In the nearly 200 years of its existence, photography presence has increased exponentially. From the days of having maybe one or two formal portraits taken in one's whole lifetime to the modern day incessant "snapshot", image making has become more and more prevalent and culturally intuitive.

Cartier-Bresson coined the term the "decisive moment" as an embracement of the modernist ideal of the "perfect" moment, a moment that a good photographer could "capture" by being in the right place, at the right time.

However contemporary photography has exceeded even this. Cameras are available and prevalent throughout our daily lives. And now with digital capture replacing traditional film, the cost of taking an image is nearly a non-factor. The result of this is a culture that creates an even greater number of images while at the same time resulting in a reduction of the "specialness" of images.

Photoblogs, social networking and paparazzi images have all contributed to a culture saturated with images of the banal. How has this ability to record infinitely affected our relationship to photography and to the image?

This Panel invites artists, scholars and image-makers to discuss the nature of images today and to share written and creative works that explore concepts related to this theme.

Presentations are limited to 20 minutes. Please send abstracts or completed papers to:

thomas.liz@uis.edu