Hosts: Fred Ritchin, Deborah Willis, Stephen Mayes, Melissa Harris (Wafaa Bilal, not pictured)

Aperture’s inside-out  exhibition in-progress What Matters Now? opened in its final form last Saturday night. The five Hosts: Wafaa Bilal, Melissa Harris, Stephen Mayes, Deborah Willis and Fred Ritchin, had two weeks to transform the blank walls of their areas into Proposals for a New Front Page. Their collaborative efforts yielded thought-provoking, outrage-inducing and even hopeful statements about the current state of media and photography. In addition to discussions led by the Hosts, public involvement truly made the exhibition a community effort. The Public wall currently exhibits over one hundred submissions from people worldwide, and those that could not attend the Aperture Gallery space for events and lectures joined the conversation through Twitter, Facebook and the website. The unusual form of  the What Matters Now? exhibition was an experiment on Aperture’s part, but one that produced fascinating results. Using Aperture Gallery as a meeting hub, the goal of the exhibition was to start a conversation about what we are looking at, as a society, and why. The weeks’ events and Saturday’s well-attended opening demonstrates that many are concerned with issues regarding the media: particularly trust, engagement and active readership. Fred Ritchin, the creator of What Matters Now?, even plans to continue working on creating a new way of reading, collecting disseminating information.

Although the hosts are no longer adding to their walls, the Public Wall will continue to grow. You can submit images and text online here until Thursday, September 22, 2011.

What Matters Now?: Proposals for a New Front Page
through Saturday, September 24, 2011
10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th floor
New York, New York

The Moon, Lunar Orbiter 1, NASA, 1966.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011 –Thursday, March 3, 2011
9:00 am–6:00 pm

FREE

Theresa Lang Center
The New School
55 W 13th Street
New York, New York

The Photography Program in the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons the New School for Design, The Aperture Foundation, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and The Shpilman Institute for Photography have joined forces to organize The Photographic Universe: A Conference, a unique two-day symposium that will bring together a range of leading practitioners, scientists, theoreticians, historians, and philosophers, drawing from the faculty at Parsons, professionals in the science and technology fields, as well as prominent experts from external institutions, to consider and reflect on current discussions in photography at a pivotal moment in its history.

The unique format of the conference will consist of one-on-one conversations between two individuals from disparate professional and research backgrounds. Each speaker will present a ten-minute presentation on the subject of photography, followed by twenty-minute dialogue responding to each other’s presentation. Each day will conclude with a Keynote lecture by a prominent expert in the field.

Wednesday, March 2 – Art & Philosophy

9:00 AM-10:00 AM
Coffee & Bagels

10:15 AM-11:15 AM
Charlotte Cotton with David Reinfurt

11:15 AM-12:15 PM
Andrea Geyer with Susie Linfield

1:45 PM-2:45 PM
Walter Benn Michaels with James Welling

2:45 PM-3:45 PM
Penelope Umbrico with Anne Collins Goodyear

3:45 PM-4:45 PM
Susan Meiselas with Chris Boot

Thursday, March 3 – Science & Technology

9:00 AM-10:00 AM
Coffee & Bagels

10:15 AM-10:15 AM
Richard Benson with Frank Cost

11:15 AM-12:15 PM
Simone Douglas with Michael T. Jones

1:45 PM-2:45 PM
Anthony Aziz with Douglas Lanman

2:45 PM-3:45 PM
Wafaa Bilal with Virgina Rutledge

3:45 PM-4:45 PM
Trevor Paglen with Julia Bryan Wilson

5:00PM-6:30PM
Closing reception