are, we can try to escape from it, but without any possibility of success. We must look, preserve and keep our memories, through photographs, videos, texts, oral testimonies... because those elements confirm what and how we are. As a Kodak commercial from the 70 days, we should keep, protect and share our photographs as a way of being alive.

Installation view of the exhibition 'La Memoria del territorio', Anne Laure Boyer, Atlas Occulto, 2012-2017, Huesca, Spain, 30.11.2018 - 24.02.2019

© Alejandro S. Garrido from the series 'Corea. Una historia paralela', 2007

Installation view of the exhibition 'La Memoria del territorio', Alejandro S. Garrido from the series 'Corea. Una historia paralela', 2007, Huesca, Spain, 30.11.2018 - 24.02.2019

Installation view of the exhibition 'La Memoria del territorio', Ibon Aranberri. Mar del pirineo, 2006. Colección MP Sevilla, Huesca, Spain, 30.11.2018 - 24.02.2019

© Martí Llorens. Poblenou, 1987

Installation view of the exhibition 'La Memoria del territorio', Martí Llorens. Poblenou, 1987, Huesca, Spain, 30.11.2018 - 24.02.2019

Can you tell us a bit more in general what is the philosophy behind the festival in Huesca. I see there's a program running with many interesting seminars and workshops which highlight an educational mission as well.

ViSiONA is a cultural project organized by the Provincial Council of Huesca and directed by me that aims to encourage, support and disseminate artistic creation and contemporary thinking around the image. The program is born in a context that marks its nature: the population and territory of Huesca, the society in which it is generated and developed. This program has a decided decision to reach those citizens who do not usually participate in cultural events and among its objectives is the contribution to the visual education of citizens, with special attention to children and young people.

ViSiONA uses education and citizen participation as strategies to bring reflection and contemporary artistic practices to the inhabitants of Huesca. Its programming includes theoretical seminars, interventions, educational programs, exhibitions, and diverse cultural activities. All of them have as main axis the image and its multiple forms (photography, cinema, video, illustration, etc.) and they happen at different times of the year and different points of the territory of Huesca. ViSiONA activities are created based on image and visual culture as an integrating and pedagogical element through proposed work themes. These themes, of wide cultural and social interest, allow organizing activities with greater utility than the merely visual and aesthetic, thus contributing elements for reflection and debate in a multidisciplinary way and for a wide range of audiences.

I believe that in today's society it is essential to pay attention not only to the creation of images, but also to their reading, to the codes and practices of significance implicit in production, to their interpretation and consumption, to how a reinterpretation is proposed. and renewal of the traditional relationship between citizens and visual culture. Pedagogy is a key action strategy in the structure of ViSiONA. The pedagogical project acts as a transversal axis that covers all activities, actions, and interventions and that favors new forms of interaction in the immediate social context. The educational program is based on two defined objectives. On the one hand, complete and support the training of the different cultural agents involved in the creative and theoretical process, from photographers to critics or curators. On the other, starting from the connection and connection with the local public for the development of visual education programs that provide the viewer with the appropriate tools to make a conscious reading and consumption of the images and their social utility.

Installation view of the exhibition 'Revisiones: Álbumes, Promesas y Memorias', Jim Campbell. Home Movies, 1040, 2008, Huesca, Spain, 25.11.2016 - 26.02.2017

Installation view of the exhibition 'Revisiones: Álbumes, Promesas y Memorias', Christian Boltanski, Réserve des suisses morts, 1991, Huesca, Spain, 25.11.2016 - 26.02.2017

Installation view of the exhibition 'Revisiones: Álbumes, Promesas y Memorias', Montserrat Soto. Con la colaboración de Gemma Colesanti, Archivo de archivos, 1998-2006, Huesca, Spain, 25.11.2016 - 26.02.2017

Can you point out a few figures ViSiONA?

It’s so difficult to highlight projects that we have done, all of them in their context have their importance. If I have to point to something it would be the number of actions we have done. In 5 years we have organised 5 international conferences on photography, with more than 400 people attending these conferences as public, 60 speakers and more than 40 researchers presented their most recent works collected in the two published Seminar Proceedings. In the ViSiONA film screenings, more than 250 works were projected with a total duration of more than 8,000 minutes of projection in different villages of the province and the city of Huesca in collaboration with more than 20 institutions and attended by more than 5,000 people. In the exhibitions organized by ViSiONA the work of 44 artists was exhibited, from artists from Huesca to artists of 28 different nationalities, these samples received more than 19,000 visits and have been open to the public more than 400 days in total. In the guided visits to the ViSiONA exhibitions, more than 3,700 people from very different groups participated, in our workshops and courses organized in collaboration with different organizations more than 700 people participated. In these 5 editions, 5 exhibition catalogs were published and two theoretical books on memory and photography.

Beyond the conferences, workshops, screenings or exhibitions we have done with artists like Hans-Peter Feldmann, Gillian Wearing, Santu Mofokeng, Iñaki Bonillas, Sanja Iveković, Jo Spence, Richard Billingham, Ana Casas Broda, Christopher Baker, John Clang, Xavier Ribas, Shizuka Yokomizo, Yeondoo Yung, Christian Boltanski, Claude Cahun, John Coplans, Ana Mendieta, Oscar Muñoz, Sophie Calle or Francis Alÿs among many others, the activities I am happier about being those involving kids and people who don’t have regular access to art. This part of our public has had the possibility to engage with pieces of art that probably wouldn’t have without ViSiONA, contributing to educating visually young generations.

Have you read any interesting books recently?

PV: Black and Blue. The Bruising Passion of Camera Lucida, La Jete, Sans soleil, and Hiroshima mon amour by Carol Mavor, a book about one book and three films—Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida, Chris Marker's La Jetée and Sans soleil, and Marguerite Duras's and Alain Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour—postwar French works that register disturbing truths about loss and regret, and violence and history, through aesthetic refinement. Wonderful book.

Portrait of Carol Mavor still from the film 'Full'. A collaboration movie with Megan Powell, about ten-year-old Ivo who does not want to grow. Carol Mavor and Megan Powell’s black and white film is chock-full of gorgeous imagery of cocoons, sprouting mushrooms, butterflies feeding with their coiled tongues, a field planted with two hospital beds, an empty nest being torn in two, a bowl of over-spilling milk, a mother, a father and a boy. With the combined sensibility of Chris Marker’s La Jetée and Francesca Woodman’s photography, the viewer is taken through the drama and terror of a boy who prefers not to eat. (2015, black and white, 39 minutes)

Also recently I reread Jacques Ranciere’s The Future of the image, a book in which Ranciere develops a fascinating new concept of the image in contemporary art, showing how art and politics have always been intrinsically intertwined.

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LINKS
Elisava
ViSiONA
Urbanautica Spain

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