Essay - PUNKT

26 • 03 • 27 Liliom Szabó

The Slow Death of Images: Where Do Our Digital Photographs Disappear To?

Floppy disks, cassettes, CDs, and DVDs—data carriers that once embodied the promise of a modern future—are now primarily found in antique shops. Today, we rarely store our images on physical…

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26 • 03 • 26 Liliom Szabó

Photography and Trauma – How Do We Process Loss Through Images?

What happens when a photograph not only preserves a moment but also evokes pain? How can a visual memory support the process of grieving—whether we are facing personal loss or…

26 • 03 • 25 Benedek Szabó

The Art of the Moment: How Long Does the Memory of a Photograph Last?

Discourses on photography attribute several functions to the medium, including artistic self-expression, documentation, experimentation, illustration, and the preservation of memory. This latter function, however, is discussed less frequently and appears…

26 • 03 • 24 Benedek Szabó

One Click—Why Do We Keep a Photograph?

Creating a photograph involves a range of factors. Many of these elude reflection at the moment of capture. The act of photographing is shaped by both conscious, cognitively grounded decisions…

26 • 03 • 23 Liliom Szabó

The Selfie as Self‑Portrait. Who Am I in the Images? – Self‑Representation Then and Now

Before people began photographing their own faces, they painted their own portraits. The practice of self-representation is almost as old as art itself, dating back thousands of years. While painting,…

26 • 03 • 22 Liliom Szabó

Does Fashion Photography Have a Future in the Age of AI?

Fashion photography has never been free from criticism. The beauty standards of a given moment change from year to year: bold becomes even bolder, then suddenly restrained and angelic. Yet…

26 • 03 • 21 Liliom Szabó

What Makes a Photograph Activism? – Images That Sparked Change

Photography is one of the most rapidly decoded forms of information, and its ability to address large audiences in a democratic way inherently carries the potential for change. Before the…

26 • 03 • 20 Gáspár Kéri

Under the Spell of Filters — Authenticity and Aesthetics in the Age of Instagram

Instagram’s visual culture is shaped by a simultaneous desire for authenticity and perfection. Filters, AI-generated faces, and the aesthetic logic of social media continually transform how we use images, continually…

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26 • 03 • 19 Benedek Szabó

Who Is the Author? – AI Images and the Question of Creative Responsibility

As artificial image-, music-, and text-generating tools become increasingly widespread, a growing number of dilemmas surface alongside them. The current copyright categories applied to content created with artificial intelligence stem…

26 • 03 • 18 Benedek Szabó

The Photograph as Evidence – When Can We Trust an Image?

For a long time, it was widely accepted that photography has evidentiary power because what it depicts is not a product of imagination but real, existing phenomena from the external…

26 • 03 • 17 Liliom Szabó

Visual Noise: Why Is It So Difficult to Notice a Good Photograph Today?

We live surrounded by noise: the sound of traffic, the murmur of a beach, the chatter of a schoolyard, the roar of a concert, or the constant hum of a…

26 • 03 • 16 Benedek Szabó

The Revolution of Artificial Intelligence in Photography—Friend or Foe?

In discussions about artificial image-generating processes, a common question arises: Can images created by AI be considered or approached as photographs? A defining characteristic of these generated images is their…

26 • 03 • 08 Gáspár Kéri

The Disappearance of Family Photo Albums—What Does Family Memory Mean in the Digital Age?

For many decades, family photo albums have been one of the most important visual media for both personal and collective memory. Typically kept in a place of honor on bookshelves,…

26 • 03 • 02 Szabó Liliom

Screen Captives: How Smartphones Are Transforming Our Relationship to Photography

We are at a concert. Thousands of people surge through the rows. We can barely see the stage as the crowd in front of us automatically raises its arms in…

26 • 02 • 25 Gáspár Kéri

The “Everyone Is a Photographer” Phenomenon—Has the Boundary Between Amateur and Professional Become Blurred?

The question of defining the boundary between amateurs and professionals has been long present in the history of photography. The digital turn that emerged around the turn of the millennium…

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