This winter, Aperture presents Image Worlds to Come: Photography & AI, a timely and urgent issue that explores how artificial intelligence is quickly transforming the field of photography and our broader culture of images. Moving beyond hype and hysteria, the essays, interviews, and artist portfolios in this issue provide a crucial resource for understanding the ways in which this fast-evolving technology is reshaping photography's relationship to creativity, authorship, and truth.

To weigh the risks and possibilities of this transformative change, Aperture has turned to some of the leading thinkers in the field. Artist Trevor Paglen and researcher Kate Crawford demystify the intelligence of AI and outline its threats to privacy, democracy, and the planet. Pioneering media theorist Fred Ritchin and journalist Brian Palmer unravel the implications of artificial intelligence on the photographer's role as a credible witness. Cultural critic Nora N. Khan explains why we need new criteria to interpret generative images. Rob Horning argues for a more complex understanding of photography's relationship to reality, exposing how the idea of a real photo has always been incoherent, while Peter J. Karol delves into the bizarre realm of AI copyright law, examining the unlikely precedents used to develop legal frameworks in the United States.

The field of photography continually shifts due to emergent technologies, and AI is a big one, says Michael Famighetti, Aperture's editor in chief. It felt important for us to assemble some of the leading voices grappling with the questions, ideas, opportunities, risks, and problems posed by AI. These issues are significant, and they are here to stay. We hope this issue will be a useful reference and resource for our readers.

Image Worlds to Come looks at the past as much as the future. Art historian Noam M. Elcott and technologist Tim Trombley train their own AI model on the Farm Security Administration's vast and storied archive, mimicking photographers like Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks with revelatory precision. Artist Minne Atairu examines the racial biases of AI systems in beguiling portraits and imagined continuations of the contested Benin Bronzes, exposing how legacies of colonialism are perpetuated in the datasets of mainstream platforms like Midjourney. And photographer Charlie Engman contributes a portfolio of indelible cursed images inspired by a feeling of being nostalgic for the present.

The cover of Aperture issue 257 features a work by Trevor Paglen from his 2017 series It Began as a Military Experiment. The project, focusing on machine learning, consists of images taken of US military employees in the mid-1990s that the Department of Defense used to train early facial recognition software, technology that is now embedded in everyday life.

Photography is the paradigm of human-technology interfaces, Paglen tells art historian Sarah M. Miller in an extensive interview. People who think critically about photographs have a great deal to contribute, in terms of trying to conceive of and implement the kind of world that we want to live in, because the world is increasingly hard to distinguish from photography.

Image Worlds to Come begins to map a transformative moment for the medium, as we enter an era that will require us to look harder and deeper at photographs than ever before.

This issue of Aperture considers the natural world in the age of climate change, extreme weather, and dramatically politicized landscapes.

Earth focuses on our relationship with the natural world, during a moment of continued debate about global warming and extreme weather, and as the vulnerability of our natural environment is underscored each day. As we enter the anthropocene, the term used by scientists to describe an age when human activity has the greatest impact on the earth, what is the role of the artist and culture in addressing this crisis? How do photographers honor and draw inspiration from the natural world? How do aesthetics shape our understanding of ecological concerns?

This issue features contributions by writers and photographers including Charlotte Cotton, T.J. Demos, Carolyn Drake, William Finnegan, Bill McKibben, Gideon Mendel, Aveek Sen, David Benjamin Sherry, Lieko Shiga, Thomas Struth, Bruno V. Roels, and Vasantha Yogananthan.

Illuminates the diverse image culture in North America's largest metropolis and the ways Mexican photographers are pushing new visions in the medium.

The latest in a series of city-based issues, Mexico City profiles the dynamic photographic culture of Mexico's capital, home to a thriving contemporary art scene, revered photography institutions, and world-class museums. From icons Lola lvarez Bravo, Tina Modotti, and Graciela Iturbide to the most exciting figures at work today, the issue presents a range of photography as well as Mexican and Latin American writers--both veterans and newcomers--to an international audience.

A dynamic mix of photographic work exploring questions of queer identity.

This edition of Aperture presents a mix of new photographic work exploring questions of queer identity, as well as past figures and projects that are the subject of new research and curatorial work.

In the Words section, Critic Vince Aletti, art historian Richard Meyer, and photographer Catherine Opie reflect on the term queer and its relationship with photography; Hal Fischer discusses his project Gay Semiotics with Julia Bryan-Wilson; Sophie Hackett revisits Joan E. Biren's seminal Dyke Show; Shannon Michael Cane on queer independent publishing and zine culture; Philip Gefter on his discovery of Sam Wagstaff's never-before-seen photography and what it reveals about his storied relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe; and South African photographer Zanele Muholi speaks with Deborah Willis about her ongoing project to make her country's LGBTQ community visible.

