Journal articles on the topic 'Art and photography – Canada – 20th century'

The article highlights certain artistic and esthetical aspects of the systematic change in the art of the first half of the 20th century. Based on specific factors, the author discovers a num ber of basic criteria for the artistic, esthetical and structural evaluation of post-visual phrases (relevant for both post-visual phrase of the first half of the 20th century and that one of the second half of the 20 th century and the beginning of the 21st century).

The article highlights the process of incipience of Ukrainian fine art in Canada. During the second half of the 20th century the Ukrainian diaspora created its own art and multiplied traditional Ukrainian art. Unfortunately, the achievements of the Ukrainian diaspora as a rule aren’t well-known to Ukrainian scientific community. The names of these people have filled up the treasury of spiritual values not only in Ukraine or Canada, but worldwide. Ukrainian artists from Canada have created artistic values reflecting the progress of the world’s fine art and have retained the best traditions of native schools. The article contains information about such organizations as the Ukrainian Association of visual artists of Canada, the Ukrainian-Canadian Art Foundation, the Alberta Council for Ukrainian Art. The article also highlights life and artistic journey of V. Kurilyk, M. Dmitrenko, Leo Mol, G. Novakivska, O. Lesyuk, M. Antoniv.

The stylistics of the child portrait in Russia in the 1850s – early 20th century underwent significant changes due to the emergence of photography (light painting). From the very beginning of its era, the 1850s, early photography borrowed composition, means of expression, and attributes from painting. Towards the end of the century, artists began to pay attention to the achievements of portrait photography, striving to depict children not in a staged way, but rather in moments of play, studies and rest, taking heed of photographic effects, in particular, cropped and “blurred” compositions. Many Russian artists used photo sketches, rethinking and re-creating the image of a child in their works. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the child portrait turned into an expressive medium of the artist’s self. By contrast, child photography focused on a specific child, with an emphasis on the continued documentation of the stages of his or her growth and development. The art form experienced further technical improvement, which led to the flourishing of the child photo portrait in the subsequent periods.

The article deals with the idea of uniqueness as an obligatory feature of a work of art in relation to artistic photography. The work is of an overview nature, it notes the methods of giving photographs the features of originality, which emerged at different stages during the century-long history of artistic photography. Earlier studies never focused on the fact that photographers were constantly artificially limiting the technical reproducibility of their works. Addressing this issue defines the novelty of this work. Such a limitation was demanded by an approach in which photographic images had been evaluated from the perspective of traditional art, which affected not only determination of their aesthetic value, but also the legal aspect. And yet, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the presence of machine nature in photography became a stumbling block in the development of legislative norms on the copyright for pictorialists. The entry of photography into the art market environment gave it the obligation to limit the number of copies based on commercial considerations. The relevance of the study lies in the issues of replicability in digital art, its acquisition and sale. I attempt to interpret the phenomenon of the blockchain system as a concept influencing new ways of understanding and evaluating digital photography in light of its history. The emergence of the NFT format is considered as a moment of overcoming the attitude towards the replicability of artistic photography as a problem rather than its natural property. A suggestion is made that the emergence of a virtual artistic environment has the potential to harmonize this long-standing conflict, and also raises the question of the need for new legal norms in this area.

Taking a visual stroll down the backdrops and sceneries of the master photographer Josip Pelikan is accompanied by commentary supplied by the Celje Museum of Recent History’s senior educator and carer of Pelikan’s collection, Helena Vogelsang. Painted backgrounds with various motifs used by Pelikan in both portraying and in his everyday work in the studio represent a key part of the photographer’s heritage and are part of a permanent exhibition in a skylight studio. It is the only preserved example of a skylight photo studio from the end of the 19th century in Slovenia. Various backdrops enabled the portrayed person to be presented in a way that suited him or her best; e.g. raising their social status, being placed in a specific environment or in a different position than the person occupied in real life. This surely influenced the popularity of portraits made in the wet collodion technique by contemporary photographer Borut Peterlin. In this way, the photographer revitalised the importance of Pelikan’s backgrounds and renewed the interest in old analogue photography techniques as well as a comprehensive studio portrait experience, which today no longer holds a prominent place among photographic practices. Keywords: 20th century photograhy, background, Josip Pelikan, photographic backdrop, portraiture, skylight studio, Slovenian photography, studio photography

In Search for the “National Features in Photography” Summary The main point of the paper is the interest of Polish photographers in nationalist ideas, which has long been one of the forgotten and overlooked episodes in the history of twentieth-century Polish photography. The issue appeared for the first time in 1931-1933, when Polish photographic magazines published a debate about revealing national traits in a photo. It was an aftermath of the idea of the national style in Polish art, promoted since the early 1920s in relation to the needs of the state that just became independent. The greatest authorities of the time took part in the debate, including Jan Bułhak, Józef Świtkowski, Jan Sunderland, and Antoni Wieczorek, who were the main theorists of the Polish photography in the early 20th century. Analyzing the problem, they reverted to various arguments, from purely formal ones, assuming a characteristic tendency of Polish artists to choose particular forms and types of composition (a view based on the theory of pictorialism), through thematic (referring to collective memory and the historical experience of Poles), sociological, and even legal (based on the ideas of Leon Petrażycki). The same arguments were often used later throughout the century. The paper presents the development and theoretical basis of the debate in the early 1930s, as well as later evolution of the concepts which, coined at that time, contributed to the theory of Polish photography in the 20th century.

The Study Centre at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona has, since its inception in 2007, amassed a wealth of material relating to Latin American art. Its collecting policy addresses the relationship of contemporary works of art to their documentation and aims to compensate for the lack of a tradition of public collecting of documentary and bibliographic material relating to 20th-century contemporary art practices. The collection now includes influential artist publications such as concrete poetry, magazines, mail art, books of photography and even fiction written by artists, as well as special materials from letters to photographic negatives, alongside information from galleries, cultural spaces and artistic centres.

There is no evidence of a consistent theoretical position of Aby Warburg regarding photography, but his scattered notes on the subject allow for a deductive evaluation. The considerable use of photographs that he made in his work suggests a wide range of methodological approaches, with significant implications for the disciplinary and methodological definition of art history and the development of photographic documentation at the turn of the 20th century. This essay provides examples of Warburg’s early attention to photography, both as a research tool and a required piece of equipment for any research institute.

A frequent debate or an issue favorite amongst the art-history buffs is usually found around when and who first used oil paints as a medium of painting and introduced photography in Nepal. On many occasions, the credits were attributed to a legendary name – Bhaju Man Chitrakar or Bhaju-macha. But it appears now many of those narratives were made more based on the popular hearsays rather than actual study of his oeuvre of works or a credible analysis of the circumstances then. The essay here seeks to analyze the roles of the prominent artists then – spanning late 80s of the 19th century to the late 30s of the 20th century. It is found the role played by a least celebrated artist Purna Man Chitrakar, seemed more credible – in ushering a new era, described as ‘Pre-modern’, with the irrefutable accounts of his workings in oil colors and photography. Moreover, his mentorship of many of the junior artists later proved momentous – leading to create different new streams in the evolution of Nepali Art – later.

In early 21st century, there were a number of tendencies in the search for rock art, mainly due to the development of digital technologies. The development of documentation and analysis tools (mapping of sites using drones and GNSS receivers, digital photography, three-dimensional modeling of individual sites elements) allowed researchers to start a continuous (rather than a selective) process documentation on the new technological base, using elements of a system approach. The next stage of these studies, to the extent that the quality of the documentation is maintained, is to accumulate knowledge about rock art in geographical information systems and databases. However, existing indexing systems of sites do not withstand the new digital reality and, for various reasons, are not suitable for use in digital information systems. The article summarizes the experience of creation of indexing systems in the studies of the beginning of the 20th — beginning of the 21st century. The authors present the principles of “topographic” indexing system, based on ignoring semantics and chronological attribution of images and thus separating the documentation of rock art from its interpretation.

For decades, the documentation of rock art has been the backbone of the research on this cultural practice. However, traditional techniques used for this purpose have proved to be imprecise and subjective. With the advent of the digital age there has been a revolution in the field of rock art documentation in general and in particular for petroglyphs. Techniques such as digital nightlight photography or three-dimensional (3D) photogrammetry have opened a world of possibilities. In the case of nightlight photography, its use goes back to the second half of the 20th century. However, in recent years the emergence of high-power digital cameras along with new lighting systems unthinkable decades ago, such as tactical flashlights, have rejuvenated a technique that seems incombustible. After the numerous tests carried out by the DIPAR (Integral Rock Art Documentation System) project team, it has become evident that, correctly employed, this technique still has immense potential in the field of rock art documentation, especially if we take into consideration its low cost and ease of use. Photogrammetry, on the other hand, is shown as the perfect complement to the records obtained through digital nightlight photography. The possibility of applying filters or shaders that increase the visibility of the digitized petroglyphs, within a metric scheme, is a great advance in their documentation. This paper explores the advantages associated with these techniques with a case study: unpublished petroglyphs of Alcázar de San Juan (Spain).

The article deals with the early history of photographic industry in Kyiv as a complex cultural phenomenon. Special attention is focused on the portrait photography as a ‘technology of memory’. It involves methods of social history of art, prosopography and visual anthropology. The study is based on the wide scope of archival documents, including the correspondence of publishing facilities inspector, who supervised the photographic activity in Kyiv from 1888 to 1909. By the early 20th century, making, collecting, displaying and exchanging the photographic portraits became an important memorial practice for townspeople throughout the world. In the pre-WWI Kyiv dozens of ateliers produced photographic portraits in large quantities. While the urbanization and economic growth boosted migration activity and washed out traditional family and neighborhood networks, the photography provided an instrument for maintaining emotional connections between people. The author emphasizes the role of a professional photographer who acted as a maker of ‘memory artifacts’ for individuals and families and, therefore, established aesthetic standards for their private visual archives. It is stated that the professional photography played a noticeable role in modernization and westernization of Kyiv. With its relatively low barrier to entry, it provided a professionalization opportunity for women, representatives of the lower social classes or discriminated ethnic groups (such as Poles after the January Insurrection, and Jews). While working in a competitive environment, photographers had to adopt new technologies, improve business processes and increase their own educational level. At the same time, their artistic freedom was rather limited. The style of photographic portrait was inherited from the Eighteen and Nineteen-century academic art, so it is usually hard to distinguish photographic portraits made in Kyiv or in any other European city of that period. Body language of models, their clothing and personal adornments as well as studio decorations and accessories aimed to construct the image of successful individuals, faithful friends, closely tied family members with their own strictly defined social roles etc. The old-fashioned style of the early twentieth century portraiture shaped the visual aesthetics of photographic portrait that was noticeable enough even several decades later.

Learning about Japanese art has been difficult for Westerners. Limited access, language barriers, and cultural misunderstanding have been almost insurmountable obstacles. Knowledge of Japanese art in the West began over 150 years before the arrival of Commodore Perry in 1853. Englebert Kaempfer (1657-1716), sent to Japan as a physician for the Dutch East India Company, befriended a young assistant who provided information for a book on Japanese life and history published in 1727. By 1850, more ethnographic information had been published in Europe. Catalogs of sales of Japanese art in Europe exist prior to 1850 and collection catalogs from major museums follow in the second half of that century. After the Meiji Restoration (1867) cultural exchange was possible and organizations for that purpose were formed. Diaries of 19th century travellers and important international fairs further expanded cross-cultural information. Okakura Kakuzo, a native of Japan, published in English about Japanese art and ultimately became Curator of the important collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The advent of photography made visual images easily accessible to Westerners. Great collectors built up the holdings of major American museums. In the 20th century, materials written and published in Japan in English language have furthered understanding of Japanese culture. During the past twenty years, travelling exhibitions and scholarly catalogs have circulated in the West. Presently monographs, dissertations and translated scholarly texts are available. Unfortunately, there is little understanding in the West of the organization of Japanese art libraries and archives which contain primary source material of interest to art historians.

The article is devoted to the founding of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and presents an analysis of the process of building this museum of contemporary art in dynamics — from the beginning of the collection within the walls of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum to gaining the status of an independent exhibition giant. The study provides an overview of the collection and its sources, identifies individual significant works of art, accompanied by art history descriptions, and sets out the reasons and the chronicle of the separation of the Museum Ludwig from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. The museum, established in 1976, presents German art from the first half of the 20th century, American and British pop art of the 1960s, Russian avant-garde, photorealism and contemporary art from the last third of the 20th century. It has departments of painting, sculpture, graphics and art photography. The role of the famous German patrons and collectors of Peter and Irene Ludwig in the formation and replenishment of the museum's funds is noted. Статья посвящена основанию Музея Людвига в Кёльне и представляет анализ процесса построения этого музея современного искусства в динамике — от начала формирования коллекции в стенах Музея Вальрафа-Рихарца до обретения статуса самостоятельного экспозиционного гиганта. В исследовании даны обзор коллекции и источники ее формирования, указаны отдельные крупные произведения искусства, сопровожденные искусствоведческим описанием, а также изложены причины и хроника выделения Музея Людвига из состава Музея Вальрафа-Рихарца. Вновь образованный в 1976 году музей представляет искусство Германии с первой половины XX века, американский и британский поп-арт 1960-х годов, русский авангард, фотореализм и актуальное искусство последней трети ХХ века. В нем созданы отделы живописи, скульптуры, графики и художественной фотографии. Отмечена роль известных немецких меценатов и собирателей Петера и Ирены Людвиг в формировании и пополнении фондов музея.

The article studies the activities of one of the famous Ukrainian photographers of the XX century — Levko Yanushevych in the field of photography. We have systematized and characterized the artist’s photographs on the pages of Ukrainian and foreign (for Ukrainian emigrants) periodicals of the XX century, specifically, «Dilo», «Nashi Dni», «Nova Khata» (all titles in Lviv), «Kholms’ka zemlya» (Krakow), «Ukrainskyi visnyk», «Holos» (both in Berlin), «Na slidi» (Augsburg). The process of shaping Yanushevych’s creative personality via a prism of public activity and cooperation with famous figures is analyzed. The significant contribution of the photographer to the preservation of important facts and information about the Ukrainian intelligentsia of that time is revealed. Levko Yanushevych appears in the general picture of the XX century not only as a photojournalist of the cultural life of Ukraine, but also as an active participant in the processes taking place at the background of art. This is evidenced by articles, interviews and memoirs left by Yanushevych in local magazines. His popularity at that time is confirmed by publications in foreign editions made by efforts of the Ukrainian émigrés. Levko Yanushevych’s photographs are stored in the archives of the V. Stefanyk Institute of Library Art Resources Research of the Vasyl Stefanyk National Scientific Library of Ukraine in Lviv. They are not accessible in some magazines. The personality of this photographer is quite interesting not only in terms of his professionalism and famous works, but also as a cultural and public figure. His photo portraits are still stored on the pages of the Ukrainian General Encyclopedia. His photographs of landscapes and architectural masterpieces of the Ukrainian cities of the late XIX and early XX centuries help to plunge into the past. However, information about the photographer is very scarce, and there is no study of his work. In the mentioned press archives in 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, as well as some authorial articles available on the Internet were found about 50 photographs of the artist. We analyzed and systematized images by genre groupings. The article also covers a range of issues related to the origin and existence of photography in the 19-20th century, the main figures of the time, photo studios and vocational schools of Ukrainian photography. The findings of our research show trends in photography relevant in a perspective of the 21st century were experienced by professionals and amateurs in the past. Capturing information, transmitting emotions and feelings, preserving architectural monuments, landscapes, recording important moments in the lives of relatives or prominent people, coding or symbolism were important stages in the evolution of photography. Keywords: Levko Yanushevych’s photos, Ukrainian photographer, Ukrainian magazines, photography.

The article focuses on the notion of the image of self-shadow in American photography in the second half of the twentieth century, understood as a shadow silhouette of the creator captured in a photograph. The two main problems that concern the author’s research are the lack of current, theoretical study on the problem of shadow in the history of photography from the perspective of art history (V. Stoichita, R. Casati, P. Cavanagh, H. Kanaan) and the lack of the definition of the phenomenon of self-shadow and its possible types in self-portraiture. The author’s proposition of a definition of self-shadow is based on selected photographs by four artists whose works touch upon the problem of shadow in the context of relations between the “self” and the “other” (Lee Friedlander), race and subjective invisibility (Shawn W. Walker), mask and the other-self (Andy Warhol), and the intimate recording of identity (Nan Goldin). In her analyses, the author discusses the problem of the hybrid ontology of the shadow, which is both visible and visual. In this understanding, the shadow not only refers to a physical body, present “here and now” but more importantly evokes a sense of presence, even when the artist’s body is absent in the picture. The double index refers to the image leaving its mark both in reality and on light-sensitive paper. The rudimentary, vitalistic relation linking the human body with its shadow is only a starting point for analyses of the complexity of its status and symbolism. The concepts framing Andy Warhol’s Polaroid are twinning, the mask, and the Jungian theory of the shadow archetype. To discuss the self-portrait of Shawn W. Walker, the author applies the literary-philosophical concept of invisibility based on writings from Black existentialists (W.E.B. Du Bois, F. Fanon, R. Ellison). The analyses of Lee Friedlander’s photograph have been based on the psychological distinction between the figures of the “self” and the “other”. The closing concepts that frame Nan Goldin’s self-portrait are the haptic thinking subject (M. Smolińska) and the notion of a diary. The critical apparatus of the study is supplemented by contemporary analyses of the myth of Narcissus, the mythical origins of the self-portrait, and the notion of the index (after R. Krauss, M. Michałowska, M.A. Doane).

