The Queen Mary Annual Catalan Lecture 2025

Photography: from Alchemy to Algorithms

Joan Fontcuberta

29 October 2025 ·6.15 pm

Free admission

To be followed by a drinks reception

Room 1.28, Arts One Building, 

Queen Mary University of London 

We are delighted to present the Queen Mary Annual Catalan Lecture 2025, featuring the internationally renowned Joan Fontcuberta, who will explore the evolution of photography from its origins to the digital age.

Joan Fontcuberta’s work has been exhibited in Belgium, the United States, Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, Canada, and France. He is an exceptional conceptual artist and photographer who continually challenges the boundaries between documentation and invention. Some of you may have seen his astounding exhibition Stranger than Fiction at the Science Museum in London some years ago.

Joan has given us a glimpse of what his subject will be at Queen Mary:

“Photography began in the mystery of alchemy and has now culminated in another kind of magic: that of algorithms. At first, photography was made with light and chemistry; today it is made with computation and data. When the camera and the eye are replaced at the heart of visual culture by neural networks and Artificial Intelligence, it becomes necessary to reconsider the role of images which, until now, have helped to shape our sensibility.

Through a series of personal artistic projects, Joan Fontcuberta will illustrate this transition: from an alchemical photography to an algorithmic one, from a literary language to a mathematical one—in short, from metaphor to statistics.”

Open to all, but places are limited.

Please register via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/photography-from-alchemy-to-algorithms-the-qmul-annual-catalan-lecture-tickets-1796311890219?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl