Shelley Rice's talk, "Local Space/Global Visions," explores the “visual geography” of the year 1900, the moment when amateur cameras, half-tone reproduction processes and multinational corporations expanded photographic production and distribution exponentially, and quite literally set the stage for a “world culture” of imagery. Focusing on three separate projects (Alfred Stieglitz’s magazine Camera Notes, Albert Kahn’s Archives of the Planet and the PhotoGlob AG collection of scenic views), the lecture will highlight how the image economy of this historical period -- with its emphasis on networks, franchises, portability and outreach, its inherent tension between the domestic and the international, the artistic and the commercial, the elite and the mass – laid the foundations for our contemporary visual environment.

The Interdisciplinary Seminar was designed twenty years ago to contribute to a regular and sustainable discussion on artistic practice for the students of the Cooper Union School of Art and the creative community that surrounds them. Lectures are free and open to the public.