The Pictures section features William J. Simmons on Jimmy DeSana's work from the late 1970s; Senam Okudzeto on Lyle Ashton Harris's projects addressing colonial history and homophobia in Ghana; Stephanie H. Tung on Ren Hang, a rising star of contemporary Chinese photography who creates provocative imagery; Kevin Moore on the queer dimension of David Benjamin Sherry's colorful images of the American landscape, which reference icons of modernist photography; Andy Campbell on K8 Hardy's performance-based photography; Sophie M rner on trans photographer Nitzan Krimsky's poignant self-documentation; Ana Finel Honigman on Dean Sameshima's images created with appropriated vintage pornographic imagery; Dean Daderko on A.L. Steiner's antic and political photo-collages and installations; and Eva Respini considers Mark Morrisroe's fervent self-portraiture made during the 1980s.

Guest edited by the acclaimed photographer Alec Soth, Aperture's summer issue explores the dimensions and possibilities of dreams, journeys, and chance in photography.

Sleepwalking covers a surprising array of images and stories from the Soviet-era Czech artist Emila Medová to Sophie Calle's discovery of an abandoned Parisian hotel to Soth's own photographs from his travels in the United States. In this issue, Jesse Dorris interviews Duane Michals about luck and fate, Marina Warner explores the enduring resonance of the figure of the sleepwalker, and artists including Etienne Courtois, Maja Daniels, and Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. present surreal and imaginative new series. The Summer 2022 issue also introduces The PhotoBook Review, a new section for lively engagement with photobooks, featuring reviews of recent titles by Nona Faustine, Samuel Fosso, Óscar Monzón, and others.

This winter, in the wake of a pandemic, global protest movements, and a dramatic presidential election in the United States, Aperture releases Utopia, an issue that shows that other ways of living are possible--when the collective will exists.

In Utopia, artists, photographers, and writers envision a world without prisons, document visionary architecture, honor queer space and creativity, and dream of liberty through spiritual self-expression. They show us that utopia is not a far-fetched scheme, but rather a way of reshaping our future.

In a profile, Salamishah Tillet considers Tyler Mitchell's visions of Black people resting in open green space, a democratizing landscape in which Mitchell continuously asks himself: What are the things that I can do to lessen the inherent hierarchies in the photography-shoot structure of seeing and being seen? Sara Knelman shows the freeing possibilities of the feminist collage works of Lorna Simpson, Mickalene Thomas, Sara Cwynar, and Alanna Fields. Julian Rose speaks with the filmmaker Matt Wolf about his latest documentary, Spaceship Earth (2020), which follows the people who created Biosphere 2 in 1991. And Antwaun Sargent traces Black queer artists' journeys into immersive desire. Utopia also includes compelling portfolios by David Benjamin Sherry, Allen Frame, and Balarama Heller, whose respective works span time and geography, from bohemian New York to a Hare Krishna retreat in India.

The utopian imagination tends to stir when the world feels simultaneously wrecked and malleable, the writer Chris Jennings notes, in a series of reflections by writers such as Olivia Laing and Nicole R. Fleetwood. Notions of utopia shouldn't be restricted to the fantasy of a fully realized ideal society, or the outsize, often failed, sometimes disastrous schemes and social experiments of the past. Instead, we might consider utopia a mode of vision and thought that shields us from hopelessness.

This spring, Aperture magazine presents issue #250, We Make Pictures in Order to Live, which explores the relationship between photography and storytelling across generations and geographies. Featuring visual stories that excite, surprise, and illuminate daily life, this issue's title is a nod to the late, celebrated writer Joan Didion, who declared, We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Aperture contributors explore the quiet poetry-- or clamorous disorder--of the everyday, and attest that making photographs is a way of being alive

In a sweeping introductory essay, Brian Dillon asks how we might view Didion through photography, and what images come to mind when we think of her writing. Thessaly La Force profiles Bieke Depoorter, who sees documentary photography both as a listening exercise and a form of investigation, blurring the lines between authorship, fiction, and truth. Alistair O'Neill takes stock of Nick Waplington's vibrant records of subcultures on both sides of the Atlantic. Lena Fritsch writes about the exquisite world-making of photographer Eikoh Hosoe's collaborative practice. Tiana Reid reconsiders Charles Teenie Harris's vivid, midcentury portraits of Black life in Pittsburgh, several of which are published for the first time in this issue.

