Fotograf Magazine

This publication by Metropolitan University Prague is another in an editorial series focusing on the theory of new media. Martin Charvát is also the author of O nových médiích, modularitě a simulaci (On New Media, Modularity and Simulation, 2017) or Foucault a Deleuze: O těle, experimentu a etice (On the Body, Experiment and Ethics, 2018) in the same series. This slim book on cyberphotography can serve as valuable study material, as it provides insight into the theory of the medium from Foucault through Derrida and Baudrillard to Virilio. The simple visuals support a sense of an academic abridged reader. The authors’ theories from across the history of photography and media then serve as a foundation for the thesis that “(…) photography functions as an ornament and as the surface of the phantasm of what we ‘wish’ to see.” In the second text that forms this publication, Michaela Fišerová follows the historical transformations of opinion on retouching, and, especially (aided by Boris Groys or Stephen Cohen) its political connotations.