A Matter of Memory: Photography as Object in the Digital Age

Thanks to the convenience and ubiquity of computers and smartphones with built-in digital cameras, the majority of photographic images are being recorded digitally rather than on film, as was the norm less than twenty years ago. The resulting images are viewed on a screen, rather than as physical objects. As this transformation has broadened access to photographic image-making and allowed photographic images to reach a wider audience than ever before, in many contexts it has also obviated the need for photographic prints. Snapshooters, photojournalists, and commercial photographers in all genres rarely produce material objects as the final step in their photographic process. As a consequence, photographs in the form of image-bearing sheets of paper are scarce outside of the art world. 

In the midst of this change, a number of contemporary artists are making work that addresses, either directly or obliquely, the potential consequences of photography’s metamorphosis. A Matter of Memory: Photography and Objecthood in the Digital Age is an exhibition organized by George Eastman House that brings together works that investigate how these material changes in the nature and practice of photography will alter society’s relationship to memory. 

As the artists explore the close association between photographs and memory, some dig deep into photographic materials as though searching for the locus of memory. Others incorporate found snapshots into their work as virtual talismans of recollection. Both kinds of work highlight the presence of the photographic object and function as self-conscious meditations on photography’s ongoing reorganization of our mental and physical landscape.

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Contact Manager of Traveling Exhibitions, George Eastman Museum: [email protected]