Event

In this conversation, media studies scholars Shannon Mattern and Diana Kamin will explore the public lives of images and the media-historical conditions that shape their production and exchange through the lens of picture-work.

Picture-work, according to a recent book by Diana Kamin, is the labor of making images available to the public. At a moment in which regimes of seeing, creating, and making images available are undergoing radical change, Kamin uses picture-work as a key locus of attention to understand these transitions. Her book explores the histories of three exemplary collections, including the longest-running American stock agency H. Armstrong Roberts, headquartered just a few blocks from UPenn since 1924. With artifacts from the Roberts collection and a series of archival images from the Museum of Modern Art and New York Public Library, Kamin and Mattern will explore the roots of contemporary image culture, including concepts of authorship, art, property, and value, ultimately calling for a greater public investment in the organization of image collections that privileges community and human interaction.