On the flow of images… what happens when the flow becomes so great that we cease to actually look?
Benjamin H.D. Buchloh writes in his essay: Gehard Richter’s Atlas: the Anomic Archive referring to a quote by Siegfried Kracauer:
“Never before has an age been so informed about itself, if being informed means having an image of objects that resembles them in a photographic sense. […] In reality, however, the weekly photographic ration does not at all mean to refer to these objects or urimages. If it were offering itself as an aid to memory, then memory would have to make the selection. But the flood of photos sweeps away the dams of memory. The assault of this mass of images is so powerful that it threatens to destroy the potentially existing awareness of crucial traits. Artworks suffer this fate through their reproductions. […] In the illustrated magazines people see the very world that the illustrated magazines prevent them from perceiving. […] Never before has a period known so little about itself.”
(written in 1927-1928 - thoughts about how photographic production devastates the ability to form a memory image… way back in the age of weekly magazines - what about now?)
