The Future of Images in a Post-Truth Era

We live in an era of visual abundance; everywhere we turn, everywhere we look, there are images. This talk plunges us into the world of the visual to uncover the politics of the image from the perspective of artists, academics, thinkers and theorists, and reconsider how we view them.

Rapid advances in technology have reshaped how images are made and how they circulate: from the earliest cameras, past the mass popularity of TV and into the days of the digital with smartphones, surveillance cameras, drones, advanced medical imaging and finally, now, AI software.

But images have never been neutral. Race, gender and class impact how images are made, what images we see, how they are shared and received, often reproducing and amplifying existing biases. And with roughly 34 million AI-generated images created every day, authenticity is more and more pressing.

How have forms of witnessing become entangled with forms of surveillance? What does it mean for images to no longer act as sources of truth under AI technologies? Come along and dig deep into these, and plenty of other, questions.

This event is brought to you by the SORI Collective (Speaking Out, Reimagining Institutions): nine forward-thinking cultural programmers shaping the future of the arts. They are the driving force behind Southbank Centre Presents, a hands-on curation scheme empowering talent to build communities and redefine our cultural landscape as we celebrate 75 years. Find out more about the SORI Collective and the Southbank Centre Presents project here.