C/O Berlin will celebrate the bicentennial of photography with a wide-ranging, allday program of events on August 22, 2026, during the week of World Photography Day. Together with special guests, we will look back on the history of photography—from the first existing photographs by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in around 1826 to the invention of the smartphone and the new social applications that came with it—and simultaneously look to the future: What is the role of photography today? In what ways is it still relevant? Is it being changed or even replaced by AI?

With leading figures from art, photography, media studies, and visual theory, we will discuss how our understanding of images is changing in an era shaped by artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, and an unprecedented flood of images. The history of photography is our focus, including its role in cultural memory and its future in the age of algorithmic image production. The program includes a keynote by leading AI scholar and author Kate Crawford, panels with international guests such as Florian Ebner, Michelle Henning, Ryan S. Jeffery, Annekathrin Kohout, Susanne Kriemann, Armin Linke, and Steffen Siegel, as well as conversations on the social, political, and ecological impact of new image technologies. The program also includes a workshop on AI as a tool for artistic intervention, criticism, and resistance by Bruce Eesly.

The day culminates in an open-air short film program in the courtyard of Amerika Haus, with works by Bruce Eesly, Ryan S. Jeffery, Gala Hernández López, and Daphné Nan Le Sergent. The selected video works explore the history of AI, its relationship to photography, and its ecological footprint, as well as the growing importance of digital technology in global geopolitical contexts.

In the context of the exhibition The Lure of the Image, the program explores the impact of AI on photography, image culture, and society—from its history and its relationship to photography to its ecological footprint.