The Event-Shaped Hole and the Photographic Image

“The image making and processing capacity happen continuously, just as respiration, or digestion does, The new image machines breathe, digest, dream and excrete pictures. they don’t just ‘take’ them.”

This essay introduces Raqs’ concept of the “event-shaped hole,” suggesting that photographs can act as pieces of evidence, even when the events themselves are absent from direct view. The text reflects on the evolving nature of photography in the digital era and its impact on public perception and memory, examining the role of photographic images in documenting socio-political events.

Text by Raqs, published in ‘The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 30 No. 61-62: The Changing Ontology of the Image’, 2021