This essay traces the resurrection of the fotoescultura, a three-dimensional photographic portrait popular in rural Mexico in the early 20th century, as interpreted in recent works by Performing Pictures, a contemporary Swedish artist duo. The early fotoesculturas were an augmented form of portraiture, commissioned by family members who supplied photographs that artisans in Mexico City converted into framed sculptural portraits for display on family altars. We compare these »traditional« photographic objects with “new” digital forms of video animation on screen and in the public space that characterize Performing Pictures work, and explore how the fotoescultura inspired new incarnations of their series Men that Fall. At the intersection between the material aspects of a “traditional” vernacular art form and “new” media art, we identify a photographic aesthetic that shifts from seeing and perceiving to physical engagement, and discuss how the frame and its parergon augment the photographic gaze. The essay is accompanied by photos and video stills from Performing Pictures’ film poem Dreaming the Memories of Now (2018), depicting their work with the fotoesculturas. Keywords: fotoesculturas, frame, parergon, vernacular photography, videoart

The creative work of the Hungarian theoretician and artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy has recently become an object of reevaluation and scrutinous investigation. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy is also considered one of the forerunners of conceptual art. In a way, he also foresaw the "visual turn" of culture, which she made at the beginning of the 21st century, and he viewed his works in part as "exercises" in vision for a person of the future. Although today it is obvious that the art of L. Moholy-Nagy had a significant impact on the work of contemporary artists, a detailed analysis and understanding of the essence of this influence still remains insufficiently studied. In the development of his artistic method, L. Moholy-Nagy constantly evolved, moving from painting to photography and further to film works. The research explores the representatives of certain types of art in the work of Mohoy-Nagy. A detailed philosophical and art history analysis of the artist's photograms – works created in painting with light (light painting) is carried out in the research. Although the connection between Moholy-Nagy’s art and the artistic practice of the present day has been acknowledged the detailed analysis of the influence of Moholy-Nagy’s ideas on contemporary artists is still in great demand. The aim of our research is to understand the intermedial concept of Moholy-Nagy’s creative activities by means of the analysis of paintings, photographs, photograms and films produced by the artist. Our research is based on the modern theory of art as a mode of communication. The methods of our research include the conceptual, hermeneutic and comparative analysis. The methodological foundations of the research include the conception of the philosophical and art historical analysis, developed and proposed by V. I. Zhukovsky and N. P. Koptseva, which involves the appication of general scientific methods (measurement, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, analogy, etc.) to understanding the meanings of art works. As a result of our research we have revealed the meanings of Moholy-Nagy’s works of art and described their influence on the American, Hungarian and Russian artists of the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries.

Zofia Rydet is one of the most outstanding Polish and even European artists of the second half of the 20th century. She left a huge artistic legacy, but her biography still in many respects remains a mystery. The memory of a great artist is often mythologized, and the interpretation of the work after his/her death begins to separate from the original intentions of the creator. These are processes of great interest to art historians and sociologists alike. They can be studied by adopting the methods of the biographically-oriented sociology of art. This article uses some of these methods, namely the analysis of the existing documents, archival research, and interviews. The analysis of the collected material has revealed how Rydet was remembered by those who had the opportunity to meet her, accompanied her during field trips, and talked with her about art and photography. The aim of such research is to try to get to know the artist better, as well as to understand her work and the social functioning in what was a very specific time and environment.

The relevance of the study is to try to make sense of the changes in photography. The problem of research is the lack of a position in modern cultural studies on the essence of photography. The problem is methodological. The aim of the study is to study approaches to photography and their evolution. Research methods are associated with philosophical and cultural analysis of the problem. There are several approaches to studying photography. The author chooses those of them that will reveal the problem of changing the relationship to the essence of photography in the cultural and philosophical aspect. Susan Sontag says that photography takes on the importance of social ritual and is perceived as an instrument of self-approval. Andre Rouille defines the place of photography in modern culture and speaks of it as a certain cultural phenomenon, art technology. Here, Rouille contrasts his theoretical grounds with the views of Roland Barth. Rouille says that photography has universality, a total manifestation in culture, Bart, on the contrary, claims that photography is an object, the photograph itself contains an object that the photograph displays. Based on different views on the problem of the essence of photography, the author proposed a number of figure of merit by which it will be possible to trace the evolution of scientific approaches to the study of photography. Thus, three main figure of merit were developed, the first of which considers photography as part of culture. Photography becomes woven into the modern cultural layer, thanks to technological innovations. It ceases to be perceived as a separate document, but is seen by each user as an integral part of everyday life. The new digital culture dictates changes in the field of visual language. On the other hand, photography also remains part of art, this is the second criterion. The creative methods of artists, photographers are expanding significantly in modern art, photography is becoming part of many artistic practices. The third criterion is related to the philosophical understanding of the essence of photography. Many researchers aim to identify the primary basis of the photographic image. The findings of the study are related to the fact that photography is experiencing essential changes in connection with the advent of digital culture. Photography takes on the shade of a social element, which allows it to be part of a person's everyday culture. There is a significant transition from a document to a certain element of public relations. Its active manifestation in mass culture, social networks speaks of the importance of photography for modern culture. Ideas about photography are associated with the socio-cultural context of its existence. Susan Sontag in the second half of the 20th century spoke of photography as an integral part of social relations, today photography is perceived as a tool for constructing the worldview of modern man, it is said about her influence on aesthetics, the formation of a different reality.

Elizabeth Edwards, a British researcher into the relations among photography, history, and anthropology, used the term of non-collections to define numerous photographs of unidentified status which can be found in contemporary museums. They are not collector’s items, such as e.g., artistic photography or unique specimens of the first photography techniques. What she rather means are various items: prints, slides, photo-mechanic reproductions, postcards, namely objects once produced on a mass scale, with copies present in many institutions worldwide, thus being neither unique nor extraordinary. They present works from a museum collection, historic pieces of local art, or universally known works of world art. They exist in a hierarchical relation with other classes of museum objects, yet they are often pushed to the margin of curator’s practice and kept as ‘archives’, namely outside the system of the museum collection. They can sometimes be found in museum archival sections, in other instances in libraries, yet it is on more rare occasions that we come across them in photo departments. However, owing to the research into archival photographs conducted in the last decade (the studies of afore-mentioned Elizabeth Edwards and also Constanza Caraffa as well as the teams cooperating with the latter), such collections are experiencing a certain revival. Forming part of this research, the paper focuses on the collections of reproductions produced at the turn of the 20th century in museums in Toruń, Poznań, and Szczecin, which were German at the time; the reproductions later found their way to and continue being kept in Polish institutions.

Abstract. We applied photogrammetric methods with aerial photography from 11 different years between 1946 and 2005 to assess changes in area and volume of 33 glaciers in the Cariboo Mountains of British Columbia for the latter half of the 20th century. These are used to identify changes in extent and elevation primarily for the periods 1952–1985, 1985–2005, and 1952–2005. All glaciers receded during the period 1952–2005; area retreat averaged −0.19 ± 0.05 % a−1. From 1952 to 1985, nine glaciers advanced; following 1985, retreat rates accelerated to −0.41 ± 0.12% a−1. Thinning rates of a subset of seven glaciers likewise accelerated, from −0.14 ± 0.04 m w.e. a−1 (1952–1985) to −0.50 ± 0.07 m w.e. a−1 for the period 1985–2005. Temperatures increased from the earlier to the latter period for the ablation (+0.38 °C) and accumulation (+0.87 °C) seasons, and average precipitation decreased, particularly in the accumulation season (−32 mm, −3.2%). Our comparison of surface area change with glacier morphometry corroborates previous studies that show primary relations between extent change and surface area. We also find that the strength and sign of these relations varied for different epochs. Our results also indicate that the 1985 glacier extent for the study area reported previously by other studies may be slightly overestimated due to errant mapping of late-lying snow cover.

Interpenetration of ideas, culture, economics, raw materials and etc. are causing globalization in our society. This trend is also assisted by the growing technological innovations. Society is increasingly turning to digital tools to provide fast communications, access to information and goods through the global network, especially needed during the pandemic. In terms of art, these factors contribute to shifting the range from classical means of expression to contemporary art forms focused on digital media. Historically, the discovery of photography in the 19th century radically changed art. Painting frees itself from the function of reflecting objective reality and seeks new means of expression and meaning. In the early 20th century, new trends in the avant-garde art seek to depict intangible things away from visible reality such as the inner world of the artist, emotions, symbols, music, time and more. One of the brightest trends - Cubism is a typical example. It seeks a way to show objects rationally from several sides simultaneously - three-dimensional, but unfortunately it is limited by the means of expression - the two-dimensional surface of the canvas. Digital technologies today have a solution to this problem. They provide digital tools that completely change painting. The canvas no longer exists in the familiar way in which the artist works. It is becoming history. With the invention of VR glasses, the boundaries of visible reality and imagination in art have been removed to enter a new virtual world. Tilt Brush technology goes one step further, giving the opportunity to the artist to create 3D images with a brush in hand while moving in the virtual world he creates. Canvas doesn’t exist, it is a virtual digital world three-dimensional arising from the imagination of the artist and existing only through the eyes of the pink VR glasses. Here comes the question, will technology displace the artist's hand? Keywords: Digital Art, Art, Virtual Reality (VR), Tilt Brush, Technological Innovations, Net Art, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), Artificial Intelligence

The article attempts to outline the activity of Kharkiv art history school from the time of its formation in the 1900s to the present day. The author reveals the main directions of research of university art history in Kharkiv, as well as figures of museum institutions who were engaged in the study of topical problems of art before the outbreak of Stalinist terror, when Kharkiv art history school was completely destroyed, and its representatives were either shot (F. Shmit, P. Fomin, K. Slipko-Moskaltsiv) or sent into exile (S. Taranushenko, P. Zholtovsky, D. Gordeiev, O. Berladina). It is emphasized that none of them ever returned to Kharkiv. This became a serious obstacle in the restoration of the scientific art history school in the city. This process lasted for a very long time in comparison with other artistic centers, Kyiv and Lviv in particular. The article reveals the traditions of art history science in Kharkiv, laid down in the first third of the 20th century before its destruction in the Stalinist period. The author also shows the changes in the organization of research activities in modern conditions, when university art history has become a thing of the past, and the scientific center has moved to the higher art institution of the city, which became the Kharkiv Institute of Art and Industry (the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts from 2001).The main directions of the development of art history in this higher educational institution of art in Kharkiv are revealed. It is shown that, first of all, Ukrainian studios were resumed as a separate direction and such an outstanding phenomenon of Ukrainian national art as M. Boichuk’s school, destroyed during the Stalinist repressions, was reconstructed. Separate pages about some figures of the glorious cohort of Ukrainian masters who, with their work, personified the bright and tragic era for the Ukrainian creative intelligentsia of the 1920s, namely artist-writer M. Zhuk as well as representatives of the avant-garde phenomenon in the artistic culture of the 20th century in Kharkiv (V. Yermilov, B. Kosarev, A. Petrytsky), were also revealed. Not only was the range of Oriental studies restored, but to some extent expanded, the study of Far and Middle Eastern art was introduced, and the study of Ukrainian art Judaica and Jewish art was brought to the wider modern world. In the Soviet period this was impossible due to the policy of the Soviet power. Ukrainian theater decoration art, Ukrainian school of art photography, contemporary art became new directions. The development of established traditions and deepening of the study of the sacred art and modern art forms are among the prospects for further directions.

The article describes methods and technologies of virtual 3D architectural historical reconstruction by the example of the exterior restoration process of Petrovskoye-Alabino manor (18th century) located in Naro-Fominsk District of Moscow Oblast. Currently the object is ruined, the interiors have been completely lost, the facades have also been almost unpreserved and the park has completely disappeared. Petrovskoe-Alabino was a summer country estate built by Nikita Akinfievich Demidov for his wife Aleksandra Evtikhievna who had not seen the manor completion. Having not achieved its main purpose, the manor, despite its unique appearance and aesthetic splendor, did not become famous and left no noticeable traces in historical sources. The primary purpose of the estate determined its special architectural type that is "Monplaisir" which is not often found in Russia. The manor was ruined in the 20th century and is now unprotected. It has not been reconstructed before and all the studies at stake are rather art reviews than historical studies. This article emphasizes the need to preserve cultural heritage and record the current state of destroyed objects as well as describes the process of virtual three-dimensional reconstruction of the manor based on archival and published materials as well as those collected during the research. The work grounds on drawings, sketches and measurements made by professional commissions in the 20th century as well as photographs of various eras, text descriptions of the manor and a set of graphic files created during the process of aerial and land photography of the current state of Petrovskoe-Alabino. Not only have the buildings of the complex been reconstructed, but also the courtyard, the main park alley and the landscape of the main manor territory. The work was carried out in close cooperation with the Central State Archive of Moscow Oblast.

In her essay on the involvement of photography in the system of racial division, Tanya Sheehan (“Comical Conflations: Racial Identity and Science of Photography,” Photography & Culture, vol. 4, no. 2, 2011: 133-156) focused her attention on common comparisons of the photographic negative to the Negroid race. Such a tendency may imply a claim that the negative is racist; once connected, just as African Americans, with pejorative features. The negative picture, different from reality as such but above all negating a realistic (positive) tradition in art, because of being different (other) can be considered wrong or inferior to the positive so that it must be hidden or even destroyed. In such a context, the present paper focuses on the relationship between the photographic negative and the question of race. Although apparently the reversal of the color of skin might result in a racial transformation of the photographed whites, the artistic practice of the 20th and 21st centuries demonstrates that quite often the reversed color does not necessarily mean a change of race. What is more, the negative has been used to oppose by artistic means the simplifying polarization of society. Such avant-garde photographers as Hans Bellmer, Man Ray, and Alexandr Rodchenko used the inversion of tone in their works critiquing colonial and racist stereotypes. Contemporary artists use the negative convention to subvert the dominant positive, realism, light, day, the white male, and other concepts associated with one of the poles constituting the binary value system. Painting one’s face black, in the 19th century used in evidently racist performances called “minstrel shows,” may now convey a positive message.

Mina’i ceramics dating to the late 12th and early 13th century made in the Kashan region of Iran represent a novel period of overglaze enamelling technology in ceramic history. New colours were used to produce stylistically attractive and dynamic polychrome motifs. Due to their archaeological context, and popularity in the art market since the mid-20th century, these objects often have complex conditions involving reconstruction and overpainting. The aesthetic and technological significance of these pieces warrants further study, but in practice, removing restorations can lead to structural destabilisation, requiring time-consuming and potentially unplanned for conservation treatment. To determine if it is possible to gain useful information from the study of these artworks without disturbing existing restorations, a group of objects were drawn from the Sarikhani and Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology collections. The objective of this project was twofold, first to assess the merits of the imaging techniques for understanding condition, and second to propose a protocol for imaging with the aim of encouraging collaborative projects with international partners. The techniques used in this study include digital photography under visible and ultraviolet light, infrared reflectography, and radiography. The results show that important information invisible to the naked eye can be obtained about the decorative surfaces, using ultraviolet light and infrared reflectography. Digital radiography proved to be equally effective when studying the condition of the ceramic body. The results of this project were used to produce guidance on these techniques as a collaborative documentation package for the study of Mina’i ceramics.

Первая половина ХХ века в истории эссе примечательна тем, что этот изначально литературный жанр, преодолевая рамки слова, переносится в новый, невербальный формат: в кинематограф, фотографию, изобразительное, а также музыкальное искусство. Первенство в создании музыкального эссе принадлежит американскому композитору постромантического направления Сэмюэлу Барберу (1910–1981). Его творческое наследие включает, по меньшей мере, три очевидных случая использования новой жанровой модели: это Эссе для оркестра № 1–3 (1937, 1942, 1978 соответственно). В статье предпринимается попытка установить причины, побудившие композитора обратиться к совершенно новой для композиции жанровой сфере, выявить механизм ее воплощения в формате непрограммного инструментального сочинения, а также определить место эссеистских опусов в жанровой иерархии барберовского творчества. In the essay’s history, the first half of the 20th century is notable by the fact that such originally literary genre breaks the frameworks of the word and is transferred to a new, non-verbal format: in cinema, in photography, in fine art, as well as in musical art. The lead in the creation of the musical essay belongs to the American post-romantic composer Samuel Barber (1910–1981). His heritage includes at least three obvious cases of using the new genre model: Essays for orchestra No. 1–3 (1937, 1942, and 1978 respectively). In this article, an attempt is made to find out the reasons that encouraged the composer to turn to a completely new genre of the musical composition; to identify the mechanism for its implementation in the format of a non-programmatic instrumental composition, and to determine the position of essayist opuses in the genre hierarchy of Barber’s output.

Since 1953, illustrations have been inserted as “tailpieces” at the ends of articles in The American Journal of Physiology and The Journal of Applied Physiology. The drawings were made by Homer Wheelon, a member of the American Physiological Society from 1919 until his death in 1960. Forty-five years after his death, Wheelon is unknown, but he contributed 32 publications to the medical literature and trained J. Earl Thomas, an important 20th century gastrointestinal physiologist. Wheelon was born into poverty in 1883 to itinerant Methodist preachers, circumstances that guided his education and career choices. Throughout his life, Wheelon exhibited a fondness and talent for art and photography and an unusual breadth of intellectual interests and knowledge. Wheelon received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington, then studied at the University of Oregon, Northwestern University, and St. Louis University. Earning his M.D. from St. Louis University and assuming a faculty position there, Wheelon and his graduate student, Thomas, conducted widely recognized gastrointestinal research. Returning to Seattle in 1921, Wheelon became a highly respected physician and hospital administrator, but he also found time to indulge his interest in visual art and poetry. In 1933, inspired by observing a rabbit being used in a pregnancy test, Wheelon began to write and illustrate an epic, 322-page poem, Rabbit No. 202, illustrations from which became the journals’ tailpieces. The present study traces Wheelon’s personal life and scientific career in an attempt to understand this complex man and the origins of his unusual poem and its drawings.

