Photography is… hoarding

In 2024, an estimated 1.94 trillion photos will be taken worldwide, with 5.3 billion photos captured daily, or 61,400 per second. With approximately 14.3 trillion photos in existence, and 14 billion images shared daily on social media, it seems like we have a hoarding problem. We often forget that behind the immaterial metaphors of ‘the cloud’ are real, physical technologies. The storage of these vast amounts of data requires extensive energy and infrastructure, contributing to carbon emissions while we mindlessly save every moment from our phones to the cloud.

Yet, this abundance of digital imagery also serves a vital social purpose. Photographs have become powerful tools for social justice, serving as a witness of human rights abuses and environmental crises. Activists and citizen journalists wield their cameras to document injustices and share vital information online, often putting their safety on the line in the process. The act of saving and sharing these images, in the face of censorship or erasures, amplifies voices and preserves important narratives that might otherwise be silenced.

This duality raises pressing questions: What is the value of a single photograph in a flood of digital images? How do we balance the need to document significant events with the environmental impact of our digital habits? How will we store and preserve these large quantities of visual data?

📅 Date: 16 October 2024
🕗 Time: 20.00 – 21.15 CEST
📍 Location: The Hmm’s online livestream platform
🎟 Tickets: Available via foam (€5 per event, €15 for all 4 events)

Photography is…

“Photography is…” is a series of online events by Foam and The Hmm that delve into the ways in which internet culture permeates and alters the field of photography—expanding and extending it exponentially. How does our relationship with the photographic image shift and change to the internet’s cultural and technological developments? Designed for everyone curious about the medium’s evolution in the digital age and for anyone intrigued by the future of visual culture online. Join us as we examine photography’s changing face in our image-saturated world.

Upcoming events in the series

13 November 2024: Photography is… text 
Exploring text as an image-making technique

11 December 2024: Photography is… surreal 
(Re)interpreting reality in photography