Inframince number 14: Image economy, image of the economy

Artistes/auteurs : Editorial : Nicolas Giraud – Portfolio : Les collines de l’ouest, Iris Winckler – Dossier : La production photographique, Vilém Flusser – L’économie de l’image et son double Alexandre Desson – Dans le décor Nicolas Giraud – La diffusion photographique, Vilém Flusser – Laboratoire : Image Capitale Armin Linke, Estelle Blaschke – Entretien : Jean-Luc Moulène – Portfolio : Valeurs Ajoutées, Paul Pouvreau – Livres : A Moment In Space, Barbara Probst Texts, Lewis Baltz, Double Aveugle (1970-2012), Lynne Cohen Banking On Images, Estelle Blaschke Money, Prill, Vieceli, Cremers.

Photography is not a stable object, it depends on the techniques that produce and disseminate it. Its role, like that of any image, is not limited to representation functions alone, but is more broadly part of a symbolic, economic and technical environment. For this double reason, photography operates according to an economy specific to images and takes place in a more general economic perspective. The image indeed supports many modes of transaction, replacing or redoubling the functions of money.
This functionalization of images deserves to be questioned as much in its topicality as in its historicity, notably following the work of Marie-José Monzdain. The increase in digital photography has not changed the foundations of this iconic economy, but gives it an omnipresence which now puts it in competition with the products of the real economy.