As a harrowing sub-discipline of English and Comparative Literature, Trauma Studies is in need of geographical expansion beyond its moorings in European genocides of the 20th century. In this article, the authors chart the institutional and cinematic appropriation of atrocity images in relation to the Khmer Rouge’s auto-genocide from 1975–1979 in Cambodia. They analyse the cultural and scholarly value of these images in conjunction with genocide studies to reveal principles often overlooked, taken for granted, or pushed to the periphery in photography studies and film studies. Through grim appropriations of archival or news footage to more experimental approaches in documentary, such as the use of dioramas, the authors examine the commercial and artistic articulations of trauma, reconciliation and testimony in two case studies: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibition Photographs from S-21: 1975–1979 (1997) and Pithy Panh’s documentary The Missing Picture (2013). The authors first focus on the relatively obscure scholarship devoted to contextualizing images from international genocides outside the Euro-American canon for genocide study in order to build their critical formulations; they go on to explore whether these atrocity-themed still and moving images are capable of defying aspects of commodification and sensationalism to instead convey positive notions of commemoration and memory. Finally, their contribution to this debate regarding the merit of appropriating atrocity imagery is viewed from two perspectives: ‘commodified witnessing’ (a negative descriptor for the MoMA exhibition) and ‘commemorative witnessing’ (a positive term for the Cambodian film).

Kecanggihan teknologi fotografi digital saat tidak memuaskan beberapa fotografer, terutama yang condong ke fotografi seni. Sebagai gantinya, mereka melihat kembali teknik fotografi lama, seperti yang dilakukan pada abad ke-19, antara lain cyanotype, salt print, vandyke, dan cetak gum bichromate. Sebagian besar teknik cetak diaktualisasikan ulang oleh sejumlah fotografer dengan orientasi yang berbeda. Artikel ini membahas bagaimana Kelompok Kegiatan Mahasiswa, Keluarga Old Photographic Processes ISI Yogyakarta (KOPPI) melakukan lebih dari sekadar rekonstruksi teknis. Mereka menggunakan media unik ini untuk menyampaikan pesan tentang masalah pribadi dan budaya. Teknik pengamatan partisipatif digunakan selama empat proses penciptaan: pengenalan, eksplorasi, eksperimen, dan presentasi. Ditemukan bahwa dalam menggunakan teknik pencetakan foto lama para peserta harus menegosiasikan tiga aspek, yaitu pemahaman teknis, material, dan konsep budaya. Setelah mereka mencapai pemahaman teknis dan material yang memadai, para peserta mulai mengeksplorasi isu-isu budaya. Isu budaya tentang penyimpangan perilaku, kesedihan, dan respons masyarakat terhadap kehidupan sehari-hari telah diangkat menjadi tema pekerjaan melalui teknik pencetakan foto lama. Anggota KOPPI memanfaatkan kesan kuno dan fleksibilitas media cetak untuk mewujudkan hal tersebut. AbstractRe-actualization of the 19th and 20th Century Photographic Printing Technology: The Case of KOPPI Student Activity Group. The sophistication of digital photography technology does not satisfy some photographers, especially those who tend towards art photography. Instead, they looked back at old techniques, such as those of the 19th-century based on chemical principles, including cyanotype, salt print, vandyke print, and gum bichromate print. Most of the printing techniques are re-actualized by a number of photographers with different orientations. This paper examines how Old Photographic Processes Student Activity Group of ISI Yogyakarta(KOPPI) did more than just technical reconstruction, They used these unique media for conveying messages of personal and cultural issue. Participatory observation techniques were used during the four processes of creation: introduction, exploration, experimentation, and presentation. The finding showed that in using the old photo printing technique the participants had to negotiate three aspects, namely the technical understanding, materials, and cultural concepts. After they reached a sufficient technical and material understanding, the participants began to explore cultural issues. Cultural issues about deviations of society’s behavior, sadness, and society’s response to every day life have been raised to be the themes of the work through the old photo printing technique. Members of KOPPI take advantage of the old-fashioned impressions and flexibility of print media to realize these things.

Desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX las intervenciones artísticas se independizan de los hartados y constantes componentes estéticos, miméticos y matéricos. La imposibilidad de custodiar la obra como objeto demanda nuevos mecanismos que registren un arte tan cambiante como caprichoso. Con los avances de la tecnología, la fotografía digital y las innovaciones acontecidas en el campo del arte, los artistas comenzarán a dejar constancia de sus intervenciones haciendo uso de cámaras fotográficas y pequeñas grabaciones para inmortalizar sus obras. Destinamos esta investigación a trabajar, a través de una representación de autores emergentes, las dificultades en el registro de obras artísticas caracterizadas por su intangibilidad. El desafío está servido, cualquier persona o entidad vinculada a lo artístico se enfrenta a la difícil tarea de registrar para conservar la inmortalidad del acontecimiento artístico. Estas innovadoras y fugaces categorías llevan implícita la condición participativa del espectador, el espacio como continente y contenido de la obra, el tiempo, la extinción de los materiales, la acción, el desplazamiento, la pérdida de la unicidad del arte, así como su acelerada mortalidad. Condiciones y aspectos que hacen del arte un “arte-acontecimiento”, predispuesto por la condición espaciotemporal a su caducidad, modificación o desaparición. Since the second half of 20th century, artistic interventions have become independent of the jaded and constant aesthetic, mimetic and mathematical components. The impossibility of guarding the work as an object demands new mechanisms that register an art as changing as it is capricious. With the advances in technology, digital photography and innovations in the field of art, artists will begin to record their interventions, using cameras and small recordings to immortalize their works. We dedicate this research to work through a representation of emerging authors, difficulties in the registration of artistic works characterized by their intangibility. The challenge is served, any person or entity linked to the artistic, faces the difficult task of registering to preserve the immortality of the artistic event. These innovative and fleeting categories implicitly involve the participatory condition of the viewer, space as a continent and content of the work, time, extinction of materials, action, displacement, loss of the uniqueness of art, as well as its accelerated dematerialization Conditions and aspects that make art an “art-event”, predisposed by the space-time condition to its expiration, modification or disappearance.

Technological changes of the late 20th and early 21st century dramatically influenced the development of the global communication space – all communication channels are rapidly changing to a digital format. The topicality of the article lies in the growing role of visual communications of various formats and computer technologies in modern society. There is an active movement toward digital presentations of the world’s cultural and artistic heritage, multimedia art museums, virtual exhibitions, and virtual tours are appearing, which also require advertising. Main objective of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the existing terminology and visual stylistics of the media. Methods. The research methodology is based on a multimodal approach. A number of scientific methods were used to achieve the set goal: system-structural, art historical, and comparative. The scientific novelty of this work consists in expanding and deepening ideas about the development of media as a component of design activity. The authors of the article emphasize that a fundamentally new type of communication – multi media – has acquired its own meanings, meanings and visual images. Modern visual advertising appeals should have a clear communicative structure, aesthetic level and stimulate the intellectual activity of the consumer. It is proposed to define colour graphics as a basic means of media design, and aesthetic dimensions (parameters) as cultural-aesthetic ones. Colour semantics and regional imagery are distinguished to provide the aesthetic evaluation of objects in ethnic style. Postmodernism has its own typological features: the use of any ready forms from art to utility, widespread of photography and computer special effects, deliberate violation of commensurable quantities of visual elements, borrowing the ideas from other types of art, remake, interpretation, combination, fragmentation, epatage, installation, collageness and replicability of the projects. Conclusions. The results of our comparative analysis of terminology and stylistic aspects of media resources are presented. It has been proven that visual media is not a constant, but rather a dynamic process aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of those ideas, products, services, companies, or individuals that are being promoted. Media design is defined as the design of a visual info space, an innovative stage of designing for the virtual world, and a qualitatively new stage of its development. In summary, we note that research materials allow its continuation and expansion in order to prepare a course of lectures for Masters in the specialties "Design", "Management of sociocultural activities", "Advertising and PR", "Tourism", etc.

Resumo: A partir de uma análise seletiva de oito fotomontagens do livro “Pintura em pânico” (1943) de Jorge de Lima traçamos correspondências entre as imagens do poeta alagoano, a iconografia barroca e alegórica estudada por Walter Benjamin, e as tópicas privilegiadas pelos artistas surrealistas europeus. Veremos como a praxis e os procedimentos criativos de Lima bebem das fontes dos artistas da vanguarda francesa do início do século XX, ecoando as investigações empreendidas pelo movimento encabeçado por André Breton e Georges Bataille – que, por sua vez, se configurou, nas palavras do crítico Ronaldo Brito, como: “uma tentativa heróica de atacar o cogito cartesiano” e “denunciar a falência do projeto moderno”. Para tal nos apoiaremos nas preposições, escritos e obras destes escritores supracitados, bem como nas trocas epistolares entre os poetas, Murilo Mendes e Jorge de Lima, bem como a relação de ambos com o pintor Ismael Nery.Palavras chave: Surrealismo no Brasil; artes visuais; vanguardas modernas; fotografia.Abstract: From a selective analysis approach of eight photomontages of Jorge de Lima’s book “Pintura em Pânico” (1943), we point to several correspondences between the photo-collage images of the Alagoan poet, and the baroque and allegorical iconography studied by Walter Benjamin, as well as the themes favored by surrealist’s french artists. We will regard how Lima’s creative praxis and procedures had nourished from the early-20th-century French avant-garde surrealist artists, echoing the investigations undertaken by the movement headed by André Breton and Georges Bataille – described by art critic Ronaldo Ronaldo Brito as: “a heroic attempt to attack the Cartesian Cogito” and “denounce the bankruptcy of the modern project”. For such can we will base our analysis on the writings and works of Surrealism movement members, as well as in the epistolary exchanges between poet Murilo Mendes, Jorge de Lima and the painter Ismael Nery.Keywords: Surrealism in Brazil; visual arts; modern avant-garde; photography.

Abstract. The USA and Canada have entered negotiations to modernize the Columbia River Treaty, signed in 1961. Key priorities are balancing flood risk and hydropower production, and improving aquatic ecosystem function while incorporating projected effects of climate change. In support of the US effort, Chegwidden et al. (2017) developed a large-ensemble dataset of past and future daily streamflows at 396 sites throughout the Columbia River basin (CRB) and selected other watersheds in western Washington and Oregon, using state-of-the art climate and hydrologic models. In this study, we use that dataset to present new analyses of the effects of future climate change on flooding using water year maximum daily streamflows. For each simulation, flood statistics are estimated from generalized extreme value distributions fit to simulated water year maximum daily streamflows for 50-year windows of the past (1950–1999) and future (2050–2099) periods. Our results contrast with previous findings: we find that the vast majority of locations in the CRB are estimated to experience an increase in future streamflow magnitudes. The near ubiquity of increases is all the more remarkable in that our approach explores a larger set of methodological variation than previous studies; however, like previous studies, our modeling system was not calibrated to minimize error in maximum daily streamflow and may be affected by unquantifiable errors. We show that on the Columbia and Willamette rivers increases in streamflow magnitudes are smallest downstream and grow larger moving upstream. For the Snake River, however, the pattern is reversed, with increases in streamflow magnitudes growing larger moving downstream to the confluence with the Salmon River tributary and then abruptly dropping. We decompose the variation in results attributable to variability in climate and hydrologic factors across the ensemble, finding that climate contributes more variation in larger basins, while hydrology contributes more in smaller basins. Equally important for practical applications like flood control rule curves, the seasonal timing of flooding shifts dramatically on some rivers (e.g., on the Snake, 20th-century floods occur exclusively in late spring, but by the end of the 21st century some floods occur as early as December) and not at all on others (e.g., the Willamette River).

The purpose of this article is to analyze the magazines and newspapers for children and youth issued on the territory of Siberia in 1920s – 1930s. A great many children’s books were issued that years, moreover, the approach to design of that books and to the contents of writings for children changed significantly: the topics had to be actual, associated with the construction of the new society. At the same time, exactly in children’s press in 1920s, the new principles of book graphics were formed. There are a large number of magazines and newspapers aimed at youth audiences were published in Siberia in the 1920s and 1930s, but they did not have a long history. Some of them appeared only once or twice, after that they closed. But all the more interesting is the study of these rare publications as experiments that influenced how the Soviet children’s and youth magazine was formed. Viewing magazines and newspapers allows you to observe how the rubrication and the genre system of Soviet publications for children evolved, as well as identify trends that have become a definite “sign of the times”. The article explores archive materials and examines the contents of printed issues, peculiarities of the approaches to the inner composition of the material and design techniques, discovers the features of the “Soviet avant-garde” development in children’s and youth periodicals. It indicates that the majority of the Siberian Children’s and youth magazines issued within that period has demonstrated a strongly demonstrated ideological overtone, claiming its purpose raising the new type of human and orientation on the “iterature of fact”. The article covers the peculiarities of the illustration techniques in Siberian post-revolutionary magazines. The article marks that up to the mid – late 1920s, the children’s and youth periodicals design became composed of such elements as insets, plane drawings based on a contrast combination of black and white, photography and photographic compilation. Furthermore, it describes a number of self-presentation techniques, developed exactly by the avant-garde art. As can be seen from the above, it can be stated that Siberian children’s and youth journalism acquired the avant-garde trends of the first third of the 20th century, however, they haven’t been gradually and fully realized.

from different fi elds of art refer to the same topic. Stable repetition of phenomena, the names of which were originally perceived in the poetic and metaphorical way, indicates the formation of a certain genre branch, little developed in scientifi c research. Genre neoformations of this kind include walks, behind the semantic layer of which a certain set of stylistic means shines through. It is not by chance that attempts are made to comprehend this phenomenon in aesthetic and artistic aspects. Objectives. The purpose of the article is to highlight the phenomena of artistic culture with the most vivid signs of promenade elements, to consider a set of musical instruments used by French composers of the late 19th – early 20th century in the music “walks”. Methods. To determine the role of walks in the genre palette of the music of the 20th century, the historical biographical and the comparative research methods were used. Results. The author of the article reveals the role of walks in the French national life and culture. Their characteristic signs are the following: desire for rest, lightness of being, enjoying the moment. From here, the verbal landscapes from the “In Search of Lost Time” novel by M. Proust take their beginning in, which were inspired by his walking in the Bois de Boulogne forest, in the outskirts of Paris, the province of Illiers-Combray, where the writer took care of fl owers, trees and shrubs. A similar passion for walking and studying the fl ora was also experienced by the enlightener J.-J. Rousseau. He was known to spend a long time feasting eyes on plants, collecting herbariums, often recording his observations. This also explains why C. Monet loved wandering in the wilds. The famous artist, known for his landscape paintings, bought from the local farmers a piece of land that bordered with his estate in order to freely wander around the fi elds in search of the right object, favorable angle or necessary lighting. As a result, promenade walking, being a typical national feature, is often embodied in French music and poetry. This phenomenon is common outside of French art as well. In music, we can refer to “The Walk” by S. Prokofi ev and “The Walk” from the “Pictures at an Exhibition” by M. Mussorgsky; in prose - “The Walk” by N. Karamzin, “Walking in Rome” by G. Morton, “Walking with Pushkin” by A. Tertz, “Six Walks in the Fictional Woods” by U. Eco; in painting – “The Walk” by M. Chagall, “An Evening Walk”, “A Man and a Woman on a Walk in the Forest” by A. Toulouse-Lautrec, “A Walk”, “A Walk” by P. Delvaux, “A Walk” by E. Degas. Quite a few works in the genre of walks revealed such areas of public knowledge as lecture sessions, historical excursions and reviews of art. Thus, the art critic, historian, art historian S. Stavitsky organized a lecture session “Walk as a genre of modern art”, which consisted of three meetings: “Walk Aesthetics”, “Walk and Neo-avant-garde”, and “Actionist Walks”. Polish literary critic Z. Kopech published a collection of articles called “Walks in Modern Polish Literature” devoted to the issues of national prose, poetry and drama. E. Kulikova wrote the work called “Walks in the Lyrics of Anna Akhmatova”, where the author reviews several of her poems , including “The Walks”. B. Godard’s piano cycle “Chemin Faisant” (1880–1881) was analyzed, where each of the pieces appears as a sketch, a “photography” of a walking person. The fi rst three items of the cycle – “Going Over”, “Crying” and “Singing”, form a mini-cycle, since they contrast with each other in terms of image and content, although they remain related in terms of the selected means complex. Among them are: fi gures of movement, repetition, dynamic approach of “moving closer-moving away”, staccato technique in outside pieces. The unifying principle is the direction of all stylistic means to visualize a music image. This explains the presence and individual traits, since the character’s image created by the composer is endowed with a unique identity. The distinctness, tangibility of B. Godard’s musical images makes one ponder over the impact of cinema on musical art: its abilities through the details – expressions of eyes, facial expressions, turns of the head – transmit a change of emotional state, moods, put together a special emotional and psychological plot. A different approach to a descriptive music in “The Walks” (1921) by F. Poulenc is revealed, where the composer does not present a character on a walk, and does not tell stories. Instead, he creates the appropriate surrounding, inspires us with the atmosphere of such different and contrasting walks with the help of harmonic colors, tempos, texture, dynamic and articulation means. His music language is far from being simple, it is full of bizarre rhythms and complex chords, thus putting forward serious technical requirements. Above all, the composer’s targeted attitudes when creating the visible realism of his urban plots are evidenced by numerous text remarks, which are designed to guide a musician as accurately as possible towards the required performance character. They are found everywhere and relate to all components of the music: tempo, sound level, mood, articulation, agogics, pedal usage. A set of various sound and visual means help a performer to implement the composer’s instructions. Conclusions. The universal and wide compositional possibilities of walks as a special artistic genre are proved by its relevance in various types of art and scientifi c knowledge. The authors use different means of declaring their idea, and different way to materialize it. This versatile experience opens the way to comprehending the new and the unexplored, steadily and leisurely, as if you are just a curious walking person.

