The lecture will explain the role of photography in human life.
On January 7, 1839, at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, François Arago provided a detailed report on the first optical-chemical method in the history of mankind of processing images and named its inventors, Louis Daguerre and Nicéphore Niépce. That same year, King Louis Philippe I signed a document, according to which Daguerre and Niépce were granted pensions for assigning their and their heirs’ rights to use this invention to the state. By delegating the right to use the photographic process to all people, this act meant that any person in any country could practice daguerreotype without limitations. It is hard to overestimate the significance of these events that have led to the current situation where photography is almost an essential necessity in everyone’s life.
“Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing—which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as art. It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power.”
(Susan Sontag. On Photography. 1977)
Books released as part of the Museum’s publishing program and referenced in the lecture: Rosalind Krauss, Le Photographique: Pour une Théorie des Écarts; Osip Brik, Photography and Cinema; Walter Benjamin, A Short History of Photography.