This text by Harumi Yamagishi provides information about artistic research in photography, a study undertaken by Roberto Okumura, who thinks that photography is, first and foremost, a support of ideas. In addition, photography is mentioned as a means of a scientific investigation developed by Etienne-Jules Marey in order to analyze kinetic behavior and the critical nature of Dada photomontage. Yamagishi asserts that conceptual art emerged as a criticism of the traditional values of the work of art, of tangibility and context. Conceptualism deems art idea, mental process; it makes use of multimedia resources. If the viewer concentrates on photography’s structure and meanings, thus transforming traditional perceptual knowledge, his reading of photography changes: photography becomes a fundamental linguistic resource thanks to its ability to register, in an instant, the image and the space and time of contemporary experience.

Photography was fundamental to conceptual art. This text addresses the moment when photography was formulated less in terms of a particular aesthetic than in terms of its ability to provide a documentary register linked to perception of time and space.

In the seventies, Harumi Yamagishi was curatorial assistant to Walter Zanini, the director of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea (MAC) at the Universidade de São Paulo. Yamagishi, who was deeply involved in multimedia art, organized the show Foto/idéia at that museum in1987.

The editor of the journal Íris, which was created in 1947, was João Koranyi—a key figure in the communication of photography in Brazil. The journal went through a number of transformations before its last issue was published in 1999.

[For other texts on photography published in Íris, see in the ICAA digital archive by T. J. Farkas “Fotografia - caminhos diversos” (doc. no. 1110873); by João Koranyi “Fotografia abstrata? (Conclusão)” (doc. no.1110874) and “A missão cultural da fotografía” (doc. no. 1110871); by Vilém Flusser “O futuro e a cultura da imagen” (doc. no. 1110898) and “O instrumento do fotógrafo ou o fotógrafo-instrumento?” (doc. no. 1110899); by Eduardo Llorente “Juventude e cinema” (doc. no. 1110875); by Stefania Bril “As relações futuras do homem com a máquina” (doc. no. 1110897); and by Luis Humberto “Uma fotografia criativa e seus impedimentos” (doc. no. 1110876)].