Among the portfolios, Casey Gerald discusses Adraint Bereal's images depicting the agony and ecstasy of being a Black college student in the US today. Yvonne Venegas searches for family ghosts in the Mexican landscape, which poet and novelist Daniel Saldaña París describes as an exercise in freedom and intelligence. Kamayani Sharma looks at Gauri Gill's images of a community masquerade in the Indian state of Maharashtra, and its potential to reverse power dynamics inherent in seeing and being seen.

Durga Chew-Bose meditates on the photographs of Mary Manning--also featured on the cover-- and their poetic sensitivity toward story and the everyday. For Endnote, Aperture poses six questions for the painter Jordan Casteel.

In The PhotoBook Review--included within every issue of Aperture--Bruno Ceschel speaks with photographer, bookmaker, and publisher Alejandro Cartagena about his work. Lou Stoppard reviews a trio of photobooks about domestic spaces, and Aperture's editors review a range of recent publications.

Leading filmmakers on photography and the role of cinema for influential artists.

The summer 2018 issue of Aperture magazine considers the influence of photography on leading filmmakers, and the role of cinema in the work of artists and photographers. Featuring in-depth interviews with Sofia Coppola, Shirin Neshat, and Gus Van Sant, and contributions by Negar Azimi, David Campany, J. Hoberman, Alex Prager, RaMell Ross, Antwaun Sargent, Dayanita Singh, and Dana Stevens.

In collaboration with Inez & Vinoodh, an exploration of visionary fashion photography.

The theme for Aperture's Fall 2014 issue is Fashion, produced in collaboration with the groundbreaking fashion-photography duo Inez & Vinoodh.

The issue explores the role of image quotation and reference, and showcases contemporary and historical work from both inside and outside the field of fashion, as well as key touchstones, including breakthrough magazines and advertisements. In the Words section, Donatien Grau considers Inez & Vinoodh's long-standing collaboration; Vogue Paris editor-in-chief Emmanuelle Alt in conversation with Penny Martin, editor of The Gentlewoman; curator Charlotte Cotton on the State of Fashion; Alistair O'Neill considers how the documentary tradition has influenced the work of many fashion photographers; and Marketa Uhlirova looks at how contemporary fashion films reference still photography. The Pictures section presents Tamara Berghmans on the influential Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken; Jason Evans on Shiseido's beguiling vintage ads; Inez & Vinoodh on photographs that have served as references for painting, plus notes on the icons of fashion photography; Phil Bicker on pioneering fashion magazines i-D, The Face and Jill; and emerging fashion photographers Margaret Durow and Daniel Arnold.

The vital role of Tokyo at the center of Japanese photography.

This edition of Aperture, researched on-site in Tokyo, features a selection of vital contemporary work, while exploring Tokyo's role in narratives of Japanese photography. The issue includes interviews with established Japanese photographers, articles on the history of photography in Japan, and portfolios by contemporary artists whose work is unknown in the United States.

In the Words section, critic Noi Sawaragi and novelist Hideo Furukawa consider the unique character and history of the city in relation to image-making; Ivan Vartanian looks through the pages of popular technical and erotically minded magazines of the '60s, '70s, and '80s to reveal some of the most significant photography produced during those decades; curator Yasufumi Nakamori examines how artists in the late 1960s, working against a backdrop of social upheaval and anxiety about the future, began to experiment with photography and make radical shifts in the art of the period; and scholar Franz Prichard introduces Takuma Nakahira, a key figure in the story of Japanese photography whose contributions remain relatively unknown outside Japan.

In the Pictures section, curator Matthew S. Witkovsky revisits Takuma Nakahira's landmark 1971 Paris Biennale photo-installation; Nobuyoshi Araki's new Polaroid collages; Takashi Homma's new camera obscura urbanscapes; Cozue Takagi's vibrant, collaged images; Dan Abbe on rising star Daisuke Yokota's enigmatic photographs that focus on the image's tactile surface; curator Niwa Harumi on Issei Suda's documentation of traditional folk traditions and stylish characters in 1970s Tokyo; Mayumi Hosokura's formal studies of nudes and natural forms; Lesley A. Martin on Rinko Kawauhchi's never-before-published series of landscapes made in Japan and abroad; Andrew Maerkle on Naoya Hatakeyama's Tracing Lines series, focusing on one of Tokyo's major thoroughfares; and historian Ryuichi Kaneko in conversation with Kikuji Kawada, the celebrated octogenarian post-war photographer.

