Re-Present: Photographic Practice

Many of our speakers prefaced their presentations by acknowledging a limited expertise in photography. Several reflected that photography is “a mirror of a moment,” analyzing how images capture points in time from various perspectives. Panelist Suzanne Anker, Chair of the Fine Arts Department at the School of Visual Arts, offered an especially compelling contribution. She remarked that digital photographs, which lack a physical negative, serve primarily as representations of information. Suzanne further pointed out that AI-generated images cannot be replicated identically from the same prompt, thus challenging traditional definitions of photography.

Looking ahead, the Design Faculty is planning an ongoing, interdisciplinary symposium series focused on the “technologically captured” image.

Photography, simply put, is a mirror of a moment. 

Re-Present traces the timeline from early photographic images captured by such different artifacts and devices as chemically sensitive surfaces, the camera obscura, photography, cinema, video, and digital systems, to examine the recording of biological systems, various scientific applications, e.g., the Hubble and James Webb Space telescopes, tasked to explore and transmit deep space data, visual, spectral, and beyond.

Re-Present is a series of integrated events constituting a continuing symposium that will look at Photography through a wide and narrow lens. This overall multi-part symposium project addresses the technologies birthed in the 1800s that have opened our vision of ourselves and of the universe, and the contemporary ways we develop, disseminate and share what we have captured.

Re-Present is configured as a three-part forum taking place over multiple years. The first iteration of Re-Present is “Photographic Practice” a day-long symposium that includes a panel discussion by experts in a variety of aesthetic and commercial fields that utilize photographic technologies.

Participants will share and present aspects of the significance of the image in their praxis. The symposium is open to students, faculty, and members of the CCSU system and to the general public. The symposium proceedings will be accessible in person and virtual.