The exhibition entitled The Family of Man, which was designed by Edward Steichen and presented for the fi rst time in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, belongs to the most famous and most controversial photographic expositions of the 20th century. Usually perceived in the light of the anachronistic, West-centric vision of humanism, i.e. as an embodiment of Modernist views on photography, it constitutes a good example of the museum’s infl uence as a Modernist “social instrument”. However, contemporary theories in exhibition studies offer a more complex interpretation. The present work provides insight into this process by referring to the views of Mieke Bal (on the “cinematic effect” of photographic exhibitions, the narrative and relational aspect of expositions), Fred Turner (on the space of an avant-garde exhibition as the realisation of the political and social idea of a “democratic personality”) and Ariella Azoulay (on exhibition space as a “visual declaration of human rights” and the fi eld for a “photographic social contract”). The primary aim of the present article is to set The Family of Man within the framework of Polish exhibition practices. The complex origins of the American project can be traced back to avant-garde experiments with exhibition space conducted in the Bauhaus movement and in Soviet Constructivism (the psychology of perception, “photo-murals”); the analysis focuses on the political and propagandistic aspects. An analysis of the above issues provides the starting point for considering the signifi cance and probable reception of the exhibition’s spatial arrangement in the milieu of Polish architects and designers as well as its Polish variant as prepared by Stanisław Zamecznik and Wojciech Fangor. It was therefore useful to refer to Oskar Hansen and his theory of Open Form, as he cooperated with Zamecznik and Fangor at the time. Models of avant-garde and Modernist “utopian thinking” are juxtaposed, thus making it possible to perceive the process of reception in the light of its effectiveness. The article also discusses The Family of Man as a model for projects with propaganda undertones, i.e. the so-called “problem-oriented exhibitions”. It mentions attempts at adapting Steichen’s design of exhibition space to the needs of the offi cial narrative in the People’s Republic of Poland. Finally, it uncovers the ambivalent nature of the infl uence of The Family of Man and the dual status of the exhibition as both a propagandistic project and as an anti-systemic space supporting the ideal of a creative, free individual.

The artist Endel Kõks (1912–1983) is a member of the same generation of Estonian art classics as Elmar Kits and Lepo Mikko. After Kits’s and Kõks’s debut at the exhibition of the Administration of the Cultural Endowment’s Fine Art Foundation (KKSKV) in Tallinn in 1939, the three of them started to be spoken about as the promising Tartu trio. In 1944, Endel Kõks ended up in Germany as a wounded soldier, while Kits and Mikko remained in Estonia. The Kõks’s works that have surreptitiously arrived in his homeland are incidental and small in number. Thus, without any proof, an image developed or was developed of him in Soviet-era art history as a mediocre painter and especially as a weak abstractionist, which is somewhat prevalent even today. I would dispute this based on the conclusions that I reached when helping to organise the exhibition of exile Estonian art between 2008 and 201142 and Endel Kõks’s solo exhibition between 2011 and 201343; conclusions that I have supplemented with the opinions expressed by exile Estonian art historians and artists.In 1951 Kõks moved to Sweden. Paul Reets has highlighted the years between 1952 and 1956, and assumed that these were difficult years due to the contradictions he faced. According to Reets, one obstacle was influence of the Pallas on Kõks’s painting style, which was conservative and adhered to the trends of Late Cubism. According to both Eevi End and Paul Reets, Kõks painted his first abstract painting in 1956 Rahutus (Restlessness) according to the former and Konflikt (Conflict) according to the latter). A black-and-white photo exists of Restlessness, which is slightly reminiscent of Pollock, and this is not the same work that P. Reets refers to. They both note that this was a convincing and mature abstraction not a searching for form, and as Reets states, Kõks had severed himself from the Pallas.The abstract paintings created between 1956 and 1960 – Kompositsioon (Composition) (1958), Rõõmus silmapilk (Joyful Moment) (1959) and others – are constructed on the impact of a joyfully colourful palette and lines, and demonstrate a kinship with the abstract works of Vassili Kandinsky. There is also a similarity to Arshile Gorky, whose works he may have seen at the exhibition of modern American art in Stockholm in 1953.Kõks’s transition into a pure form of abstraction occurred in 1963. Reets has characterised this as a “the most wondrous year that one can expect to see in an artist’s life. Not an unexpected year, but one that was unexpectedly and extremely rich when it came to his works.” The artist started to create series of works, of which the best known is undoubtedly Elektroonika (Electronics), which was comprised of 36 sheets. According to Kõks, he developed the need and idea to create the series while listening to experimental music, watching experimental films and thinking about nuclear physics. Created with a glass printing technique, or vitreography, each work is unique due to the post-printing processing, paint dripping, spraying and additional brushstrokes and images. Of course, all this alludes to Jackson Pollock.In 1962, Kõks painted the abstract composition Astraalne (Astral), which depicts a red circle and bent violet rectangle next to it on an interesting yellowish-brown surface that creates a rough effect. Using only these two symbols, the artist creates a sense of floating in cosmic space. Starting in 1964–1965 this style gradually came to dominate his work, and in was in this style that Kõks created the works that express the greatness of his talent and the charm of the “shaper of nature forms” in the purest sense.The construction of these works is brilliantly simple, and comprised of symbols and images placed on a relatively uniform surface. The nervous brittleness and rapid movement have disappeared from the paintings. The mood is calm and reveling. There is a monumental feel to many of the pictures. Masterful, delicate colour combinations triumph. And as time goes on, the more abundant and interesting the texture becomes. Eevi End believes that Kõks was influenced by Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland and other representatives of the school of Hard-edge painting that other influential direction operating in American abstractionism during the 20th century. Kõks himself has defined his abstract paintings as biomorphic abstraction, characterized by a free formalism, spatiality and atmospherics (Arshile Gorky, William de Kooning, Mark Tobey, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock.)Kõks’s abstraction that features intellectual and cognizant images is totally the opposite of Elmar Kits’s excellent and spontaneous colourful abstraction. Kits remains true to the Pallas colour tradition; Kõks breaks out of it. Kõks feels secure painting abstract pictures and enjoys the game, which cannot be said of the thoroughly abstract works of Lepo Mikko or Alfred Kongo. Those who doubt this statement should remember that, in order to provide an assessment of Kõks’s abstract pictures, one must have seen them in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. Conclusions cannot be drawn based exclusively on the works in Estonia. As an abstractionist, he is in no way weaker than his contemporaries, just very different and the determination of superiority is a matter of taste. Endel Kõks’s greatness lies in the fact that he was able to fit with what was happening in world art (which many exile artists could not); he experimented with new directions and finally put together something new for himself, and thereby developed Estonian art as a whole.

Background. The article is dedicated to the creative communication of two outstanding Chinese musicians – a pianist Hsu Fei Ping and a composer Huang An Lun. Complete mutual understanding facilitated their communication. Practically in all his programs, the pianist included the music of Western European and Chinese composers. Critics especially noted that Hsu Fei-Ping had the musical penetration, brilliance and poetry of interpretations. Among many Chinese pianists, he was recognized as the best interpreter of piano works by Huang An Lun. This musician has a special role in the work of Huan An Lun, being not only the “addressee” and the first performer, but also the inspirer of many composer’s opuses. The context of the creative intercourse of Huang An Lun and Hsu Fei Ping is also interesting because some of the composer’s works were written on the initiative of the outstanding Chinese pianist. Objectives. The purpose of the article is to reveal the role of the outstanding pianist Hsu Fei Ping in the creativity of Huang An Lun and the features of his performing interpretation the composer’s piano works. Methods. The research methodology necessary for disclosure of the selected theme is based on an integrated scientific approach combining the principles of musical-theoretical and performing analysis. Results. Hsu Fei-Ping is rightfully regarded as one of the most brilliant Chinese pianists who made themselves known in the 20th century. In this paper the life and career of the musician is considered, a general assessment of his creative achievements is given. It is argued that the creative cooperation and friendship of Hsu Fei-Ping with his compatriot and peer Huang An-Lun was due to life circumstances. The fate of both musicians had many common “points of intersection”: both musicians were of the same age, both in their youth showed uncommon interest in learning national and western musical art. The Cultural Revolution became a tragic watershed in their lives, which, however, made it possible to get even closer to the folklore environment and to feel the pain and suffering of the Chinese people at that time. Both musicians left China in the 1970s, having received education and achieved success in developed western countries: Hsu Fei-Ping – in the USA, Huang An Lun – in Canada. It is quite natural that the communication of such bright individuals, who have gone through the difficult path of development, provided an opportunity for mutual creative enrichment. The pianist promoted Huang An-Lun’s piano music in Israel, the USA, Canada, Russia and other countries, recorded CDs with works by the composer. In 2001, in Shanghai, and then in Hong Kong, discs with a recording of the piano cycle of Huang An-Lun’s “30 Pieces in the Popular Cybei Style” were released. In the same year, he recorded in Moscow the disc with Third Dance Poem, op. 40, by Huang An Lun. Hsu Pei Fing played the piece at the Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Israel, where he became the winner. In 1990, the piece by Huang An Lun created a similar sensation at a festival dedicated to the music of contemporary composers at the Walter Concert Hall in Toronto. A few years later, Hsu Pei Fing performed the piece at Carnegie Hall in New York. The largest composition by Huang An-Lun dedicated to Hsu Pei-Fing was Concerto No. 2 in C minor op. 57 for piano and orchestra. Its premiere took place on June 12, 1999 at the stage of the Shanghai Music Hall. The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Huang An-Lun himself, the piano part was performed by Hsu Fei-Ping. With the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Konstantin Krymets, the pianist performed the second edition of the Concerto. The poem for piano and orchestra “Gulangyuy” op. 66 was written in memory of Hsu Fei Ping. The composer embodied in music the image of the birthplace of the outstanding Chinese pianist, Gulangyu Island, also known as “Piano Island”. Conclusions. Hsu Fei-Ping was for Huang An-Lun a kind of “beacon” in the field of piano music. Most of the composer’s piano works were focused on the phenomenal pianism of his friend. Being an outstanding performer of the West European classical and romantic repertoire, Hsu Fei Ping remained in the memory of musicians, first of all, as the inspirer and the best interpreter of piano works by Huang An Lun. The image of this remarkable pianist is captured in “Dance Poem No. 3” op. 40, Concert No. 2 in C minor op. 57, Poem for piano and orchestra “Gulangyuy” op. 66. Hsu Fei Ping brilliantly embodied in his performance one of the main ideas of the work of Huang An-Lun – the theme of man’s collision with forces of reality hostile to him. At the core of his performing drama is the conflict between the sinister, aggressive and lyrically quivering human beginning. It is represented by the pianist through the sound realization of various types of melodies, rhythms, textures, and the richest timbre palette. Hsu Fei Ping’s deep interpretations of Huang An Lun’s music, built on maximum polarization of images and expressive means, are the best confirmation of the mutual enrichment of the artistic worlds of two musicians, whose creative ways and convictions evolved in a similar way, which allowed them to understand each other completely.

The following article reviews a collection of photography on view at an exhibition named The Story of Light and Shadow: 20th Century Chinese Photography from Huang Jianpeng's Collection at the National Art Museum of China. Though an exhibition on Chinese photography, it included a sizable collection of Tibet-related photographs taken by early Han Chinese photographers during the early 20th century. Through a brief review of existing scholarship on photography of Tibet and a close reading of the works of Zhuang Xueben, one of the earliest Han Chinese photographers who took photos in Tibetan regions, we see how images produced during the early 20th century in Tibet are coded with layered agencies and complex motivations. Preliminarily contextualizing Zhuang Xueben’s photo-taking aspirations, I argue that early photographers of Tibet are embodiments of complex, overlapping and if not yet incongruous motivations – a complication of their own independent perspectives and professional responsibilities under the larger contextual influence from the society and its aspirations.

The article is dedicated to the development of the art of photography in Jerusalem, the foundation of which was laid by Armenians. The three presented photographs reflect the episodes and realities of the daily life of the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the first half of the 20th century – until the beginning of the Second World War. The authors are Garabed Krikorian, Johannes Krikorian and Elia Kahvedjian. The work of Armenian photographers is a special documentary material about Jerusalem at the end of the 19th century – the beginning of the 20th century, becoming an important contribution to the history of Jerusalem. They are the pioneers of photography in the Middle East. The Armenians of Jerusalem connect their history with the history of the Jewish people, since both peoples suffered many trials, including genocide. However, both peoples survived and continue to coexist side by side in the Old City, bringing them together and uniting them.

Attempting to visualize concept of “time” has a great tradition in contemporary art, in particular in conceptual art in the 20th century. The starting point for that consideration are conceptual activities in Polish contemporary art and their influence on the didactic program of teaching photography – the topics and selections taken for the visual structure of the work. Discussion on the example of selected works of Polish conceptual art of the 20th century, including the effects of the didactic process of the Photography and Multimedia Activities Studio that I run at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. As a part of research and didactic observations, for many years students have been given the task of creating a visual work that shows the passage of time. The selection of photographic pictures and the method of working should be treated as an attempt to create a personal commentary on the surrounding reality. Students are choosing a theme, planning and recording over for a long period of time, for example a few weeks or months, the natural variability of the motif with particular emphasis on the type of light resulting from the time of day and the environment. The collections are presented in the form of a slide show, and the rhythm of the appearing photographs can be variable, consciously used as an additional artistic element. In the initial phase, the students discuss the selected issue and chosen artistic convention, while the technique and artistic form are free. In my own artistic work, too, the aspect of the “time” is an important factor. In many art works and art projects it is an important semantic element. Years later, I return to the same themes or places to reinterpret them and relate to the past. It concerns both the topic, issues and the composition of the visual implementation. Examples of artistic projects implemented over many years are cycles regarding the identity of the home city, for example “Postcards from Łódź”, “genius_lodzi” or “The Origin”.

This article deals with the works of filmmakers and artists who self-impose certain protocols linked to archival configuration to structure and make sense of their films or videos. In this way, collecting, classifying, making lists, series or catalogues will be common practices in this type of work, thus following some of the steps of the art-archive binomial that starts at the beginning of the 20th century with photographic archives such as Augène’s Atget or August Sander and that expands and develops through various artistic practices to this day. Radical documentary pieces with a clear allusion to photography - showing special attention in the portrait and landscape - and where repetitive structures, fixed planes and, in general, a slow rhythm that invites contemplation proliferate. Countenance (2002) by Fiona Tan, Twenty Cigarettes (2011) by James Benning, Ruinas (2009) by Manuel Mozos or Equí y n’otru tiempu (2014) by Ramón Lluís Bande are some of the examples of this cinema that appropriates archival principles, not only to question the very idea of archive, but also as a non-narrative strategy that probes the possibilities of what cinema is and can be.

! e current study deals with the archive of the writer Virgil Birou (1903–1968), who belonged to the group “the Caraş clover” together with the sculptor Romul Ladea (1901–1970) and the historian Ion StoiaUdrea (1901–1977). After he completed the engineering studies in Timişoara, his interests were linked to literature, journalism and photography. A close friend of the writers and artists who frequented the Spieluhr restaurant in Timişoara, Virgil Birou succeeded to put together an important collection of paintings, graphic works and sculptures by the teachers and students of the Fine Arts School transferred from Cluj to Timişoara in 1933: Alexandru Popp, Romul Ladea, Catul Bogdan, Aurel Ciupe, Ion Vlasiu, Eugen Gâscă, Ştefan Gomboşiu and Tasso Marchini. After the death of the writer the art collection and the archive came under the ownership of the two children: Veturia Ioana (Turi) (1937–1997), an associated professor of ethnography and folklore at the Western University in Timişoara, and Ioan Horaţiu (Ionuţ) (1938–2012), engineer. ! e wife of the late Ioan Birou has donated the archive in 2018 to the National Museum of Banat with 2776 photos, post cards and manuscripts, newspapers, and literary magazines, which o' er a glimpse into the world of the writer Virgil Birou and his perspective about the reality of the region Banat during the * rst half of the 20th century.

The purpose of the article is an esthetic and cultural analysis of art by M. Fedoriv in the projection of performing practice the contemporary figures of musical culture in the diaspora. Methodology. To achieve the set objective was used comparative-historical, culturological, axiological theoretical and methodological approaches, also biographical and art history methods of scientific knowledge, which directed on the disclosure of the immanent features of investigated products of the creative activity of the personalities in this scientific research; determining the significance of M. Fedoriv’s in the context of the development of Ukrainian musical culture of the 20th century. The scientific novelty of the work consists in applying cultural products of the music industry (gramophone record, CDs), as elements in the source base of research in methodology comparative analysis performance-conducting interpretation of the musical heritage of the composer in the context into the professional activity of Canadian musicians. Conclusions. M. Fedoriv is a representative of the highly professional musicians from the diaspora, which multi-vector activity is marked by the upturn of the basic form of cultural identification. In order to convey the historical authenticity of the national musical tradition of liturgical singing, he researched and published church-religious tunes of the practice of worship in Ukraine, which stoped the total simplification in the performance of canonical chants in the churches of the diaspora. Reaching our time, the popularization of M. Fedoriv's work was possible thanks to the performance and production work of M. Maksymiv and R. Hurko. Thus, in except to the rotation of the digitized album «Jerusalem Matins» by M. Fedoriv on the air of foreign radio broadcasters: CBC (Canada), BBC Radio 3 (Great Britain), M. Maksimiv succeeded to reissue the CD recording of the Liturgy twice and distribute it on social network platforms. However, the precedent of reviving the process of integrating the composer's heritage into the modern media space is the activity of R. Hurko. However, the precedent of reviving the process of integrating the composer's heritage into the modern media space is the activity of R. Hurko. Under his record label CARO Productions, the artist places the audio content produced by him, the same Liturgy on Youtube, and in the form of a tracklist of a music album on commercial services (Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify). Thus, the planes of the personal activity of M. Maksymov and R. Gurko became an example of representation of dominant features of the nation's cultural genome between different generations of Ukrainians, and M. Fedoriv's work is available to its target audience beyond temporal and any territorial borders.

