Curatorview [Alfredo Cramerotti]

• Wednesday 26 April 2017, 2pm

Presentation of the “Hyperimage” body of research concept in relation to the concept of the forthcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Kosovo, Prishtina, October 2017.

Image from expandedphoto.com

We refer to images, or the act of creating images, to act socially, politically and even privately. As a consequence of the digital age of photography, the way we are involved in image making is continuous: we can confer it a specific professional or artistic function, or embed it in they way we shape our existence.

When digital images are imposing themselves as a visual translation of the self, the understanding of photography is striving to go away from standard representational practices. Images compose a visual timeline, comparable to a textual linear narrative, where the grammar is made of our shopping lists, chats, social media’s comments or work emails.

Although these images are not coherent when considered together and are produced for different reasons, they become knowledge ‘chunks’ that visually translate different contexts into what we wish others to think of us. They can therefore be understood as a pictorial alphabet, where the possibilities of communicating are infinite and universal, freed from constraints related to textual translation. The result is a flow of visual forms and meanings that are interchangeable, independently from the situations in which they were generated and consumed.

The exhibition is conceived as a chapter from the larger Hyperimage research led by Alfredo Cramerotti, Curator of the 2017 Gjon Mili Biennial & Award. It draws on further research by Hannah Conroy and Valentina Bonizzi, Curatorial Consultants. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with an expanded critical text written by Alfredo Cramerotti, Hannah Conroy and Valentina Bonizzi.