n celebration of Fotograf magazine’s 10th year of existence moderated by: Martina Pachmanová The history of Fotograf magazine – whose mission is to be dedicated to photography and visual culture – reaches back to 2002. Since that time, photography has undergone significant changes. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the founding of Fotograf magazine the editorial board has organized a discussion forum called Parallel Formats. The core themes will be “Photography in the media” and “Photography as an artistic artifact.” We have currently found ourselves in an epoch that is absolutely groundbreaking for photography. The present time has enabled the parallel coexistence of various appearances – “formats” of photography. The medium of photography in itself has been experiencing a peculiar schizophrenia within the period of the last two decades. By means of its electronic form, photography has entered the virtual and computer world but, in addition, has also kept maintaining its analog chemical and material essence. Publicity media working with photography also coexists in a similar way. Besides traditional books and magazines with their traditional offset printing there are also electronic forms being shared via computer monitors – internet portals, blogs, books and so on. The original, fundamental shift that the internet brought along is experiencing its next rapid development through the form of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc. This is all creating an environment of exciting transformations during which newly forming unexpected questions about authorship, originals, stealing, plagiarism, collector’s items, etc are arising. In addition to this, the voices of traditional collectors can be heard; they value authors’ original “vintage prints,” with their manual craftsmanship. They claim that with digital products this term has already lost its meaning. Are they right? Or not? Is it even important to be dealing with this? Is the virtual version of photography a danger to the survival of photography as a collector’s and exhibition artifact? It all makes an inspiring source for a discussion forum that will devote itself to these questions. The following have promised to be involved: Štěpánka Bieleszová, curator of the photography collection, Olomouc Musuem of Art Stephan de Broyer, founder and editor-in-chief of the View magazine, Brussels Enrico Bossan, director of the Colors magazine, Treviso Karel Císař, independent curator, Prague Natasha Egan, curator, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago Eva Eicker, exhibition assistant, The Photographers’ Gallery, London Marek Grygiel, curator of photography at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw Calin Kruse, founder and editor-in-chief of the DNCHT magazine and the Die rote Trude art edition, Trier Anne-Francoise Lesuisse, artistic director of the BIP2012 (International Biennal of Photography and Visual Arts), Liége Celina Lunsford, curator and consultant of the Fotografie Forum, Frankfurt Jan Mlčoch, art historian, Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague and others. Panel I: Photography in the media The transforming role of photography in printed form. Is is still possible, in this digital day and age, to deem photography as trustworthy proof that a depicted reality really happened? What kind of problems is the publication of photographs in printed form facing; what kind is publication in digital form facing? New forms of authorship, copyright etc. in the information age. Questions about the freedom of self-presentation and its limits (self-publishing, blogs, websites). Panel II: Photography as an original The photographic image and its issues, between exclusive prints and zines, markets and independent cultures. How society values photography, what type of conception and why? Changes in the conceiving of an author’s enlargement today within the spectrum reaching from copy machine run offs to exclusive collector’s prints? Do modern “alternative processes” still have any sense and what is collecting and archiving facing in terms of modern forms of printing? Simultaneous translation will be provided on site. Free admission to both panel discussions.