Thursday, 29 October 2020
Milan 6pm / London 5pm / NYC 12 noon / Los Angeles 9am / Shanghai 12 midnight
2-hour Masterclass
Live on Zoom
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In this masterclass, Estelle Blaschke, professor in media studies at the University of Basel and lecturer at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, will discuss the entanglement of photography, big data and artificial intelligence as a driving force of today’s capitalist societies. As billions of images are created, shared and archived every day, photography has become a valuable commodity and a currency that shapes many cultural, social and economic practices. Showing examples from industry, business and science, including banking, robotics, policing, mapping and navigation, Estelle argues that since these technologies and applications are becoming increasingly widespread and obscure, the field of contemporary art is the place for addressing, commenting and transcending these issues.
Estelle Blaschke is a historian of photography working in the intersection between art and media history, the history of science and cultural history. She holds an interim professorship in media studies at the University of Basel and teaches at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne. She is a member of the editorial committee of the journal Transbordeur. Photographie. Histoire. Société; the author of Banking on Images (Spector Books, 2016); and a part of several artistic research projects, including Image Capital, with Armin Linke.