Европейская графика, как и все изобразительное искусство, всегда стремилась к станковости, к максимальному освобождению от пут прикладничества (Вильям Моррис с его идеями внедрения искусства в промышленность – редкое исключение). Станковая графика в Европе так и называется «Freigraphik», то есть свободная, вольная графика. Русское искусство, напротив, долго оставалось в рамках восточных традиций декоративной двухмерности. Только после реформ патриарха Никона русское изобразительное искусство бросилось догонять «западный прогресс», давно устремившийся к веризму и фотографии. Именно плоскостной подоплекой русской графики и объясняется популярность в России гравюры на дереве. Ксилография, даже репродукционная, имитировавшая в XIX веке фотографическую трехмерность, упрямо вцепившись в плоскость листа, не давала разыграться духу станковости. Начало XX века вернуло ксилографию на плоскость листа, а эстетику репродукционной гравюры сочло безнадежным анахронизмом. Художник – гравер или резчик, столкнувшийся с технологическими особенностями гравирования на дереве, поневоле умнеет как художник, выбирая оптимальный путь достижения цветовой и линейной выразительности. Европейское книгопечатание целиком обязано гравюре на дереве. Подвижные литеры суть маленькие гравюры на дереве, ныне отливаемые в металле, но бывшие когда-то вырезаемы на единой доске. Еще один пример упрямого устремления ксилографии к утилитарности – это попытка уже в XVI веке употреблять ее как репродукцию живописи. В статье упоминается об изобретении кьяроскуро Уго да Карпи. Следует обратить внимание на то, что именно прикладники – ювелиры, витражисты и архитекторы XVI века широко использовали ксилографию как средство репродуцирования и широкой популяризации своих идей и изобретений. Удивительно, что эти гравюры-чертежи в наше время воспринимаются как чисто станковые произведения. Многие из авторов этих гравюр упомянуты в публикации. Художники нашего времени заметили, что гравированная или нарезанная доска гораздо красивее оттиска с нее. Это явление натолкнуло на мысль украшать громадными ксилографиями интерьеры. Так ксилография вторглась в архитектуру. В этом и состоит парадокс: ксилография большого формата, казалась бы, должна быть идеально станковой, но нет, она сохраняет за собой функции прикладничества. European graphics, like all fine arts, has always sought to easel, to maximize their freedom from practical application (William Maurice, with his ideas of introducing art into industry, is a rare exception). The easel graphics in Europe is called «Freigraphik», i.e. free graphics. Russian art, on the contrary, has long remained within the Eastern traditions of decorative two-dimensionality. Only after the reforms of Patriarch Nikon Russian art rushed to catch up with the «Western progress», long since striving for to verism and photography. It is the planar background of the Russian graphics that explains the popularity of woodcutting in Russia. Woodcut, even reproduction, imitating photographic three-dimensionality in the 19th century, stubbornly clinging to the plane of the sheet, did not let the spirit of easel play its role. The beginning of the 20th century returned woodcuts to the plane of the sheet, and considered the aesthetics of a reproductive engraving a hopeless anachronism. An engraver or a carver, faced with the technological features of wood engraving, willy-nilly becomes wiser as an artist, choosing the best way to achieve color and linear expressiveness. European typography is entirely due to woodcut. The moving letters are small woodcuts, now molded in metal, but the former were once carved on a single board. Another example of the stubborn aspiration of woodcuts to utility is an attempt in the 16th century to use it as a reproduction of painting. The article mentions the invention a chiaroscuro by Hugo da Carpi. Attention should be paid to the fact that it was applied painters-jewelers, stained glass artists and architects of the 16th century who widely used woodcuts as a means of reproducing and widely popularizing their ideas and inventions. Surprisingly, these engravings-drawings nowadays perceived as a purely easel works. Many of the authors of these prints are mentioned in this publication. Artists of our time have noticed that the engraved or chopped board is much more beautiful than the print from it. This phenomenon prompted the idea to decorate interiors with huge woodcuts. So xylography invaded architecture. This is a paradox: large-format woodcuts, it would seem, should be ideally easel, but no, it retains the functions of applied art.

This article will look at the use of personal photographs that attempt to convey a sense of social activism as a reaction against global terrorism. Moreover, I argue that the photographs uploaded to the site “We’re Not Afraid”, which began after the London bombings in 2005, presents a forum to promote the pleasures of western cultural values as a defence against the anxiety of terror. What is compelling are the ways in which the Website promotes, seemingly, everyday modalities through what may be deemed as the domestic snapshot. Nevertheless, the aura from the context of these images operates to arouse the collective memory of terrorism and violence. It promotes photography’s spectacular power. To begin it is worthwhile considering the ways in which the spectacle of terrorism is mediated. For example, the bombs activated on the London Underground and at Tavistock Square on the 7th of July 2005 marked the day that London became a victim of ‘global’ terrorism, re-instilling the fear projected by the media to be alarmed and to be suspicious. In the shadow of the terrorist events of September 11, as well as the Madrid Bombings in 2004, the incidents once again drew attention to the point that in the Western world ‘we’ again can be under attack. Furthermore, the news media plays a vital role in mediating the reality and the spectacle of terrorist attacks in the display of visual ‘proof’. After the London bombings of 7 July 2005, the BBC Website encouraged photo submissions of the incidents, under the heading “London Explosions: Your Photos”, thus promoting citizen journalism. Within six hours the BBC site received more that 1000 photographs. According to Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC’s World Service and Global News division, “people were participating in our coverage in way we had never seen before” (13). Other news Websites, such as Reuters and MSNBC also set up a similar call and display of the incidents. The images taken by everyday people and survivors‚ suggest a visceral response to the trauma of terrorism in which they became active participants in the reportage. Leading British newspapers further evoked the sensational terror of the incidents through the captioning of horrific images of destruction. It contextualised them within the realm of fascination and fear with headlines such as “London’s Day of Terror” from the Guardian, “Terror Comes to London” from the Independent and “Al-Qa’eda Brings Terror to the Heart of London” from the Daily Telegraph (“What the Papers Say”). Roland Barthes notes that “even from the perspective of a purely immanent analysis, the structure of the photograph is not an isolated structure; it is in communication with at least one other structure, namely the text – title, caption or article – accompanying every press photograph” (16). He suggested that, with the rise to prominence of ‘the press photograph’ as a mode of visual communication, the traditional relationship between image and text was inverted: “it is not the image which comes to elucidate or ‘realize’ the text, but the latter which comes to sublimate, patheticize or rationalize the image” (25). Frederic Jameson raises a very important point in regards to the role the media plays in terror. He suggests that the Western media is not only affected by a permanent condition of amnesia, but that this has become its primary ‘informational function’ (20). Hence, terror images are constantly repeated for their affect. “When combined with the media, terrorism’s reality-making power is astounding: its capacity to blend the media’s sensational stories, old mythical stereotypes, and a burning sense of moral wrath” (Zulaika and Douglass ix). Susan Sontag, in her 2003 book Regarding the Pain of Others, also discusses the assault of images (116). She argues that “the iconography of suffering has a long pedigree. The sufferings most often deemed worthy of representation are those understood to be the product of wrath, divine or human” (40). Furthermore, globalisation has profoundly changed the rhetoric of terrorism in which the uses of photographs for political means are ubiquitous. Sontag argues that “it seems as if there is a greater quantity of such news than before” (116). Nevertheless, she stresses, “it seems normal to turn away from images that simply make us feel bad” (116). Rather, than the focus on images of despair, the “We’re Not Afraid” Website provides a reaction against visual assaults. The images suggest a turning away from the iconography of terror and suffering to a focus on everyday western middle-class modalities. The images on the site consist of domestic ritual photographic practices, such as family snapshots. The images were disseminated following what has been referred to as the ‘incidents’ by the British press of the attacks on 7 July on the London transport system. Significantly, rather than being described as an event, such as the September 11 terrorist assaults were, the term ‘incidents’ suggests that everyday modalities, the everyday ways of being, may not be affected despite the terror of the attacks. It is, perhaps, a very British approach to the idea of ‘moving on’ despite adversity, which the Website advocates. The Website invites the general public to upload personal photographs captioned with the phrase “We’re not afraid” to “show that terrorists would not change the way people lived their lives” (Clarke).The Website began on 7 July 2005 and during the first week the site received, at times, up to 15 images a minute from across the world (Nikkah). Notably, within days of the Website’s launch it received over 3500 images and 11 million hits (Clarke).The images taken by everyday people and survivors‚ suggest a visceral response to the incidents. These images seem to support Susan Sontag’s argument from On Photography, in which she argues that photography is mainly a social rite, a defence against anxiety, and a tool of power (8). The images present a social activism for the predominantly white middle-class online participants and, as such, is subversive in its move away from the contextualised sensational images of violence that abound in the mainstream press. According to the site’s creator, London Web designer, Alfie Dennen “the idea for this site came from a picture of one of the bombed trains sent from a mobile phone to Dennen’s own weblog. Someone else added the words ‘We’re Not Afraid’ alongside the image” (“‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed”). Hence, in Dennen’s Weblog the terror and trauma of the train images of the London underground, that were circulated in the main stream press, have been recontextualised by the caption to present defiance and survival. The images uploaded onto the Website range from personal snapshots to manipulated photographs which all bear the declaration: ‘We are not afraid’. Currently, there are 770 galleries with 24 images per gallery amounting to around 18500 images that have been sent to the site. The photographs provide a crack in the projected reality of terrorism and the iconography of suffering as espoused by the mainstream media. The Website claims: We’re not afraid is an outlet for the global community to speak out against the acts of terror that have struck London, Madrid, New York, Baghdad, Basra, Tikrit, Gaza, Tel-Aviv, Afghanistan, Bali, and against the atrocities occurring in cities around the world each and every day. It is a worldwide action for people not willing to be cowed by terrorism and fear mongering. It suggests that: The historical response to these types of attacks has been a show of deadly force; we believe that there is a better way. We refuse to respond to aggression and hatred in kind. Instead, we who are not afraid will continue to live our lives the best way we know how. We will work, we will play, we will laugh, we will live. We will not waste one moment, nor sacrifice one bit of our freedom, because of fear. We are not afraid. (“we’re not afraid.com: Citizens for a secure world, united against terror.”) The images evoke the social memory of our era of global terrorism. Arguably, the events since September 11 have placed the individual in a protection mode. The photographs represent, as Sontag espouses, a tool against the anxiety of our time. This is a turn away from the visual iconography of despair. As such, rather than images of suffering they are images of survival, or life carrying on as usual. Or, more precisely, the images represent depictions of everyday western middle-class existence. The images range from family snaps, touristic photographs, pictures of the London underground and some manipulated images all containing the words ‘We’re Not Afraid’. Dennen “said the site had become a symbol for people to show solidarity with London and say they will not be cowed by the bombings” (“‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed”). The photographs also serve as a form of protection of western middle-class values and lifestyle that may be threatened by terrorist acts. Of consideration is that “personal photographs not only bind us to our own pasts – they bind us to the pasts of the social groups to which we belong” (Gye 280). The images on the site may be described as a “revocation of social power through visibility” and as such photography is considered a “performance of power” (Frosh 46). Barthes asserts that “formerly, the image illustrated the text (made it clearer); today, the text loads the image, burdening it with a culture, a moral, an imagination” (25). The images loaded onto the Website “We’re Not Afraid’ assumes notions of resilience and defiance which can be closely linked to Anglo-American cultural memory and imagination. Significantly, efforts to influence ‘heart and minds’ through support of touring exhibitions were common in the earlier days of the Cold War. Sontag argues that “photographic collections can be used to substitute a world” (162). The images exalted a universal humanism, similarly to the images on the “We’re Not Afraid” site. Many exhibits were supported throughout the 1950s, often under the auspices of the USIA (United States Information Agency). A famous example is the photography exhibit ‘The Family of Man’ which travelled to 28 countries between 1955-59 and was seen by 9 million people (Kennedy 316). It contained 503 images, 273 photographers from 68 nations “it posited humanity as a universal ideal and human empathy as a compensatory response to the threat of nuclear annihilation” (Kennedy 322). Significantly, Liam Kennedy asserts that, the Cold War rhetoric surrounding the exhibition blurred the boundaries between art, information and propaganda. The exhibition has been critiqued ideologically as an imperialist project, most notably by Allan Sekula in which he states “the worldliness of photography is the outcome, not of any immanent universality of meaning, but of a project of global domination” (96). In more recent times an exhibition, backed by the US State Department titled ‘After September 11: Images from Ground Zero’, by photojournalist/art photographer Joel Meyorowitz travelled to more than 60 countries and assisted in shaping and maintaining a public memory of the attacks of the World Trade Centre and its aftermath (Kennedy 315). Similar, to ‘The Family of Man’, it adds an epic quality to the images. As Kennedy points out that: To be sure this latter exhibit has been more overtly designed as propaganda, yet it also carries the cachet of ‘culture’ (most obviously, via the signature of a renowned photographer) and is intended to transmit a universal message that transcends the politics of difference. (Kennedy 323) The Website “We’re Not Afraid’ maintains the public memory of terrorism, without the horror of suffering. With a ‘universal message’ similar to the aforementioned exhibitions, it attempts to transcends the politics of difference by addressing the ‘we’ as the ‘everyday’ citizen. It serves as a gallery space and similarly evokes western romantic universal ideals