Contact Sheets Festival #17 – Quentin Bajac & Antonio Somaini: The Bicentenary of Photography

What remains of photography, two hundred years after its invention? How does a technique that emerged in the 19th century continue to reinvent itself in the age of artificial intelligence, computer-generated images and new digital applications? To mark the bicentenary of photography, Antonio Somaini and Quentin Bajac bring their perspectives together to examine the major transformations currently reshaping the medium.

Both specialists in the history and evolution of photography, Antonio Somaini and Quentin Bajac are among the leading figures in contemporary thinking on the image. An image historian and lecturer at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Antonio Somaini devotes his research to the transformations of contemporary visual cultures. A historian of photography, Quentin Bajac was head of the photography department at MoMA in New York before taking over as director of the Jeu de Paume. Together, they look back over two centuries of innovation, technical upheavals and changing practices to shed light on how photography continues to redefine our relationship with images and the world.