Voyages, journeys, and the captivating spell of wanderlust.

This edition of Aperture magazine, Odyssey, features photography about voyages, journeys, and the captivating spell of wanderlust.

In the Words section, Tacita Dean discusses her personal quests with writer Travis A. Diehl; Eric Banks traces the midcentury journeys of famed travel writer Wilfred Thesiger; Alexander Stille looks at Italian mountain-photography pioneer Vittorio Sella; writer Sean O'Toole profiles the documentary projects of the Invisible Borders Trans-African Photographers Organisation, a West African photography collective; and multidisciplinary artist Taryn Simon speaks with Kate Fowle, of Moscow's Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, about an artwork set for completion in the year 3015.

Guest edited by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Vision & Justice addresses the role of photography in the African American experience.

This award-winning issue of Aperture magazine was released in summer 2016, in a political moment defined by the close of the Obama era and the steady rise of #BlackLivesMatter activism. As a racial reckoning continues in the United States, this powerful issue remains an essential resource for understanding the role of art in the movement for equity and social justice.

Rooted in the prescient thinking of Frederick Douglass, and his argument that social progress requires pictures, Vision & Justice includes a wide span of photographic projects by such luminaries as Lyle Ashton Harris, Sally Mann, Jamel Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, and Deborah Willis, as well as the brilliant voices of a younger generation―Devin Allen, Awol Erizku, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Deana Lawson, and Hank Willis Thomas, among many others. Their portfolios are complemented by essays from some of the most influential voices in American culture, including contributions by celebrated writers, historians, and artists such as Vince Aletti, Teju Cole, Ava DuVernay, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Margo Jefferson, Wynton Marsalis, and Claudia Rankine.

Vision & Justice features two covers. This issue comes with an image by Awol Erizku, Untitled (Forces of Nature #1), 2014.

The biennials, festivals, and educational spaces changing the shape of African photography.

Aperture takes a detailed look at the dynamic spaces that have shaped conversations about photography in Africa for the last twenty-five years--the biennials, experimental art spaces, and educational workshops in which artists and audiences interact with photography. Platform Africa presents a new generation of artists, and is produced in collaboration with guest editors Bisi Silva, founder and artistic director of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos, Nigeria; John Fleetwood, director of the South Africa-based platform Photo and former head of the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg; and Aïcha Diallo, associate editor of Contemporary And.

An urgent reflection on photography, labor, and community.

How does the photographer navigate our new national order? As debates about the economic future of the United States continue into a controversial presidential administration, the spring issue of Aperture Magazine, American Destiny, offers an urgent reflection on photography, labor, and community. From agricultural workers to those toiling on the factory floor, from regional cities weathering years of postindustrial decline to refugee populations assimilating into the heartland, the photographers featured in this issue are bound by a desire to reveal how lives are shaped by the ebb and flow of the economy. American Destiny maps geographies of economic promises unfulfilled, weighing how the interrelated factors of class, sexism, education, shifting demographics, racism, and stagnant wages have influenced social life in the United States.

Style politics and sartorial exuberance in Harlem, Lagos, Berlin, and beyond.

Elements of Style investigates the role of style, dress, and beauty in the formation of individual identity. From the stunning studio work of Kwame Brathwaite, the Harlem-based photographer who advanced the potent political slogan Black Is Beautiful, to Collier Schorr's representations of the queer community in fashion contexts, to Pieter Hugo's portraits of young students at a Beijing art school, this issue reveals, across time and geographies, how fashion and style help us to see who we are and who we might become.

Aperture magazine is an essential guide to the art and phenomenon of photography, that combines the smartest writing with beautifully reproduced portfolios. Published quarterly, each issue focuses on a major theme in contemporary photography, serving as a book about its subject, for everyone interested in understanding where photography is heading. With fresh perspectives on the medium by leading writers and thinkers, and beautifully designed and produced, Aperture magazine makes new ideas in photography accessible to the photographer, student, and the culturally curious alike.

Future Gender explores the relationship between photography and transgender lives, histories, and communities.

Guest-edited by Zackary Drucker, the artist, activist, and producer of the television series Transparent, the issue offers an urgent reflection on gender and society and considers how trans and gender-nonconforming individuals have used photography to imagine new expressions of social and personal identity, from the nineteenth century to today.

Aperture magazine is an essential guide to the art and phenomenon of photography, that combines the smartest writing with beautifully reproduced portfolios. Published quarterly, each issue focuses on a major theme in contemporary photography, serving as a book about its subject, for everyone interested in understanding where photography is heading. With fresh perspectives on the medium by leading writers and thinkers, and beautifully designed and produced, Aperture magazine makes new ideas in photography accessible to the photographer, student, and the culturally curious alike.

