The Image Society

The term 'visual culture' crops up all over the place. What does it mean, what questions does it raise, and what do these notions mean for various aspects of society? Can we talk about a developing visual culture? Is this to the detriment of other cultural commodities such as words? What do we lose as a consequence of this? What might we gain?

We live in an age in which text is gradually losing ground to the image. People are reading less and spending ever more time in front of the computer screen or the TV. Events and personal lives are no longer only documented in reports, letters or diaries, but also with the digital cameras and video recorders. The fast-moving images of MTV and VH1 exercise increasing influence on youth culture.

Images obviously have a certain directness, accessibility or attraction that puts them at an advantage in the competition to grab our attention.

In order to stimulate the exchange of ideas about these kinds of ideas and developments, The National institute for Photography in the Netherlands (NFI) has invited six writers, scholars and experts, to devote an essay to the problems and potential of visual culture. The result is a digestible collection of texts that sets out a range of positions that these questions and phenomena entail. Journalists, philosophers and art historians define the term 'visual culture' from the perspective of their respective disciplines. They examine questions about digitization, reproduction and authorship, the influence of the great stream of images on our historic consciousness, the tenability of making distinctions between various disciplines; the impact of visual culture on expressive traditions, and so on. The book will not simply answer questions but will also broach numerous issues and points for discussion.