The visible world overflows with pictures: more than three billion of them stream across social media every day. This overproduction this excess needs to be managed. Images must be stored, formatted and transported, their flow and exchange must be organised. They require road networks (such as internet cables) and new forms of labour (such as content moderators and clickworkers). And they transform the way we see, mobilising our gaze as never before. The essays and artworks in this catalogue, by observing similar transformations currently affecting our financialised economy in the age of cryptocurrencies, seek to grasp and theorise this new iconomy of the visible.

This exhibition catalogue is a collection of short texts providing a wide range of perspectives on the economics of the image and images of the economy. A number of classic essays have also been reproduced, in part or in full. Includes contributions from Emmanuel Alloa, Hervé Aubron, Matthias Bruhn, Yves Citton, Elena Esposito, Jean-Joseph Goux, Maurizio Lazzarato, Catherine Malabou, Marta Ponsa, Marie Rebecchi, Antonio Somaini, Peter Szendy, Leah Temper, Elena Vogman and Dork Zabunyan.

Peter Szendy is Professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities at Brown University. Previously, he worked as Maître de conférences and accredited research director at Université de Paris Nanterre, Visiting Professor at NYU and Princeton, and Maître de conférences at Université Marc-Bloch in Strasbourg. In 1995, he obtained his doctoral degree in Musical Aesthetics at École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Ehess), Paris.

Art historian, Marta Ponsa is the Head of artistic projects and public programs in Jeu de Paume, (Paris) where she curates exhibitions, conferences, performances, together with cinema and video programs. He is the author of Le Supermarché du Visible (Editions de Minuit, 2017)

Emmanuel Alloa is Research Leader in Philosophy at the University of St. Gallen and teaches Aesthetics at the University of Paris 8. He holds a binational Ph.D in philosophy (Paris 1 Panthéon/Freie Universität Berlin).