Envisioning the intersections of photography and performance.

This issue, a collaboration between Aperture and Performa, the nonprofit organization dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in visual art, takes a capacious approach to considering the intersections of photography and performance.

In the Words section, Tate curator Simon Baker traces the impulse to perform for the camera throughout photographic history; New Museum curator Lauren Cornell looks at how artists such as K8 Hardy, Juliana Huxtable, and Amalia Ulman use social media to calculated effect; Performa founder RoseLee Goldberg and MoMA curator Roxana Marcoci discuss performance, documentation, and the ways in which performances are crafted for the camera; and Kaelen Wilson-Goldie explores the lecture-performance form in the work of Lebanese artists Walid Raad, Rabih Mrou , Lina Saneh, and Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.

In the Pictures section, Delfim Sardo considers the Portuguese artist Helena Almeida's Inhabited Painting(s) and other works; Brian Sholis on the disquieting appeal of Torbj rn R dland's images; James Welling introduces his new series Dance Project; Olu Oguibe on Samuel Fosso's recent Mao Zedong series; Brian Dillon on Dru Donovan's recreations; Performa curator Adrienne Edwards on how Carrie Mae Weems animates minimalism; a look at the role of image research in the Hong Kong-based duo Zheng Mahler's Performa 15 debut performance; and Kristin Poor explores two approaches to photographing dance, by looking at Barbara Morgan's enduring images of Martha Graham, and Babette Mangolte's photographs of Trisha Brown's dance performances.

Must-read conversations with nine of the world's most influential photographers.

The Interview Issue features in-depth conversations with a selection of influential photographers of an older generation, who continue to produce and publish, about their lifelong engagement with photography. What compels someone to become a photographer? And what drives someone to continue to be one, for as many as seven decades? How does a veteran photographer describe years of questioning politics, personal experience, social unrest, landscape, and history through the camera?

For this issue, Aperture offers nine in-depth interviews, firsthand accounts that underscore the generosity and intelligence of their speakers. Born between 1928 and 1947, the nine photographers featured―Bruce Davidson, Paolo Gasparini, David Goldblatt, Guido Guidi, Ishiuchi Miyako, William Klein, Bertien van Manen, Boris Mikhailov, and Rosalind Fox Solomon―are still active today, adding to their already unparalleled bodies of work. In these pages, the medium is considered from various points of view, offering a range of philosophies, values, and perspectives, yet for all the differences within this group, they share a fundamental curiosity about the human experience.

Guest edited by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Vision & Justice addresses the role of photography in the African American experience.

This award-winning issue of Aperture magazine was released in summer 2016, in a political moment defined by the close of the Obama era and the steady rise of #BlackLivesMatter activism. As a racial reckoning continues in the United States, this powerful issue remains an essential resource for understanding the role of art in the movement for equity and social justice.

Rooted in the prescient thinking of Frederick Douglass, and his argument that social progress requires pictures, Vision & Justice includes a wide span of photographic projects by such luminaries as Lyle Ashton Harris, Sally Mann, Jamel Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, and Deborah Willis, as well as the brilliant voices of a younger generation―Devin Allen, Awol Erizku, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Deana Lawson, and Hank Willis Thomas, among many others. Their portfolios are complemented by essays from some of the most influential voices in American culture, including contributions by celebrated writers, historians, and artists such as Vince Aletti, Teju Cole, Ava DuVernay, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Margo Jefferson, Wynton Marsalis, and Claudia Rankine.

Vision & Justice features two covers. This issue comes with an image by Richard Avedon, Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader, with his father, Martin Luther King, Baptist minister, and his son, Martin Luther King III, Atlanta, Georgia, March 22, 1963.

Visual cues from works of literature, poetics, and prominent writers.

At a cultural moment when images are arguably placing increased pressure on the written word, Aperture's Lit issue looks at the many relationships between photography and writing by considering photography projects that take cues from works of literature, play with image-text pairings and poetics, or were in fact produced by prominent writers, such as William S. Burroughs, Kobo Abe and Herve Guibert, who all moonlighted as photographers. The issue features an impressive line up of contemporary writers offering their views on photography, including Teju Cole, Tom McCarthy, Mary Gaitskill, Heidi Julavits, Geoff Dyer and Janet Malcolm, as well as Pulitzer Prize winning poets John Ashbury and Richard Howard, among many others.