The 3rd Essen Symposium for Photography, held from February 4–5, 2026 at the SANAA building on Zollverein, aimed to address interest in the medium’s prospective forms and uses. It sought speculations that critically engaged with recent developments in the open and highly diversified field of visual media and attempted to position photography’s future role within this realm.
What if the future of photography is about technical inscription to create responsibility, intervention, and credibility in a world of generative images? In her lecture, Therese Schuleit positions photocopy as a precursor to generative systems, highlighting the distinction between “image taking” (capturing the world) and “image writing” (bureaucratic, technical inscription). Photocopy, she shows, has historically been tied to verification, control, and accountability, and its material and procedural logic prefigures many challenges of contemporary AI-generated imagery.
Follow the discussion to see how copying practices shaped notions of authenticity, proof, and manipulation in past and presence. What can such a history of photocopy consequently teach us about authorship, trust, and intervention in AI future?
Chair: Dr. Anja Schürmann, KWI – Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities