Send me an Image: From Postcards to Social Media

Photography has always been a social medium shared with others. But why do we communicate with each other using images? And how do the virtual essences that are photographs change our societies? Featuring works by Moyra Davey, Gilbert & George, Theresa Martinat, Thomas Ruff and Clare Strand, among others, Send me an Image. From Postcards to Social Media explores the development of photography from a means of communication in the nineteenth century to its current digital representation online. Its focus lies on the dialogue between traveling images throughout photography’s 150-year history and contemporary artists beginning in the 1970s who work with both traditional and modern photographic techniques, uses and modes of dissemination.

The book considers the deeper social dimensions of image communication, and the transformation of photography from an illustrative medium to one of the most significant forms of dialogue and exchange today. The works in Send me an Image furthermore illuminate phenomena such as censorship, surveillance and algorithmic regulation, which affect many activities in our data-driven era. The works in Send me an Image furthermore illuminate phenomena such as censorship, surveillance and algorithmic regulation, which affect many activities in our data-driven era. Images now shared via social media not only spread rapidly but can also take on their own news values and as “pure” messages may even spark protests of all kinds—often beyond the scope of their original uses.