conveyed in the exhibition ‘The Family of Man’, whilst its aesthetic forms avoid the stylististically captured scenes of ‘After September 11’. As stated earlier, the site had over 11 million hits in the first few weeks; as such the sheer number of viewers exceeds that of any formal photographic exhibition. Moreover, unlike these highly constructed art exhibitions from leading professional photographers, the Website significantly presents a democratic form of participation in which the ‘personal is political’. It is the citizen journalist. It is the ‘everyday’ person, as evidenced in the predominant snapshot aesthetics and the ordinariness in the images that are employed. Kris Cohen, in his analysis of photoblogging suggests that this aesthetic emphasises the importance in “photoblogging of not thinking too much, of the role that instinct plays in the making of photographs and the photoblog” (890). As discussed, previously, the overwhelming response and contributions to the Website within days of its launch seems to suggest this. The submission of photographs suggests a visceral response to the incidents from the ‘people’ in the celebration of the ‘everyday’ and the mundane. It also should be noted that “there are now well over a million documented blogs and photoblogs in the world”, with most appearing since 2003 (Cohen 886). As Cohen suggests “their newfound popularity has provoked a gentle storm of press, along with a significant number of utopic scenarios in which blogs feature as the next emancipatory mass media product”(886). The world-wide press coverage for the “We’re Not Afraid’ site is one key example that promotes this “utopian vision of transfigured citizens and in Benedict Anderson’s well used term an ‘imagined community” (Goggin xx). Nevertheless, the defiant captioning of the images also returns us historically to the social memory of the London Blitz 1940-41 in which the theme of a transfigured community was employed and in which the London underground and shelters became a signifier for the momentum of “We’re Not Afraid’. Barthes explained in Mythologies about the “the sight of the ‘naturalness’ with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up a reality which, even though it is the one we live in, is undoubtedly determined by history” (11). What I want to argue is that the mythology surrounding the London bombings articulated in the Website “We’re Not Afraid’ is determined by 20th Century history of the media and the cultural imaginary surrounding predominantly British values*.** *The British Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, asserted that “qualities of creativity built on tolerance, openness and adaptability, work and self improvement, strong communities and families and fair play, rights and responsibilities and an outward looking approach to the world that all flow from our unique island geography and history.” (“Blair Defines British Values”). These values are suggested in the types of photographs uploaded onto the activist Website, as such notions of the British Empire are evoked. Moreover, in his address following the incident, “Blair harkened back to the ‘Blitz spirit’ that saw Londoners through the dark days of Nazi bombing during World War II — and, by association, to Winston Churchill, the wartime leader whose determined, moving speeches helped steel the national resolve” (“Blair Delivers”). In his Churchillian cadence he paid “tribute to the stoicism and resilience of the people of London who have responded in a way typical of them”. He said Britain would show “by our spirit and dignity” that “our values will long outlast” the terrorists. He further declared that “the purpose of terrorism is just that. It is to terrorize people and we will not be terrorized” (“Blair Delivers”). The mythology of the Blitz and “the interpretive context at the time (and for some years thereafter) can be summarized by the phrase ‘the People’s War’—a populist patriotism that combined criticism of the past with expectations of social change and inclusive messages of shared heritage and values” (Field 31). The image conveyed is of a renewed sense of community. The language of triumph against adversity and the endurance of ordinary citizens are also evoked in the popular press of the London incidents. The Times announced: Revulsion and resolve: Despite the shock, horror and outrage, the calm shown in London was exemplary. Ordinary life may be inconvenienced by the spectre of terror, yet terrorism will not force free societies to abandon their fundamental features. An attack was inevitable. The casualties were dreadful. The terrorists have only strengthened the resolve of Britain and its people. (“What the Papers Say”) Similarly the Daily Express headline was “We Britons Will Never Be Defeated” (“What the Papers Say”). The declaration of “We’re not afraid” alongside images on the Website follows on from this trajectory. The BBC reported that the Website “‘We’re not afraid’ gives Londoners a voice” (“Not Afraid Website Overwhelmed”). The BBC has also made a documentary concerning the mission and the somewhat utopian principles presented. Similarly discussion of the site has been evoked in other Weblogs that overwhelmingly praise it and very rarely question its role. One example is from a discussion of “We’re Not Afraid” on another activist site titled “World Changing: Change Your Thinking”. The contributor states: Well, I live in the UK and I am afraid. I’m also scared that sites like We’re Not Afraid encourage an unhealthy solidarity of superiority, nationalism and xenophobia – perpetuating a “we’re good” and “they’re evil” mentality that avoids the big picture questions of how we got here. Posted by: John Norris at July 8, 2005 03:45 AM Notably, this statement also reiterates the previous argument on cultural diplomacy presented by theorists in regards to the exhibitions of ‘The Family of Man’ and ‘After September 11’ in which the images are viewed as propaganda, promoting western cultural values. This is also supported by the mood of commentary in the British press since the London bombings, in which it is argued that “Britain and the British way of life are under threat, the implication being that the threat is so serious that it may ultimately destroy the nation and its values” (King). The significance of the Website is that it represents a somewhat democratic medium in its call for engagement and self-expression. Furthermore, the emancipatory photography of self and space, presented in the “We’re Not Afraid” site, echoes Blair’s declaration of “we will not be terrorized”. However, it follows similar politically conservative themes that were evoked in the Blitz, such as community, family and social stability, with tacit reference to social fragmentation and multi-ethnicity (Field 41-42). In general, as befitted the theme of “a People’s War,” the Blitz imagery was positive and sympathetic in the way it promoted the endurance of the ordinary citizen. Geoffrey Field suggests “it offered an implicit rejoinder to the earlier furor—focusing especially on brave, caring mothers who made efforts to retain some semblance of family under the most difficult circumstances and fathers who turned up for work no matter how heavy the bombing had been the night before” (24). Images on the Website consist of snapshots of babies, families, pets, sporting groups, people on holiday and at celebrations. It represents a, somewhat, global perspective of middle-class values. The snapshot aesthetic presents, what Liz Kotz refers to as, the “aesthetics of intimacy”. It is a certain kind of photographic work which is quasi-documentary and consists of “colour images of individuals, families, or groupings, presented in an apparently intimate, unposed manner, shot in an off-kilter, snapshot style, often a bit grainy, unfocused, off-colour” (204). These are the types of images that provide the visual gratification of solidarity amongst its contributors and viewers, as it seemingly appears more ‘real’. Yet, Kotz asserts that these type of photographs also involve a structure of power relations “that cannot be easily evaded by the spontaneous performance before the lens” (210). For example, Sarah Boxer importantly points out that “We’re Not Afraid”, set up to show solidarity with London, seems to be turning into a place where the haves of the world can show that they’re not afraid of the have-nots” (1). She argues that “there’s a brutish flaunting of wealth and leisure” (1). The iconography in the images of “We’re not Afraid” certainly promotes a ‘memorialisation’ of the middle-class sphere. The site draws attention to the values of the global neoliberal order in which capital accumulation is paramount. It, nevertheless, also attempts to challenge “the true victory of terrorism”, which Jean Baudrillard circumspectly remarks is in “the regression of the value system, of all the ideology of freedom and free movement etc… that the Western world is so proud of, and that legitimates in its eyes its power over the rest of the world”. Self-confidence is conveyed in the images. Moreover, with the subjects welcoming gaze to the camera there may be a sense of narcissism in publicising what could be considered mundane. However, visibility is power. For example, one of the contributors, Maryland USA resident Darcy Nair, said “she felt a sense of helplessness in the days after 9/11. Posting on the We’re Not Afraid may be a small act, but it does give people like her a sense that they’re doing something” (cited in Weir). Nair states that: It seems that it is the only good answer from someone like me who’s not in the government or military…There are so many other people who are joining in. When bunches of individuals get together – it does make me feel hopeful – there are so many other people who feel the same way. (cited in Weir) Participation in the Website conveys a power which consists of defiantly celebrating western middle-class aesthetics in the form of personal photography. As such, the personal becomes political and the private becomes public. The site offers an opportunity for a shared experience and a sense of community that perhaps is needed in the era of global terrorism. It could be seen as a celebration of survival (Weir). The Website seems inspirational with its defiant message. Moreover, it also has postings from various parts of the world that convey a message of triumph in the ‘everyday’. The site also presents the ubiquitous use of photography in a western cultural tradition in which idealised constructions are manifested in ‘Kodak’ moments and in which the domestic space and leisure times are immortalised and become, significantly, the arena of activism. As previously discussed Sontag argues that photography is mainly a social rite, a defence against anxiety, and a tool of power (8). The Website offers the sense of a global connection. It promotes itself as “citizens for a secure world, united against terror”. It attempts to provide a universal solidarity, which appears uplifting. It is a defence against anxiety in which, in the act of using personal photographs, it becomes part of the collective memory and assists in easing the frustration of not being able to do anything. As Sontag argues “often something looks, or is felt to look ‘better’ in a photograph. Indeed, it is one of the functions of photography to improve the normal appearance of things” (81). Rather than focus on the tragic victim of traditional photojournalism, in which the camera is directed towards the other, the site promotes the sharing and triumph of personal moments. In the spotlight are ‘everyday’ modalities from ‘everyday people’ attempting to confront the rhetoric of terrorism. In their welcoming gaze to the camera the photographic subjects challenge the notion of the sensational image, the spectacle that is on show is that of middle-class modalities and a performance of collective power. Note Themes from this article have been presented at the 2005 Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Conference in Sydney, Australia and at the 2006 Association for Cultural Studies Crossroads Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. References Barthes, Roland. “The Photographic Message.” Image-Music-Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Noonday Press, 1977 [1961]. 15-31. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Vintage, 1993 [1972]. Baudrillard, Jean. “The Spirit of Terrorism.” Trans. Rachel Bloul. La Monde 2 (2001). http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-the-spirit-of-terrorism.html>. “Blair Defines British Values.” BBC News 28 Mar. 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/693591.stm>. “Blair Delivers a Classically British Rallying Cry.” Associated Press 7 July 2005. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8502984/>. Boxter, Sarah. “On the Web, Fearlessness Meets Frivolousness.” The York Times 12 July 2005. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/arts/design/12boxe.html?ex= 1278820800&en=e3b207245991aea8&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>. Clarke, R. “Web Site Shows Defiance to Bombers: Thousands Send Images to Say ‘We Are Not Afraid.’” CNN International 12 July 2005. http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/11/london.website/>. “CJ Bombings in London.” MSNBC TV Citizen Journalist. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8499792/>. Cohen, Kris R. “What Does the Photoblog Want?” Media, Culture & Society 27.6 (2005): 883-901. Dennen, Alfie. “We’renotafraid.com: Citizens for a Secure World, United Against Terror.” http://www.werenotafraid.com/>. Field, Geoffrey. “Nights Underground in Darkest London: The Blitz, 1940–1941.” International Labor and Working-Class History 62 (2002): 11-49. Frosh, Paul. “The Public Eye and the Citizen-Voyeur: Photography as a Performance of Power.” Social Semiotics 11.1 (2001): 43-59. Gye, Lisa. “Picture This: The Impact of Mobile Camera Phones on Personal Photographic Practices.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 22.2 (2007): 279-288. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society.” The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern. New York: Verso, 1998. 1-20. Kennedy, Liam. “Remembering September 11: Photography as Cultural Diplomacy.” International Affairs 79.2 (2003): 315-326. King, Anthony. “What Does It Mean to Be British?” Telegraph 27 May 2005. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/27/ nbrit27.xml>. Kotz, Liz. “The Aesthetics of Intimacy.” In D. Bright (ed.), The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire. London: Routledge, 1998. 204-215. “London Explosions: Your Photos.” BBC News 8 July 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4660563.stm>. Nikkhah, Roya. “We’restillnotafraid.com.” Telegraph co.uk 23 July 2005. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/24/ nseven224.xml>. “‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed.” BBC News 12 July 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/london/4674425.stm>. Norris, John. “We’re Not Afraid”. World Changing: Change Your Thinking. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003069.html>. “Reuters: You Witness News.” http://www.reuters.com/youwitness>. Sambrook, Richard. “Citizen Journalism and the BBC.” Nieman Reports (Winter 2005): 13-16. Sekula, Allan. “The Traffic in Photographs.” In Photography against the Grain: Essays and Photoworks 1973-1983. Halifax Nova Scotia: Nova Scotia College Press, 1984. Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2003. Sontag. Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1977. Weir, William. “The Global Community Support and Sends a Defiant Message to Terrorists.” Hartford Courant 14 July 2005. http://www.uchc.edu/ocomm/newsarchive/news05/jul05/notafraid.html>. We’renot afraid.com: Citizens for a Secure World, United against Terror. http://www.werenotafraid.com>. “What the Papers Say.” Media Guardian 8 July 2005. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/jul/08/pressandpublishing.terrorism1>. Zulaika, Joseba, and William A. Douglass. Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables, and Faces of Terrorism. New York: Routledge, 1996. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Allmark, Panizza. "Photography after the Incidents: We’re Not Afraid!." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/06-allmark.php>. APA Style Allmark, P. (Apr. 2008) "Photography after the Incidents: We’re Not Afraid!," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/06-allmark.php>.

