Chargoosh (Foursquare)

A Group Photography Exhibition curated by Behrouz Mehri, 12 – 22 June, 2015 from 4:00 to 8:00 pm

Chargoosh is the squared space on your cell phone for seeing life, people, street views and every other thing around us. Social media channels and especially Instagram have changed the course of photography and have more than ever made this medium available to all, where seeing and responding quickly to images are some of its characteristics. Through the new technologies used to build cell phone cameras, photography with cell phone devices have become a professional activity where better and faster images are possible.

Classical traditions of street photography established during the first half of twentieth century by photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, reached its peak in 70s and resulted in the production of natural images without the conventional posing in front of the lens widely practiced before.

This form of photography became popular again in the digital era through cell phones and made natural recording of daily life easier which resulted in us being able to see images captured throughout the world within seconds on the magical screens of our cell phones.

French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu says: “The aesthetic discourse is always a contradiction between the aesthetical use and the social definition of photography.” Perhaps, this duality doesn’t show itself more anywhere than in mobile photography: As well as this mode of photography becoming a daily routine activity and part of our social lives, images captured by these devices too have gained specific attentions as works of documentary, artistic, film, photojournalism etc. in official and professional channels.

It appears that cell phone cameras have shifted the art of photography from its official stance as an “art form” and have made it available and a common practice used widely by ordinary people, and the temptation of photography using these small and accessible devices has now become an accepted reality to any professional photographer. It won’t be strange to say that just like street photography in the middle of the twentieth century, mobile photography would become a milestone in the history of art photography. s.