Anthony Downey – författare

This book explores the impact of digital algorithms on visual culture, examining how these technologies influence the creation, circulation, interpretation, and archiving of images. It presents a focused analysis of how algorithms reshape key sociological themes such as power, social relations, labour, racialisation, gender, and representation. Through a combination of case studies and theoretical essays, the book highlights the algorithmic shift within visual sociology, addressing crucial questions: Can algorithms interpret images like humans? How do they affect our understanding of subjectivity, agency, truth, and creativity? With perspectives from multiple geographies and cultural contexts and the analysis of visual phenomena across various digital platforms, this volume is essential for students and scholars in visual sociology, digital sociology, and visual studies. It serves as an accessible, thought-provoking resource for understanding the rapidly evolving relationship between visual culture and technological intervention.

How do cultural institutions and art practices respond to long-standing states of national and international emergency? It is with these questions in mind that Khalil Rabah’s artistic practice investigates the future of visual arts production under such conditions. Exploring the relationships between historically sanctioned and experimental exhibition settings, fictional and documentative narratives, and the histories of displacement, his methods not only propose but produce speculative institutions. As the artist’s first major monograph, Falling Forward / Works (1997–2025) presents a comprehensive selection of exhibition materials, previously unseen archival documents, and detailed background notes on how Rabah’s methods relate to broader themes in his work. The volume also introduces new critical writing from curators, authors, and researchers on the interrelated subjects of anticipatory aesthetics, subterfuge and fugitive acts, mimicry and performativity, knowledge production, archival technologies and, crucially, the politics of humor.