This article will look at the use of personal photographs that attempt to convey a sense of social activism as a reaction against global terrorism. Moreover, I argue that the photographs uploaded to the site “We’re Not Afraid”, which began after the London bombings in 2005, presents a forum to promote the pleasures of western cultural values as a defence against the anxiety of terror. What is compelling are the ways in which the Website promotes, seemingly, everyday modalities through what may be deemed as the domestic snapshot. Nevertheless, the aura from the context of these images operates to arouse the collective memory of terrorism and violence. It promotes photography’s spectacular power. To begin it is worthwhile considering the ways in which the spectacle of terrorism is mediated. For example, the bombs activated on the London Underground and at Tavistock Square on the 7th of July 2005 marked the day that London became a victim of ‘global’ terrorism, re-instilling the fear projected by the media to be alarmed and to be suspicious. In the shadow of the terrorist events of September 11, as well as the Madrid Bombings in 2004, the incidents once again drew attention to the point that in the Western world ‘we’ again can be under attack. Furthermore, the news media plays a vital role in mediating the reality and the spectacle of terrorist attacks in the display of visual ‘proof’. After the London bombings of 7 July 2005, the BBC Website encouraged photo submissions of the incidents, under the heading “London Explosions: Your Photos”, thus promoting citizen journalism. Within six hours the BBC site received more that 1000 photographs. According to Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC’s World Service and Global News division, “people were participating in our coverage in way we had never seen before” (13). Other news Websites, such as Reuters and MSNBC also set up a similar call and display of the incidents. The images taken by everyday people and survivors‚ suggest a visceral response to the trauma of terrorism in which they became active participants in the reportage. Leading British newspapers further evoked the sensational terror of the incidents through the captioning of horrific images of destruction. It contextualised them within the realm of fascination and fear with headlines such as “London’s Day of Terror” from the Guardian, “Terror Comes to London” from the Independent and “Al-Qa’eda Brings Terror to the Heart of London” from the Daily Telegraph (“What the Papers Say”). Roland Barthes notes that “even from the perspective of a purely immanent analysis, the structure of the photograph is not an isolated structure; it is in communication with at least one other structure, namely the text – title, caption or article – accompanying every press photograph” (16). He suggested that, with the rise to prominence of ‘the press photograph’ as a mode of visual communication, the traditional relationship between image and text was inverted: “it is not the image which comes to elucidate or ‘realize’ the text, but the latter which comes to sublimate, patheticize or rationalize the image” (25). Frederic Jameson raises a very important point in regards to the role the media plays in terror. He suggests that the Western media is not only affected by a permanent condition of amnesia, but that this has become its primary ‘informational function’ (20). Hence, terror images are constantly repeated for their affect. “When combined with the media, terrorism’s reality-making power is astounding: its capacity to blend the media’s sensational stories, old mythical stereotypes, and a burning sense of moral wrath” (Zulaika and Douglass ix). Susan Sontag, in her 2003 book Regarding the Pain of Others, also discusses the assault of images (116). She argues that “the iconography of suffering has a long pedigree. The sufferings most often deemed worthy of representation are those understood to be the product of wrath, divine or human” (40). Furthermore, globalisation has profoundly changed the rhetoric of terrorism in which the uses of photographs for political means are ubiquitous. Sontag argues that “it seems as if there is a greater quantity of such news than before” (116). Nevertheless, she stresses, “it seems normal to turn away from images that simply make us feel bad” (116). Rather, than the focus on images of despair, the “We’re Not Afraid” Website provides a reaction against visual assaults. The images suggest a turning away from the iconography of terror and suffering to a focus on everyday western middle-class modalities. The images on the site consist of domestic ritual photographic practices, such as family snapshots. The images were disseminated following what has been referred to as the ‘incidents’ by the British press of the attacks on 7 July on the London transport system. Significantly, rather than being described as an event, such as the September 11 terrorist assaults were, the term ‘incidents’ suggests that everyday modalities, the everyday ways of being, may not be affected despite the terror of the attacks. It is, perhaps, a very British approach to the idea of ‘moving on’ despite adversity, which the Website advocates. The Website invites the general public to upload personal photographs captioned with the phrase “We’re not afraid” to “show that terrorists would not change the way people lived their lives” (Clarke).The Website began on 7 July 2005 and during the first week the site received, at times, up to 15 images a minute from across the world (Nikkah). Notably, within days of the Website’s launch it received over 3500 images and 11 million hits (Clarke).The images taken by everyday people and survivors‚ suggest a visceral response to the incidents. These images seem to support Susan Sontag’s argument from On Photography, in which she argues that photography is mainly a social rite, a defence against anxiety, and a tool of power (8). The images present a social activism for the predominantly white middle-class online participants and, as such, is subversive in its move away from the contextualised sensational images of violence that abound in the mainstream press. According to the site’s creator, London Web designer, Alfie Dennen “the idea for this site came from a picture of one of the bombed trains sent from a mobile phone to Dennen’s own weblog. Someone else added the words ‘We’re Not Afraid’ alongside the image” (“‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed”). Hence, in Dennen’s Weblog the terror and trauma of the train images of the London underground, that were circulated in the main stream press, have been recontextualised by the caption to present defiance and survival. The images uploaded onto the Website range from personal snapshots to manipulated photographs which all bear the declaration: ‘We are not afraid’. Currently, there are 770 galleries with 24 images per gallery amounting to around 18500 images that have been sent to the site. The photographs provide a crack in the projected reality of terrorism and the iconography of suffering as espoused by the mainstream media. The Website claims: We’re not afraid is an outlet for the global community to speak out against the acts of terror that have struck London, Madrid, New York, Baghdad, Basra, Tikrit, Gaza, Tel-Aviv, Afghanistan, Bali, and against the atrocities occurring in cities around the world each and every day. It is a worldwide action for people not willing to be cowed by terrorism and fear mongering. It suggests that: The historical response to these types of attacks has been a show of deadly force; we believe that there is a better way. We refuse to respond to aggression and hatred in kind. Instead, we who are not afraid will continue to live our lives the best way we know how. We will work, we will play, we will laugh, we will live. We will not waste one moment, nor sacrifice one bit of our freedom, because of fear. We are not afraid. (“we’re not afraid.com: Citizens for a secure world, united against terror.”) The images evoke the social memory of our era of global terrorism. Arguably, the events since September 11 have placed the individual in a protection mode. The photographs represent, as Sontag espouses, a tool against the anxiety of our time. This is a turn away from the visual iconography of despair. As such, rather than images of suffering they are images of survival, or life carrying on as usual. Or, more precisely, the images represent depictions of everyday western middle-class existence. The images range from family snaps, touristic photographs, pictures of the London underground and some manipulated images all containing the words ‘We’re Not Afraid’. Dennen “said the site had become a symbol for people to show solidarity with London and say they will not be cowed by the bombings” (“‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed”). The photographs also serve as a form of protection of western middle-class values and lifestyle that may be threatened by terrorist acts. Of consideration is that “personal photographs not only bind us to our own pasts – they bind us to the pasts of the social groups to which we belong” (Gye 280). The images on the site may be described as a “revocation of social power through visibility” and as such photography is considered a “performance of power” (Frosh 46). Barthes asserts that “formerly, the image illustrated the text (made it clearer); today, the text loads the image, burdening it with a culture, a moral, an imagination” (25). The images loaded onto the Website “We’re Not Afraid’ assumes notions of resilience and defiance which can be closely linked to Anglo-American cultural memory and imagination. Significantly, efforts to influence ‘heart and minds’ through support of touring exhibitions were common in the earlier days of the Cold War. Sontag argues that “photographic collections can be used to substitute a world” (162). The images exalted a universal humanism, similarly to the images on the “We’re Not Afraid” site. Many exhibits were supported throughout the 1950s, often under the auspices of the USIA (United States Information Agency). A famous example is the photography exhibit ‘The Family of Man’ which travelled to 28 countries between 1955-59 and was seen by 9 million people (Kennedy 316). It contained 503 images, 273 photographers from 68 nations “it posited humanity as a universal ideal and human empathy as a compensatory response to the threat of nuclear annihilation” (Kennedy 322). Significantly, Liam Kennedy asserts that, the Cold War rhetoric surrounding the exhibition blurred the boundaries between art, information and propaganda. The exhibition has been critiqued ideologically as an imperialist project, most notably by Allan Sekula in which he states “the worldliness of photography is the outcome, not of any immanent universality of meaning, but of a project of global domination” (96). In more recent times an exhibition, backed by the US State Department titled ‘After September 11: Images from Ground Zero’, by photojournalist/art photographer Joel Meyorowitz travelled to more than 60 countries and assisted in shaping and maintaining a public memory of the attacks of the World Trade Centre and its aftermath (Kennedy 315). Similar, to ‘The Family of Man’, it adds an epic quality to the images. As Kennedy points out that: To be sure this latter exhibit has been more overtly designed as propaganda, yet it also carries the cachet of ‘culture’ (most obviously, via the signature of a renowned photographer) and is intended to transmit a universal message that transcends the politics of difference. (Kennedy 323) The Website “We’re Not Afraid’ maintains the public memory of terrorism, without the horror of suffering. With a ‘universal message’ similar to the aforementioned exhibitions, it attempts to transcends the politics of difference by addressing the ‘we’ as the ‘everyday’ citizen. It serves as a gallery space and similarly evokes western romantic universal ideals conveyed in the exhibition ‘The Family of Man’, whilst its aesthetic forms avoid the stylististically captured scenes of ‘After September 11’. As stated earlier, the site had over 11 million hits in the first few weeks; as such the sheer number of viewers exceeds that of any formal photographic exhibition. Moreover, unlike these highly constructed art exhibitions from leading professional photographers, the Website significantly presents a democratic form of participation in which the ‘personal is political’. It is the citizen journalist. It is the ‘everyday’ person, as evidenced in the predominant snapshot aesthetics and the ordinariness in the images that are employed. Kris Cohen, in his analysis of photoblogging suggests that this aesthetic emphasises the importance in “photoblogging of not thinking too much, of the role that instinct plays in the making of photographs and the photoblog” (890). As discussed, previously, the overwhelming response and contributions to the Website within days of its launch seems to suggest this. The submission of photographs suggests a visceral response to the incidents from the ‘people’ in the celebration of the ‘everyday’ and the mundane. It also should be noted that “there are now well over a million documented blogs and photoblogs in the world”, with most appearing since 2003 (Cohen 886). As Cohen suggests “their newfound popularity has provoked a gentle storm of press, along with a significant number of utopic scenarios in which blogs feature as the next emancipatory mass media product”(886). The world-wide press coverage for the “We’re Not Afraid’ site is one key example that promotes this “utopian vision of transfigured citizens and in Benedict Anderson’s well used term an ‘imagined community” (Goggin xx). Nevertheless, the defiant captioning of the images also returns us historically to the social memory of the London Blitz 1940-41 in which the theme of a transfigured community was employed and in which the London underground and shelters became a signifier for the momentum of “We’re Not Afraid’. Barthes explained in Mythologies about the “the sight of the ‘naturalness’ with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up a reality which, even though it is the one we live in, is undoubtedly determined by history” (11). What I want to argue is that the mythology surrounding the London bombings articulated in the Website “We’re Not Afraid’ is determined by 20th Century history of the media and the cultural imaginary surrounding predominantly British values*.** *The British Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, asserted that “qualities of creativity built on tolerance, openness and adaptability, work and self improvement, strong communities and families and fair play, rights and responsibilities and an outward looking approach to the world that all flow from our unique island geography and history.” (“Blair Defines British Values”). These values are suggested in the types of photographs uploaded onto the activist Website, as such notions of the British Empire are evoked. Moreover, in his address following the incident, “Blair harkened back to the ‘Blitz spirit’ that saw Londoners through the dark days of Nazi bombing during World War II — and, by association, to Winston Churchill, the wartime leader whose determined, moving speeches helped steel the national resolve” (“Blair Delivers”). In his Churchillian cadence he paid “tribute to the stoicism and resilience of the people of London who have responded in a way typical of them”. He said Britain would show “by our spirit and dignity” that “our values will long outlast” the terrorists. He further declared that “the purpose of terrorism is just that. It is to terrorize people and we will not be terrorized” (“Blair Delivers”). The mythology of the Blitz and “the interpretive context at the time (and for some years thereafter) can be summarized by the phrase ‘the People’s War’—a populist patriotism that combined criticism of the past with expectations of social change and inclusive messages of shared heritage and values” (Field 31). The image conveyed is of a renewed sense of community. The language of triumph against adversity and the endurance of ordinary citizens are also evoked in the popular press of the London incidents. The Times announced: Revulsion and resolve: Despite the shock, horror and outrage, the calm shown in London was exemplary. Ordinary life may be inconvenienced by the spectre of terror, yet terrorism will not force free societies to abandon their fundamental features. An attack was inevitable. The casualties were dreadful. The terrorists have only strengthened the resolve of Britain and its people. (“What the Papers Say”) Similarly the Daily Express headline was “We Britons Will Never Be Defeated” (“What the Papers Say”). The declaration of “We’re not afraid” alongside images on the Website follows on from this trajectory. The BBC reported that the Website “‘We’re not afraid’ gives Londoners a voice” (“Not Afraid Website Overwhelmed”). The BBC has also made a documentary concerning the mission and the somewhat utopian principles presented. Similarly discussion of the site has been evoked in other Weblogs that overwhelmingly praise it and very rarely question its role. One example is from a discussion of “We’re Not Afraid” on another activist site titled “World Changing: Change Your Thinking”. The contributor states: Well, I live in the UK and I am afraid. I’m also scared that sites like We’re Not Afraid encourage an unhealthy solidarity of superiority, nationalism and xenophobia – perpetuating a “we’re good” and “they’re evil” mentality that avoids the big picture questions of how we got here. Posted by: John Norris at July 8, 2005 03:45 AM Notably, this statement also reiterates the previous argument on cultural diplomacy presented by theorists in regards to the exhibitions of ‘The Family of Man’ and ‘After September 11’ in which the images are viewed as propaganda, promoting western cultural values. This is also supported by the mood of commentary in the British press since the London bombings, in which it is argued that “Britain and the British way of life are under threat, the implication being that the threat is so serious that it may ultimately destroy the nation and its values” (King). The significance of the Website is that it represents a somewhat democratic medium in its call for engagement and self-expression. Furthermore, the emancipatory photography of self and space, presented in the “We’re Not Afraid” site, echoes Blair’s declaration of “we will not be terrorized”. However, it follows similar politically conservative themes that were evoked in the Blitz, such as community, family and social stability, with tacit reference to social fragmentation and multi-ethnicity (Field 41-42). In general, as befitted the theme of “a People’s War,” the Blitz imagery was positive and sympathetic in the way it promoted the endurance of the ordinary citizen. Geoffrey Field suggests “it offered an implicit rejoinder to the earlier furor—focusing especially on brave, caring mothers who made efforts to retain some semblance of family under the most difficult circumstances and fathers who turned up for work no matter how heavy the bombing had been the night before” (24). Images on the Website consist of snapshots of babies, families, pets, sporting groups, people on holiday and at celebrations. It represents a, somewhat, global perspective of middle-class values. The snapshot aesthetic presents, what Liz Kotz refers to as, the “aesthetics of intimacy”. It is a certain kind of photographic work which is quasi-documentary and consists of “colour images of individuals, families, or groupings, presented in an apparently intimate, unposed manner, shot in an off-kilter, snapshot style, often a bit grainy, unfocused, off-colour” (204). These are the types of images that provide the visual gratification of solidarity amongst its contributors and viewers, as it seemingly appears more ‘real’. Yet, Kotz asserts that these type of photographs also involve a structure of power relations “that cannot be easily evaded by the spontaneous performance before the lens” (210). For example, Sarah Boxer importantly points out that “We’re Not Afraid”, set up to show solidarity with London, seems to be turning into a place where the haves of the world can show that they’re not afraid of the have-nots” (1). She argues that “there’s a brutish flaunting of wealth and leisure” (1). The iconography in the images of “We’re not Afraid” certainly promotes a ‘memorialisation’ of the middle-class sphere. The site draws attention to the values of the global neoliberal order in which capital accumulation is paramount. It, nevertheless, also attempts to challenge “the true victory of terrorism”, which Jean Baudrillard circumspectly remarks is in “the regression of the value system, of all the ideology of freedom and free movement etc… that the Western world is so proud of, and that legitimates in its eyes its power over the rest of the world”. Self-confidence is conveyed in the images. Moreover, with the subjects welcoming gaze to the camera there may be a sense of narcissism in publicising what could be considered mundane. However, visibility is power. For example, one of the contributors, Maryland USA resident Darcy Nair, said “she felt a sense of helplessness in the days after 9/11. Posting on the We’re Not Afraid may be a small act, but it does give people like her a sense that they’re doing something” (cited in Weir). Nair states that: It seems that it is the only good answer from someone like me who’s not in the government or military…There are so many other people who are joining in. When bunches of individuals get together – it does make me feel hopeful – there are so many other people who feel the same way. (cited in Weir) Participation in the Website conveys a power which consists of defiantly celebrating western middle-class aesthetics in the form of personal photography. As such, the personal becomes political and the private becomes public. The site offers an opportunity for a shared experience and a sense of community that perhaps is needed in the era of global terrorism. It could be seen as a celebration of survival (Weir). The Website seems inspirational with its defiant message. Moreover, it also has postings from various parts of the world that convey a message of triumph in the ‘everyday’. The site also presents the ubiquitous use of photography in a western cultural tradition in which idealised constructions are manifested in ‘Kodak’ moments and in which the domestic space and leisure times are immortalised and become, significantly, the arena of activism. As previously discussed Sontag argues that photography is mainly a social rite, a defence against anxiety, and a tool of power (8). The Website offers the sense of a global connection. It promotes itself as “citizens for a secure world, united against terror”. It attempts to provide a universal solidarity, which appears uplifting. It is a defence against anxiety in which, in the act of using personal photographs, it becomes part of the collective memory and assists in easing the frustration of not being able to do anything. As Sontag argues “often something looks, or is felt to look ‘better’ in a photograph. Indeed, it is one of the functions of photography to improve the normal appearance of things” (81). Rather than focus on the tragic victim of traditional photojournalism, in which the camera is directed towards the other, the site promotes the sharing and triumph of personal moments. In the spotlight are ‘everyday’ modalities from ‘everyday people’ attempting to confront the rhetoric of terrorism. In their welcoming gaze to the camera the photographic subjects challenge the notion of the sensational image, the spectacle that is on show is that of middle-class modalities and a performance of collective power. Note Themes from this article have been presented at the 2005 Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Conference in Sydney, Australia and at the 2006 Association for Cultural Studies Crossroads Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. References Barthes, Roland. “The Photographic Message.” Image-Music-Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Noonday Press, 1977 [1961]. 15-31. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Vintage, 1993 [1972]. Baudrillard, Jean. “The Spirit of Terrorism.” Trans. Rachel Bloul. La Monde 2 (2001). < http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-the-spirit-of-terrorism.html >. “Blair Defines British Values.” BBC News 28 Mar. 2000. < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/693591.stm >. “Blair Delivers a Classically British Rallying Cry.” Associated Press 7 July 2005. < http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8502984/ >. Boxter, Sarah. “On the Web, Fearlessness Meets Frivolousness.” The York Times 12 July 2005. < http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/arts/design/12boxe.html?ex= 1278820800&en=e3b207245991aea8&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss >. Clarke, R. “Web Site Shows Defiance to Bombers: Thousands Send Images to Say ‘We Are Not Afraid.’” CNN International 12 July 2005. < http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/11/london.website/ >. “CJ Bombings in London.” MSNBC TV Citizen Journalist. < http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8499792/ >. Cohen, Kris R. “What Does the Photoblog Want?” Media, Culture & Society 27.6 (2005): 883-901. Dennen, Alfie. “We’renotafraid.com: Citizens for a Secure World, United Against Terror.” < http://www.werenotafraid.com/ >. Field, Geoffrey. “Nights Underground in Darkest London: The Blitz, 1940–1941.” International Labor and Working-Class History 62 (2002): 11-49. Frosh, Paul. “The Public Eye and the Citizen-Voyeur: Photography as a Performance of Power.” Social Semiotics 11.1 (2001): 43-59. Gye, Lisa. “Picture This: The Impact of Mobile Camera Phones on Personal Photographic Practices.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 22.2 (2007): 279-288. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society.” The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern. New York: Verso, 1998. 1-20. Kennedy, Liam. “Remembering September 11: Photography as Cultural Diplomacy.” International Affairs 79.2 (2003): 315-326. King, Anthony. “What Does It Mean to Be British?” Telegraph 27 May 2005. < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/27/ nbrit27.xml >. Kotz, Liz. “The Aesthetics of Intimacy.” In D. Bright (ed.), The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire. London: Routledge, 1998. 204-215. “London Explosions: Your Photos.” BBC News 8 July 2005 < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4660563.stm >. Nikkhah, Roya. “We’restillnotafraid.com.” Telegraph co.uk 23 July 2005. < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/24/ nseven224.xml >. “‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed.” BBC News 12 July 2005. < http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/london/4674425.stm >. Norris, John. “We’re Not Afraid”. World Changing: Change Your Thinking. < http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003069.html >. “Reuters: You Witness News.” < http://www.reuters.com/youwitness >. Sambrook, Richard. “Citizen Journalism and the BBC.” Nieman Reports (Winter 2005): 13-16. Sekula, Allan. “The Traffic in Photographs.” In Photography against the Grain: Essays and Photoworks 1973-1983. Halifax Nova Scotia: Nova Scotia College Press, 1984. Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2003. Sontag. Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1977. Weir, William. “The Global Community Support and Sends a Defiant Message to Terrorists.” Hartford Courant 14 July 2005. < http://www.uchc.edu/ocomm/newsarchive/news05/jul05/notafraid.html >. We’renot afraid.com: Citizens for a Secure World, United against Terror. < http://www.werenotafraid.com >. “What the Papers Say.” Media Guardian 8 July 2005. < http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/jul/08/pressandpublishing.terrorism1 >. Zulaika, Joseba, and William A. Douglass. Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables, and Faces of Terrorism. New York: Routledge, 1996.

