Edited by Chantal Pontibrand
MUTATIONS, the book, echoes what is at stake in photography in today’s world. Questions are explored such as what is the extent of photography today, the part it plays in social or political contexts in various cultures throughout the world, and its links with science and other artistic disciplines. The very close bonds between photography and the social domain and media, and the reciprocal influence of one on the other are debated here. The endemic relation of photography with technology since its beginning, the way that relation has evolved, as well as the way photography tackles the questions of identity and genre, or how the body is conceived in the context of a new millennium, are all subjects examined in the sixty texts contributed by authors from different continents.
Structured around four sections (Geography, Technology, Society/Media and the Body), Mutations, Perspectives on photography offers an cross-breeding of ways of looking at the themes of current affairs, artists, the world of art and social phenomena. Worldviews, ways of working, techniques and methodologies that appear in art as in the vernacular use of the medium are mapped out and commented on by critics, art historians, collectors and also by artists themselves.