Studio Image (Faculty of Design and Arts / Unibz) is delighted to invite you to two guest talks next week, as part of this semester’s series on the theme ‘Violent Images’.
Both talks will be screened in Atelier C.106 at Unibz, or can be attended online via the links provided below. You are all welcome to join us, there will be the opportunity to ask the guests questions after the talks.
Monday, October 21
“Algorithms and The Sociology of Visual Representation”
Regev Nathansohn
What is the sociological logic of producing news images? My talk will explore and analyze three modes of production of news images: banal, aesthetic and transgressive. I will present these modes of production as the outcomes of what I call cultural algorithms and then discuss how the intervention of digital algorithms impacts these modes of production. As I will show, thinking through the trialectics of production-circulation-interpretation, we can see how digital algorithms are, in fact, cultural. My talk is based on an analysis of images produced in the early 2000s in the context of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, as well as on a discussion of recent AI developments in the field of image production.
Tuesday, October 22
“Riley and His Story”
Monica Moses Haller
The book “Riley and his story. Me and my outrage. You and us” provides a first-hand account of the military action in the Middle-East by using the discussion, editing and arrangement of photographs made by Riley, a nurse in Abu Ghraib prison, while on tours of duty. The photographs bypass the glamorous, photojournalistic styling of the broadcast and print media depictions of war. Stripped of this theatre, the images take on both a more sinister and more recognisable air. Here, Monica Haller will reflect on the book and how it relates to the idea of protest.
Join us!
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Regev Nathansohn holds a PhD in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan. His fields of research and teaching include visual anthropology, digital urbanism, collaborative media, and engaged research. He co-founded the Visual Sociology Group and the Digital Sociology Group working under the International Sociological Association (ISA). Until recently, Regev was a faculty member in the Department of Communications at Sapir Academic College in southern Israel, where he headed the graduate program. In March 2024, after expressing his anti-war opinion, he was sanctioned by the college management and put on unpaid leave. In July 2024, Dr. Nathansohn immigrated to Spain, where he currently works as an independent scholar.
Monica Haller is a visual artist born in 1980 in Minneapolis. Spanning design, video, photography and writing, her practice focuses on social justice issues, attempting to disseminate information by amplifying the materials and technologies her collaborators conduct and experience in their own lives. Trauma, memory and communication are some of the themes of her work. Monica has a BA in Peace Processes and Conflict Studies from the College of St. Benedict and an MA in Visual Arts from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited on different occasions from the Les Rencontres d’Arles Festival, France, to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, to the 01SJ Biennial, Build Your Own World, San Jose. He has received numerous awards for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and support from the National Endowments for the Arts.