While the term “visual literacy” has grown in popularity in the last 50 years, its meaning remains nebulous. It is described variously as: a vehicle for aesthetic appreciation, a means of defence against visual manipulation, a sorting mechanism for an increasingly data-saturated age, and a prerequisite to civic inclusion (Fransecky 23; Messaris 181; McTigue and Flowers 580). Scholars have written extensively about the first three subjects but there has been less research on how visual literacy frames civic life and how it might help the public as a tool to address disadvantage and assist in removing social and cultural barriers. This article examines a forerunner to visual literacy in the push to create an international symbol language born out of popular education movements, a project that fell short of its goals but still left a considerable impression on graphic media. This article, then, presents an analysis of visual literacy campaigns in the early postwar era. These campaigns did not attempt to invent a symbolic language but posited that images themselves served as a universal language in which students could receive training. Of particular interest is how the concept of visual literacy has been mobilised as a pedagogical tool in design, digital humanities and in broader civic education initiatives promoted by Third Space institutions. Behind the creation of new visual literacy curricula is the idea that images can help anchor a world community, supplementing textual communication. Figure 1: Visual Literacy Yearbook. Montebello Unified School District, USA, 1973. Shedding Light: Origins of the Visual Literacy Frame The term “visual literacy” came to the fore in the early 1970s on the heels of mass literacy campaigns. The educators, creatives and media theorists who first advocated for visual learning linked this aim to literacy, an unassailable goal, to promote a more radical curricular overhaul. They challenged a system that had hitherto only acknowledged a very limited pathway towards academic success; pushing “language and mathematics”, courses “referred to as solids (something substantial) as contrasted with liquids or gases (courses with little or no substance)” (Eisner 92). This was deemed “a parochial view of both human ability and the possibilities of education” that did not acknowledge multiple forms of intelligence (Gardner). This change not only integrated elements of mass culture that had been rejected in education, notably film and graphic arts, but also encouraged the critique of images as a form of good citizenship, assuming that visually literate arbiters could call out media misrepresentations and manipulative political advertising (Messaris, “Visual Test”). This movement was, in many ways, reactive to new forms of mass media that began to replace newspapers as key forms of civic participation. Unlike simple literacy (being able to decipher letters as a mnemonic system), visual literacy involves imputing meanings to images where meanings are less fixed, yet still with embedded cultural signifiers. Visual literacy promised to extend enlightenment metaphors of sight (as in the German Aufklärung) and illumination (as in the French Lumières) to help citizens understand an increasingly complex marketplace of images. The move towards visual literacy was not so much a shift towards images (and away from books and oration) but an affirmation of the need to critically investigate the visual sphere. It introduced doubt to previously upheld hierarchies of perception. Sight, to Kant the “noblest of the senses” (158), was no longer the sense “least affected” by the surrounding world but an input centre that was equally manipulable. In Kant’s view of societal development, the “cosmopolitan” held the key to pacifying bellicose states and ensuring global prosperity and tranquillity. The process of developing a cosmopolitan ideology rests, according to Kant, on the gradual elimination of war and “the education of young people in intellectual and moral culture” (188-89). Transforming disparate societies into “a universal cosmopolitan existence” that would “at last be realised as the matrix within which all the original capacities of the human race may develop” and would take well-funded educational institutions and, potentially, a new framework for imparting knowledge (Kant 51). To some, the world of the visual presented a baseline for shared experience. Figure 2: Exhibition by the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Vienna, photograph c. 1927. An International Picture Language The quest to find a mutually intelligible language that could “bridge worlds” and solder together all of humankind goes back to the late nineteenth century and the Esperanto movement of Ludwig Zamenhof (Schor 59). The expression of this ideal in the world of the visual picked up steam in the interwar years with designers and editors like Fritz Kahn, Gerd Arntz, and Otto and Marie Neurath. Their work transposing complex ideas into graphic form has been rediscovered as an antecedent to modern infographics, but the symbols they deployed were not to merely explain, but also help education and build international fellowship unbounded by spoken language. The Neuraths in particular are celebrated for their international picture language or Isotypes. These pictograms (sometimes viewed as proto-emojis) can be used to represent data without text. Taken together they are an “intemporal, hieroglyphic language” that Neutrath hoped would unite working-class people the world over (Lee 159). The Neuraths’ work was done in the explicit service of visual education with a popular socialist agenda and incubated in the social sphere of Red Vienna at the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum (Social and Economic Museum) where Otto served as Director. The Wirtschaftsmuseum was an experiment in popular education, with multiple branches and late opening hours to accommodate the “the working man [who] has time to see a museum only at night” (Neurath 72-73). The Isotype contained universalist aspirations for the “making of a world language, or a helping picture language—[that] will give support to international developments generally” and “educate by the eye” (Neurath 13). Figure 3: Gerd Arntz Isotype Images. (Source: University of Reading.) The Isotype was widely adopted in the postwar era in pre-packaged sets of symbols used in graphic design and wayfinding systems for buildings and transportation networks, but with the socialism of the Neuraths’ peeled away, leaving only the system of logos that we are familiar with from airport washrooms, charts, and public transport maps. Much of the uptake in this symbol language could be traced to increased mobility and tourism, particularly in countries that did not make use of a Roman alphabet. The 1964 Olympics in Tokyo helped pave the way when organisers, fearful of jumbling too many scripts together, opted instead for black and white icons to represent the program of sports that summer. The new focus on the visual was both technologically mediated—cheaper printing and broadcast technologies made the diffusion of image increasingly possible—but also ideologically supported by a growing emphasis on projects that transcended linguistic, ethnic, and national borders. The Olympic symbols gradually morphed into Letraset icons, and, later, symbols in the Unicode Standard, which are the basis for today’s emojis. Wordless signs helped facilitate interconnectedness, but only in the most literal sense; their application was limited primarily to sports mega-events, highway maps, and “brand building”, and they never fulfilled their role as an educational language “to give the different nations a common outlook” (Neurath 18). Universally understood icons, particularly in the form of emojis, point to a rise in visual communication but they have fallen short as a cosmopolitan project, supporting neither the globalisation of Kantian ethics nor the transnational socialism of the Neuraths. Figure 4: Symbols in use. Women's bathroom. 1964 Tokyo Olympics. (Source: The official report of the Organizing Committee.) Counter Education By mid-century, the optimism of a universal symbol language seemed dated, and focus shifted from distillation to discernment. New educational programs presented ways to study images, increasingly reproducible with new technologies, as a language in and of themselves. These methods had their roots in the fin-de-siècle educational reforms of John Dewey, Helen Parkhurst, and Maria Montessori. As early as the 1920s, progressive educators were using highly visual magazines, like National Geographic, as the basis for lesson planning, with the hopes that they would “expose students to edifying and culturally enriching reading” and “develop a more catholic taste or sensibility, representing an important cosmopolitan value” (Hawkins 45). The rise in imagery from previously inaccessible regions helped pupils to see themselves in relation to the larger world (although this connection always came with the presumed superiority of the reader). “Pictorial education in public schools” taught readers—through images—to accept a broader world but, too often, they saw photographs as a “straightforward transcription of the real world” (Hawkins 57). The images of cultures and events presented in Life and National Geographic for the purposes of education and enrichment were now the subject of greater analysis in the classroom, not just as “windows into new worlds” but as cultural products in and of themselves. The emerging visual curriculum aimed to do more than just teach with previously excluded modes (photography, film and comics); it would investigate how images presented and mediated the world. This gained wider appeal with new analytical writing on film, like Raymond Spottiswoode's Grammar of the Film (1950) which sought to formulate the grammatical rules of visual communication (Messaris 181), influenced by semiotics and structural linguistics; the emphasis on grammar can also be seen in far earlier writings on design systems such as Owen Jones’s 1856 The Grammar of Ornament, which also advocated for new, universalising methods in design education (Sloboda 228). The inventorying impulse is on display in books like Donis A. Dondis’s A Primer of Visual Literacy (1973), a text that meditates on visual perception but also functions as an introduction to line and form in the applied arts, picking up where the Bauhaus left off. Dondis enumerates the “syntactical guidelines” of the applied arts with illustrations that are in keeping with 1920s books by Kandinsky and Klee and analyse pictorial elements. However, at the end of the book she shifts focus with two chapters that examine “messaging” and visual literacy explicitly. Dondis predicts that “an intellectual, trained ability to make and understand visual messages is becoming a vital necessity to involvement with communication. It is quite likely that visual literacy will be one of the fundamental measures of education in the last third of our century” (33) and she presses for more programs that incorporate the exploration and analysis of images in tertiary education. Figure 5: Ideal spatial environment for the Blueprint charts, 1970. (Image: Inventory Press.) Visual literacy in education arrived in earnest with a wave of publications in the mid-1970s. They offered ways for students to understand media processes and for teachers to use visual culture as an entry point into complex social and scientific subject matter, tapping into the “visual consciousness of the ‘television generation’” (Fransecky 5). Visual culture was often seen as inherently democratising, a break from stuffiness, the “artificialities of civilisation”, and the “archaic structures” that set sensorial perception apart from scholarship (Dworkin 131-132). Many radical university projects and community education initiatives of the 1960s made use of new media in novel ways: from Maurice Stein and Larry Miller’s fold-out posters accompanying Blueprint for Counter Education (1970) to Emory Douglas’s graphics for The Black Panther newspaper. Blueprint’s text- and image-dense wall charts were made via assemblage and they were imagined less as charts and more as a “matrix of resources” that could be used—and added to—by youth to undertake their own counter education (Cronin 53). These experiments in visual learning helped to break down old hierarchies in education, but their aim was influenced more by countercultural notions of disruption than the universal ideals of cosmopolitanism. From Image as Text to City as Text For a brief period in the 1970s, thinkers like Marshall McLuhan (McLuhan et al., Massage) and artists like Bruno Munari (Tanchis and Munari) collaborated fruitfully with graphic designers to create books that mixed text and image in novel ways. Using new compositional methods, they broke apart traditional printing lock-ups to superimpose photographs, twist text, and bend narrative frames. The most famous work from this era is, undoubtedly, The Medium Is the Massage (1967), McLuhan’s team-up with graphic designer Quentin Fiore, but it was followed by dozens of other books intended to communicate theory and scientific ideas with popularising graphics. Following in the footsteps of McLuhan, many of these texts sought not just to explain an issue but to self-consciously reference their own method of information delivery. These works set the precedent for visual aids (and, to a lesser extent, audio) that launched a diverse, non-hierarchical discourse that was nonetheless bound to tactile artefacts. In 1977, McLuhan helped develop a media textbook for secondary school students called City as Classroom: Understanding Language and Media. It is notable for its direct address style and its focus on investigating spaces outside of the classroom (provocatively, a section on the third page begins with “Should all schools be closed?”). The book follows with a fine-grained analysis of advertising forms in which students are asked to first bring advertisements into class for analysis and later to go out into the city to explore “a man-made environment, a huge warehouse of information, a vast resource to be mined free of charge” (McLuhan et al., City 149). As a document City as Classroom is critical of existing teaching methods, in line with the radical “in the streets” pedagogy of its day. McLuhan’s theories proved particularly salient for the counter education movement, in part because they tapped into a healthy scepticism of advertisers and other image-makers. They also dovetailed with growing discontent with the ad-strew visual environment of cities in the 1970s. Budgets for advertising had mushroomed in the1960s and outdoor advertising “cluttered” cities with billboards and neon, generating “fierce intensities and new hybrid energies” that threatened to throw off the visual equilibrium (McLuhan 74). Visual literacy curricula brought in experiential learning focussed on the legibility of the cities, mapping, and the visualisation of urban issues with social justice implications. The Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute (DGEI), a “collective endeavour of community research and education” that arose in the aftermath of the 1967 uprisings, is the most storied of the groups that suffused the collection of spatial data with community engagement and organising (Warren et al. 61). The following decades would see a tamed approach to visual literacy that, while still pressing for critical reading, did not upend traditional methods of educational delivery. Figure 6: Beginning a College Program-Assisting Teachers to Develop Visual Literacy Approaches in Public School Classrooms. 1977. ERIC. Searching for Civic Education The visual literacy initiatives formed in the early 1970s both affirmed existing civil society institutions while also asserting the need to better inform the public. Most of the campaigns were sponsored by universities, major libraries, and international groups such as UNESCO, which published its “Declaration on Media Education” in 1982. They noted that “participation” was “essential to the working of a pluralistic and representative democracy” and the “public—users, citizens, individuals, groups ... were too systematically overlooked”. Here, the public is conceived as both “targets of the information and communication process” and users who “should have the last word”. To that end their “continuing education” should be ensured (Study 18). Programs consisted primarily of cognitive “see-scan-analyse” techniques (Little et al.) for younger students but some also sought to bring visual analysis to adult learners via continuing education (often through museums eager to engage more diverse audiences) and more radical popular education programs sponsored by community groups. By the mid-80s, scores of modules had been built around the comprehension of visual media and had become standard educational fare across North America, Australasia, and to a lesser extent, Europe. There was an increasing awareness of the role of data and image presentation in decision-making, as evidenced by the surprising commercial success of Edward Tufte’s 1982 book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Visual literacy—or at least image analysis—was now enmeshed in teaching practice and needed little active advocacy. Scholarly interest in the subject went into a brief period of hibernation in the 1980s and early 1990s, only to be reborn with the arrival of new media distribution technologies (CD-ROMs and then the internet) in classrooms and the widespread availability of digital imaging technology starting in the late 1990s; companies like Adobe distributed free and reduced-fee licences to schools and launched extensive teacher training programs. Visual literacy was reanimated but primarily within a circumscribed academic field of education and data visualisation. Figure 7: Visual Literacy; What Research Says to the Teacher, 1975. National Education Association. USA. Part of the shifting frame of visual literacy has to do with institutional imperatives, particularly in places where austerity measures forced strange alliances between disciplines. What had been a project in alternative education morphed into an uncontested part of the curriculum and a dependable budget line. This shift was already forecasted in 1972 by Harun Farocki who, writing in Filmkritik, noted that funding for new film schools would be difficult to obtain but money might be found for “training in media education … a discipline that could persuade ministers of education, that would at the same time turn the budget restrictions into an advantage, and that would match the functions of art schools” (98). Nearly 50 years later educators are still using media education (rebranded as visual or media literacy) to make the case for fine arts and humanities education. While earlier iterations of visual literacy education were often too reliant on the idea of cracking the “code” of images, they did promote ways of learning that were a deep departure from the rote methods of previous generations. Next-gen curricula frame visual literacy as largely supplemental—a resource, but not a program. By the end of the 20th century, visual literacy had changed from a scholarly interest to a standard resource in the “teacher’s toolkit”, entering into school programs and influencing museum education, corporate training, and the development of public-oriented media (Literacy). An appreciation of image culture was seen as key to creating empathetic global citizens, but its scope was increasingly limited. With rising austerity in the education sector (a shift that preceded the 2008 recession by decades in some countries), art educators, museum enrichment staff, and design researchers need to make a case for why their disciplines were relevant in pedagogical models that are increasingly aimed at “skills-based” and “job ready” teaching. Arts educators worked hard to insert their fields into learning goals for secondary students as visual literacy, with the hope that “literacy” would carry the weight of an educational imperative and not a supplementary field of study. Conclusion For nearly a century, educational initiatives have sought to inculcate a cosmopolitan perspective with a variety of teaching materials and pedagogical reference points. Symbolic languages, like the Isotype, looked to unite disparate people with shared visual forms; while educational initiatives aimed to train the eyes of students to make them more discerning citizens. The term ‘visual literacy’ emerged in the 1960s and has since been deployed in programs with a wide variety of goals. Countercultural initiatives saw it as a prerequisite for popular education from the ground up, but, in the years since, it has been formalised and brought into more staid curricula, often as a sort of shorthand for learning from media and pictures. The grand cosmopolitan vision of a complete ‘visual language’ has been scaled back considerably, but still exists in trace amounts. Processes of globalisation require images to universalise experiences, commodities, and more for people without shared languages. Emoji alphabets and globalese (brands and consumer messaging that are “visual-linguistic” amalgams “increasingly detached from any specific ethnolinguistic group or locality”) are a testament to a mediatised banal cosmopolitanism (Jaworski 231). In this sense, becoming “fluent” in global design vernacular means familiarity with firms and products, an understanding that is aesthetic, not critical. It is very much the beneficiaries of globalisation—both state and commercial actors—who have been able to harness increasingly image-based technologies for their benefit. To take a humorous but nonetheless consequential example, Spanish culinary boosters were able to successfully lobby for a paella emoji (Miller) rather than having a food symbol from a less wealthy country such as a Senegalese jollof or a Morrocan tagine. This trend has gone even further as new forms of visual communication are increasingly streamlined and managed by for-profit media platforms. The ubiquity of these forms of communication and their global reach has made visual literacy more important than ever but it has also fundamentally shifted the endeavour from a graphic sorting practice to a critical piece of social infrastructure that has tremendous political ramifications. Visual literacy campaigns hold out the promise of educating students in an image-based system with the potential to transcend linguistic and cultural boundaries. This cosmopolitan political project has not yet been realised, as the visual literacy frame has drifted into specialised silos of art, design, and digital humanities education. It can help bridge the “incomplete connections” of an increasingly globalised world (Calhoun 112), but it does not have a program in and of itself. Rather, an evolving visual literacy curriculum might be seen as a litmus test for how we imagine the role of images in the world. References Brown, Neil. “The Myth of Visual Literacy.” Australian Art Education 13.2 (1989): 28-32. Calhoun, Craig. “Cosmopolitanism in the Modern Social Imaginary.” Daedalus 137.3 (2008): 105–114. Cronin, Paul. “Recovering and Rendering Vital Blueprint for Counter Education at the California Institute for the Arts.” Blueprint for Counter Education. Inventory Press, 2016. 36-58. Dondis, Donis A. A Primer of Visual Literacy. MIT P, 1973. Dworkin, M.S. “Toward an Image Curriculum: Some Questions and Cautions.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 4.2 (1970): 129–132. Eisner, Elliot. Cognition and Curriculum: A Basis for Deciding What to Teach. Longmans, 1982. Farocki, Harun. “Film Courses in Art Schools.” Trans. Ted Fendt. Grey Room 79 (Apr. 2020): 96–99. Fransecky, Roger B. Visual Literacy: A Way to Learn—A Way to Teach. Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 1972. Gardner, Howard. Frames Of Mind. Basic Books, 1983. Hawkins, Stephanie L. “Training the ‘I’ to See: Progressive Education, Visual Literacy, and National Geographic Membership.” American Iconographic. U of Virginia P, 2010. 28–61. Jaworski, Adam. “Globalese: A New Visual-Linguistic Register.” Social Semiotics 25.2 (2015): 217-35. Kant, Immanuel. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Cambridge UP, 2006. Kant, Immanuel. “Perpetual Peace.” Political Writings. Ed. H. Reiss. Cambridge UP, 1991 [1795]. 116–130. Kress, G., and T. van Leeuwen. Reading images: The Grammar of Visual Design. Routledge, 1996. Literacy Teaching Toolkit: Visual Literacy. Department of Education and Training (DET), State of Victoria. 29 Aug. 2018. 30 Sep. 2020 <https://www.education.vic.gov.au:443/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/english/literacy/ readingviewing/Pages/litfocusvisual.aspx>. Lee, Jae Young. “Otto Neurath's Isotype and the Rhetoric of Neutrality.” Visible Language 42.2: 159-180. Little, D., et al. Looking and Learning: Visual Literacy across the Disciplines. Wiley, 2015. Messaris, Paul. “Visual Literacy vs. Visual Manipulation.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 11.2: 181-203. DOI: 10.1080/15295039409366894 ———. “A Visual Test for Visual ‘Literacy.’” The Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association. 31 Oct. to 3 Nov. 1991. Atlanta, GA. <https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED347604.pdf>. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McGraw-Hill, 1964. McLuhan, Marshall, Quentin Fiore, and Jerome Agel. The Medium Is the Massage, Bantam Books, 1967. McLuhan, Marshall, Kathryn Hutchon, and Eric McLuhan. City as Classroom: Understanding Language and Media. Agincourt, Ontario: Book Society of Canada, 1977. McTigue, Erin, and Amanda Flowers. “Science Visual Literacy: Learners' Perceptions and Knowledge of Diagrams.” Reading Teacher 64.8: 578-89. Miller, Sarah. “The Secret History of the Paella Emoji.” Food & Wine, 20 June 2017. <https://www.foodandwine.com/news/true-story-paella-emoji>. Munari, Bruno. Square, Circle, Triangle. Princeton Architectural Press, 2016. Newfield, Denise. “From Visual Literacy to Critical Visual Literacy: An Analysis of Educational Materials.” English Teaching-Practice and Critique 10 (2011): 81-94. Neurath, Otto. International Picture Language: The First Rules of Isotype. K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1936. Schor, Esther. Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language. Henry Holt and Company, 2016. Sloboda, Stacey. “‘The Grammar of Ornament’: Cosmopolitanism and Reform in British Design.” Journal of Design History 21.3 (2008): 223-36. Study of Communication Problems: Implementation of Resolutions 4/19 and 4/20 Adopted by the General Conference at Its Twenty-First Session; Report by the Director-General. UNESCO, 1983. Tanchis, Aldo, and Bruno Munari. Bruno Munari: Design as Art. MIT P, 1987. Warren, Gwendolyn, Cindi Katz, and Nik Heynen. “Myths, Cults, Memories, and Revisions in Radical Geographic History: Revisiting the Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute.” Spatial Histories of Radical Geography: North America and Beyond. Wiley, 2019. 59-86.