How many images do you think you consume per day? Do all the images capture your attention? What do the images you consume in different media provoke in you? How do you think the images you consume influence your beliefs and how you relate?

We do not seek to give answers, but rather to invite more questions about what they show us, provoke critical thinking and raise awareness about what role the media plays in the perception of individuals and in society as a whole.

IN REAL LIFE is an Arena Media project, which was born at the beginning of 2024, in which we seek to understand how the reality in which we live is configured to understand how we got here. And, together with Célula Lab, we begin the journey that leads us to talk about the era of image and life light.

Section “The era of the image and light life” of the research wall of the In Real Life project

Since prehistoric times, human beings have expressed themselves visually. Through images he has reflected his customs, his way of life, his relationships… and through them he has sought shape and construct a common narrative of reality to understand its context.

The first photograph dates back to 1826 and was taken from the window of the house of the French photographer Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. And over the next century, as cameras became more affordable, Everyday life began to be captured instantly and more realistically than ever.

First digital image made by Russel Kirsch by scanning an image of his son Walden.

In 1911 the phrase “use a picture, it’s worth a thousand words” was quoted by Arthur Brisbane – one of the most popular American newspaper editors of the 20th century and advisor to Henry Ford – at the event held by the Syracuse Advertising Men’s Club to discuss journalism and advertising. A quote that became the creed of our civilization.

The still images became a new way of telling stories to convey the context from very diverse perspectives. Through them we can perceive how each person and each medium influences by capturing their reality, according to their experience, their tastes, their interests and ideology. A simplified reality according to the eyes of those who make and those who consume each image.

John Berger in a still from “Ways of Seeing” (BBC, 1972)

The philosopher Ponty said, “the world is around me, not in front of me” (cited by Rigat, L., 2018) and there is more reality around an image that we do not always manage to capture in its entirety and that we are not even able to intuit. This may sound obvious, however, forgetting it is more common than you think. Because it seems that if it is not seen it does not exist. And what is seen has the authority to be absolutely truthful.

Together With technological advances they forever changed the way we experience the world and consume information and content. In 1957, Russel Kirsch – American computer scientist and creator of the pixel – photographed his baby. It was the first digital image (Fabro, ME, 2020). Sixty years later, in 2017 alone, 1.2 billion photos were captured in the world (Moreno, G. 2017). And AI has created as many images in one year as those taken by cameras in their first 150 years (Merino, M. 2023).

The image has the power to capture our attention and modulate our thinking regarding issues that can become very relevant in our lives and in our functioning as a society.
For this reason it is important reflect on how the volume of images we produce, disseminate and are currently exposed to affects us. As Alan Salvadó and Jordi Balló explain in their book “Power on the Stage” (2023), the amount of visual impacts we receive prevents us from being able to approach images in a “critical way” and decode what has an impact in terms of its aesthetic scope, format, quality, content, information or intentions.

If we have the ability to choose what we want to see and at the same time we have so much stimulus around us that it generates saturation, why not start being more selective and see what makes us think, learn and grow as people and as a society ? What kind of images do we need to make this happen?

Literature:

FABRO, ME (2020). Russel Kirsch, creator of the pixel and the first digital image, dies. UNAM Gazette.
MORENO, G. (2017). This year, 1.2 billion photos will be captured worldwide. Statist.
RIGAT, L. (2018). Contemporary photography: the reconfiguration of modes of representation in documentary photography. Signis Magazine, vol. 28, pp. 59-73. Latin American Federation of Semiotics.
MERINO, M. (2023). AI has created as many images in one year as were taken by cameras in their first 150 years. Genbeta.
SALVADÓ, A. and BALLÓ, J. (2023). The power on stage. Visual motifs in the public sphere. Gutenberg Galaxy.