SUDHAUS

Book presentation Screenshots by Paul Frosh
Cooperation with Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin
19 November 2019

Editor Annekathrin Kohout in conversation with Prof. Dr. Peter Geimer (Deputy Director of the Kunsthistorische Institut, Freie Universität Berlin)
Moderation: René Aguigah (Deutschlandfunk Kultur)

With screenshots of livestreams, chat processes or online postings in the social media, we capture memories as we used to do with the camera. Paul Frosh shows that they have become one of the most important cultural techniques of our time and have so far been underestimated as an image-theoretical phenomenon.

The more the world of social media becomes a second public space in which much takes place 'live', the more important it becomes to be able to see afterwards what you have missed. Screenshots serve this purpose. They document the often fleeting texts and images and thus become a medium of witnessing and remembering. But don't they fulfil the same functions that photography has had for a long time? This question is at the center of Paul Frosh's analysis of the screenshot, which at the same time becomes an inspiring journey through the history of photographic theory.

Technological change has given images a tremendous amount of significance. The fact that they are easier than ever to produce and spread not only leads to the much-cited “flood of images”, but also lends images additional functions. For the first time, people can communicate with images as naturally as with spoken or written language. The “iconic turn” proclaimed years ago has become reality.

The series Digitale Bildkulturen published by Wagenbach discusses the most important new forms and uses of images and places them in their cultural-historical context.