Since its invention in 1839, the critically important medium of photography has absorbed and manifested aesthetic, societal and social aspects of its time while being in constant exchange with other visual arts such as painting. It was used in fields as diverse as documentation, science, and everyday life, but always maintained a strong foothold in the fine arts, too. Photography has long used digital technologies in its production processes, and for presentational and communicative purposes. Especially with the current advent of artificial intelligence, photography is facing new challenges in the creation of "photographic images", however.
But what is photography? We use "the photographic" after Rosalind Krauss and the “photographic act”, which includes a wide variety of agents and fields of action (Katharina Sykora), as a theoretical starting point. In addition to a more traditional emphasis on pictures in their various manifestations and ways of presenting photographs, such as exhibitions, photo books and online media, we also focus on the photographers themselves, and the methods and mechanisms of producing, reusing, presenting and perceiving photographic images.
The section "Photography" invites innovative submissions that address the medium in its diversity in regard to content and history, aesthetics, and fields of application. Articles on photographic theory are encouraged. A positioning of one's own approach in current discourses, an original perspective, fresh interpretations or new material are required. We want to pay special attention to the photographers themselves. How do photographers see the role of photography today? What do they consider to be relevant topics at this time? In which direction is the medium developing from their point of view? Photography as a medium should be explored in all its diversity.
Please note: The acquisition of illustrations and the payment of fees where applicable for reproduction are the responsibility of the contributor.

Contact: fotografie@kunsttexte.de

Editorial team
Dr Jule Schaffer (*1982) is an art historian specialized in photography, media theory, artistic publication media and art criticism. She studied art history, theatre, film and television studies in Cologne and Seville and completed her doctorate on concepts of the sacred in contemporary photographic images as a scholarship holder of the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School and the Andrea von Braun Foundation at the University of Cologne. She has worked for the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst at the Museum Ludwig Cologne and the Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, designed the blog on-artbooks.com as an editor and taught at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Folkwang University of the Arts, among others. She has been head of the photography collection at the Moritzburg Art Museum in Halle (Saale) since 2019. In her current research, she is particularly interested in the photography of New Vision, the GDR, image development after 1989 and – following a fluid understanding of images – the appropriation and re-use of found images as well as photo-theoretical approaches.

Dr Katharina Günther has studied art history in Cologne and Antwerp. She received her PhD from the University of Cologne in 2019 with a thesis on Francis Bacon's photographic sources. Since 2010, she has conducted research in Dublin and London for The Estate of Francis Bacon, the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation and the John Deakin Archive. From 2015, she has worked as project manager of francis-bacon.com, the official website with a digital catalogue raisonné of The Estate of Francis Bacon. She currently works as Scientific Director of the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Research Association at Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Her research focuses on British 20th century art, post-war figurative painting, the relationship between painting and photography, conflict art and augmented reality in contemporary art, which she addresses in international publications, exhibitions and teaching assignments.