An artist with an international reputation, Joan FONTCUBERTA explores the new functions of digital photography in two very convincing projects which bring a magnificent sense of delirium to computer programs. Her Orogenèses make up a series of imposing landscapes generated out of masterpieces of painting (Cézanne, Riopelle, the Group of Seven) re-interpreted by a software program for creating synthetic images designed for scientific and military applications. In Googlegrammes, she uses the well-known search engine to create large photo-mosaics that stand as an elegant metaphor for the ties between the mass media and the collective unconscious. The two series undertake an in-depth analysis of the systems for producing and circulating digital images, alongside an ironic critique of computer culture. These works reveal how art history, mass culture and the Internet shape our experience of photography and its present-day practice.

96 pages, color illustrations, 2007