With 23 exhibitions on the premise of “See and Be Seen”, the 16th Biel Festival of Photography will show until September 30 how young artists and renowned masters are using the intrusive gaze of the camera. Hélène Joye-Cagnard’s and Catherine Kohler’s selection welcomes photographers from 10 countries – among them Iran, the US, China, Spain and Switzerland – and congregates the multiple facets of a red-hot topic into a coherent image.
The new century is only just ten years old but it seems already clear that it will be remembered in history as a century of images – they are intense markers of the present-day society. This evolution is directly linked to the appearance of new technologies , internet ,and digital – private or public – spaces. The world wide web has created a huge interactive sphere for images that is growing incredibly fast with images posted in social networks, videos by amateur journalists and webcams. The multiplication of search engines and sharing tools provide an access to visual resources that would have been impossible to imagine only a few years back . Digital image technologies don’t just make it easy for us to satisfy the all too human urge to look into our neighbour’s house; self-promoters, spies and watchdogs can also gaze in as they wish. Both for the authorities and for private individuals, the drawing of boundaries between private and public space is becoming more and more difficult in the 21st century, and questions about copyright and the right to privacy are increasingly complex. Contemporary photography is in an excellent position to address these conditions.
Are surveillance devices democratic guardians of security or does their sheer existence imply malpractice? Does the revolutionary power of iPhone shots upset not only governments but also photojournalism? Show the new digital technologies the way back to authenticity, privacy, personal and intimate values or do they simply incarnate the age of the hyper mediation of the self ? The 23 exhibitions of the Biel Festival of Photography invite you to reflect on these questions.
Bienne festival of Photography
September 7 – 30, 2012
CH -2502 Biel/Bienne
Switzerland
