Typology
Title
Author
Text

Introduction

Estelle Blaschke

In the course of the last two centuries photography has moved into every sphere of society, infiltrating science, art, politics, the news and social media, as well as all kinds of trade and industries. It has become a core element [dispositif] in our visual relationship with the world. Image Capital tells a different story of […]

In the course of the last two centuries photography has moved into every sphere of society, infiltrating science, art, politics, the news and social media, as well as all kinds of trade and industries. It has become a core element [dispositif] in our visual relationship with the world.

Image Capital tells a different story of photography: that of its myriad utilitarian uses and its function as an information technology, creating, processing and securing the flow of visual information/data. Framed in six chapters (memory, protection, access, imaging, mining, currency) it traces and links the past, present and future histories of photography as a storage and imaging device, employed in all sorts of industrial, scientific and cultural production. 

The push for photography as an information technology occurred at a time when management and administrative procedures expanded and required optimization. Information needed to be easily available; it needed to be fluid. Long before today’s information society, capitalist formations heavily depended on the systems designed to facilitate communication and access to information resources. Photography assisted the development of global industries and large governmental apparatuses. 

Digital practices appear in continuity to analogue practices, albeit at a different scale and pace. Yet, the contemporary digital practices (in modeling, engineering, agricultural production, etc.) foster, or even provoke, a re-examination of the blind spots or forgotten episodes in the historiography of photography. When, and under what circumstances, did images become operational? What is the economic power of masses of images and what role do archives and organizational systems play in not only preserving photographic ‘data’ but of generating new information and potentially new insights? What imaginaries, ideologies and rhetoric govern visual practices in capitalist societies? 

This exhibition displays contemporary photographs, archival images and objects, found footage and interviews with the aim of assessing various hypotheses about the meanings and mechanisms of photography as image capital. It traces a loose historical itinerary highlighting instances and practices that aim at describing, analyzing and reflecting on contemporary digital practices. A thorough description of contemporary algorithmic image practices, still largely untapped, is the basis of all critique. 

For all that, the exhibition does not exhaust the possible definitions and practices of what constitutes value in photography and how photography is embedded in all sorts of production processes and capital flows, but instead attempts to lay out threads that may be intertwined in multiple, open ways by its visitors. 

Typology
Title
Author
Documentation

DIF_000940_15

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_18

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_26

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_31

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_39

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_42

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_45

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_52

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_53

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_60

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_79

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000940_81

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view,
Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
photograph by Martina Pozzan
Documentation

DIF_000938_61

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

DIF_000938_72

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

DIF_000938_75

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

DIF_000938_76

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

DIF_000938_118

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

DIF_000938_129

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

DIF_000938_147

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

DIF_000938_149

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

DIF_000938_154

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

DIF_000938_165

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

DIF_000938_182

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Image Capital, Estelle Blaschke and Armin Linke, installation view
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022 Ⓒ Armin Linke
Documentation

ReN_007430_23_A

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Documentation

ReN_007430_23_A

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
ReN_007430_23 001
Documentation

DIF_000846_284

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke
Archival

REF_000475_4

Estelle Blaschke
Photographer unknown, Aperture card, ca. 1960. University of Rochester, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP), Kodak Historical Collection.
The aperture card—the combination of image and coded text—can be regarded as the ideal form of the micro-technique (before digitization): a construction plan, for example, is stored as an image and the metadata is provided on the punched card. 
Archival

REF_000475_20

Estelle Blaschke
Photographer unknown, Itek Minicard storage drawer, ca. 1965. University of Rochester, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP), Kodak Historical Collection.
As the historic link between paper and the digital form, microfilm (or the photo film as information carrier) greatly enhanced remote access to written and visual records, and simultaneously propelled the dematerialization of the user experience that marks today’s digital culture. The photo industry, in collaboration with companies specialized in business systems, designed drawer systems for  easy and fast access to the microfilm cassette, as demonstrated in this image. 
Documentation

DIF_000846_136

Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke