The Lure of the Image

Yet another image of a cat that makes you go 🫶. That TV show you love to hate that keeps popping up as a meme on social media. A picture that baits your click, a thirst trap you can’t resist. Political propaganda embedded in cuteness and the unfulfilled promises of perfect bodies on your dating app. One last Airbnb photograph that tricked you into a windowless trap. It’s hard not to get sucked into the world of digital images, a world that’s so beguiling that we can’t stop scrolling and just keep clicking.

The Lure of the Image explores contemporary digital forms of photography and their seductive powers: How do images bait or beguile us as they circulate online? How do they compel, capture or control us? The fourteen artistic positions presented in the exhibition engage with visual phenomena that serve as vehicles for online communication, criticism and humour, highlighting the crucial role images play in shaping our social, cultural and political landscapes.

The show invites you to explore the visual worlds of social media feeds, dating app profiles, beauty filters, memes, ASMR videos, ‘cute’ and ‘cursed’ images, emoji, computer-generated imagery and low-resolution screenshots used for conspiracy or protest. The artistic positions track the complex mechanisms of the lure, shedding light on how images and their underlying structures – from algorithms to datasets – direct our attention, provoke emotions and influence opinions. As such, the works offer contemporary investigations into how images are both embedded within, and actively contribute to, an attention-driven economy – one that fuels our desires and thrives on our affective reactions.

With works by: Zoé Aubry, Sara Bezovšek, Viktoria Binschtok, Sara Cwynar, Éamonn Freel x Lynski, Dina Kelberman, Michael Mandiberg, Joiri Minaya, Simone C Niquille, Jon Rafman, Jenny Rova, Hito Steyerl, Noura Tafeche and Ellie Wyatt

The Lure of the Image is the result of a three-year research project that evolved on the dynamic and constantly changing online platform [permanent beta]. The contributions that unfold on the website have been realised in collaboration with artists, curators and theorists and include performative and audiovisual explorations, podcasts, essays and dialogue-based input. They give users an all-round view of the subject matter while at the same time providing an insight into the collective process of research and development involved in creating this exhibition project.