It is not important for the photographer to know how to see, because the camera sees for them. This statement captures Franco Vaccari‘s view of photography and the photographic medium, outlined in his well-known book Fotografia e inconscio tecnologico (Photography and the Technological Unconscious). The reading recommendations for this edition of Bulletin start from this cornerstone text and the exhibition currently on display at Museion entitled: Feedback. The Environments of Franco Vaccari. Their aim is to broaden perspectives on the artist’s theories and therefore on the context of contemporary photography, in which the absence of the author has become a widespread condition.
Franco Vaccari, Fotografia e inconscio tecnologico, Einaudi, 2011.
In this book, edited by Roberta Valtorta, Vaccari reflects on how photography only produces meaning when the artist is willing to step back from their customary central position and leave room for a process in which the camera can operate according to its own logic and generate genuinely unexpected results.
This approach is clearly expressed in the words used by the artist when recalling his project for the 1972 Venice Biennial: “By eclipsing myself as the “author”, I eliminated one of the components in photography’s sacred trinity of photographer, camera and subject. So, while I was foregrounding the mechanisms of production, I was also seeking to undermine the aura of the artist, trigger a change in the ritual of exhibitions, and awaken in the visitor an awareness of their own presence.”
This book, which was first published in 1979, has been republished several times since. The 2011 edition, that is quoted here, shows how Vaccari left the original structure of the volume largely unchanged, and simply added several new chapters dedicated to recent technological innovations.
Franco Vaccari (Modena, 1936–2025) had a science-based education, including a degree in physics. After his artistic début as a visual poet, in 1969, he staged the first of his Exhibitions in real time. Then, in 1972, 1980 and 1993, a solo room was dedicated to his work in the Central Pavilion at the Venice Biennial. From 1966 onwards, he worked as a director and an author of numerous artist’s books. He also took part in international exhibitions at museums and galleries and in major film festivals. His visual art was always accompanied by theoretical reflections that he condensed into the aforementioned book and other seminal essays, such as Duchamp e l’occultamento del lavoro (1978) (Duchamp and the Concealment of Work).
Luca Panaro, L’occultamento dell’autore. La ricerca artistica di Franco Vaccari, Seipersei, 2026.
The second publication we have chosen is the book, L’occultamento dell’autore. La ricerca artistica di Franco Vaccari (The Concealment of the Author. Franco Vaccari’s Art) by Luca Panaro, an expert on Vaccari’s work, author of multiple publications and co‑curator of the exhibition currently on show at Museion.
In his book, Panaro sees the eclipse of the artist as one of the central themes in Vaccari’s work. It was a deliberate choice to step back and allow the camera to act independently. The camera is no longer regarded as a neutral tool, but a medium that engages directly with the subject, capturing reality in its least manipulated form and revealing details the human eye may not catch. In this process, the artist’s conscious aesthetic choices are replaced with outcomes decided by chance. They cannot be predicted or planned, and importantly, they are driven by the feedback generated by audience involvement.
Originally published in 2007, today this volume is crucial as it allows us, in an era dominated by selfies and artificial intelligence, to revive Panaro’s insights from almost twenty years ago. Through his research into Franco Vaccari’s work, the author offers not only a new interpretation of the evolution of photography, but a profound reflection on the nature of contemporary art.
Luca Panaro (b. Florence, 1975) is an Italian art critic, curator, and academic. His research focuses on an analysis of contemporary images, with a particular emphasis on photography, video art, and new media. He teaches at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, the Bologna Academy of Fine Arts, the ISIA in Urbino, and the Modena Visual Arts Foundation.
Hito Steyerl, Medium Hot: Images in The Age of Heat, Verso, 2025.
Our third proposal analyses these reflections further by shifting the focus from Vaccari’s work and its critical reception to a context in which the absence of the author becomes a widespread condition for contemporary images.
In Medium Hot. Images in The Age of Heat, Hito Steyerl describes a visual ecosystem in which images are generated, selected, and circulated in complex technological systems, where the absence of the author is no longer simply an artistic or critical choice, but a structural condition that implies new forms of delegation, control, and distributed responsibility. As Steyerl states in her incisive style: “The essays throw the spotlight on some aspects of the swift proliferation of machine-learning based technologies and their impact on society, art and different types of labour. Perhaps they will become time capsules for future historians, who might at some point ask themselves: What did people think when all this started? How did they deal with the threat of their own zombification, that is, of being made obsolescent or undead by tools of statistical conformism?” (p. 10, Verso 2025)
Hito Steyerl (b. Munich 1966, lives and works in Berlin) studied at the Tokyo Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Television and Cinema in Munich. She also holds a PhD in philosophy from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She is currently Professor of Emerging Digital Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.
The exhibition, Feedback. The Environments of Franco Vaccari at Museion offers, for the first time, an extensive exploration of environments as the core of Franco Vaccari’s art. Conceived to mark what would have been the artist’s ninetieth birthday, this exhibition is the first extensive institutional presentation of his work in Italy in over a decade. It seeks to place Vaccari’s art in a broader international context of audience participation, which the artist sees as playing an active role in the artwork’s creation.
Curated by Frida Carazzato and Luca Panaro
Runs until 13.09.2026
Bulletin 2026
