FUTURES: Objective images in the age of scrolling

The 2025 FUTURES talents exploring photography objectivity today through narratives on technology, the body and the invisible

In an age of visual saturation, where images are primarily consumed by scrolling, where algorithms dictate our attention and where speed is mistaken for significance, a group of FUTURES talents are responding by seeking clarity and adopting an almost scientific approach to their work. A precision not of technical perfection, but of attention. A kind of looking that holds still long enough to see.

Nearly a century ago, artists in post-war Germany responded to the chaos of their time with a similar resolve. Under the banner of “Neue Sachlichkeit”, or “new Objectivity” they rejected the emotionalism of Expressionism in favor of observational realism. Typologies such as detail, landscape and vastness, fragment and space, body and identity as well as street and society followed by image concepts that deal with life experiences that are not visible or difficult to represent were examined.

Today, we find echoes of that movement in artists who also resist spectacle but do so on new terms. Their tools are different. Their concerns are contemporary. But their approach carries forward that desire to document without distortion, to observe without retreat, to create without illusion. And yet, something has shifted. The clarity sought today is not only external, but internal. It is not just about revealing what’s there: it’s also about creating space to grieve, to pause, to reconnect with what is fragile.

Mari Kolcheva’s work “Meteorologica: Observations” explores the intersection of magical thinking and scientific research. Blending objective documentation with cultural and intellectual inquiry, the work examines meteorology as both a science and a social construct. Kolcheva shifts between cosmic wonder and analytical clarity, uncovering invisible links between human wellbeing and weather phenomena. Through speculative storytelling and fictional narrative, she creates a space for world-building that merges fact and imagination, inviting viewers to reconsider how we perceive and understand atmospheric forces. The work becomes a poetic meditation on every person's desire to find meaning in the ever-changing skies.

What makes us question our world, our perception of it and the invisible nets holding all things shaping living beings and their connections. To care for the self, for the other, for a kinship to be restored against all odds. In this spirit, “They Dream Not” by Inês Quente, continues the impulse to document without illusion, yet through methods that are tactile, rooted in analog processes, ephemeral gestures, and interspecies dialogue. The project seeks not only to witness ecological fragility but to mourn with it, to slow down and make space for listening. It begins with the Earth’s surface – glaciers, fires, soil – and spirals inward, asking what it means to be in relationship with a place. Through embodied research and poetic materiality, “They Dream Not” invites a quiet restoration of kinship, where perception deepens, and care becomes both method and message.

Similarly, Zoé Elia Menthonnex’s “ZOMBIE” is a speculative study on fragility, mutation and resurgence. The images obtained from scans of flowers and found organic fragments, recall Karl Blossfeldt’s botanical studies, where structure and form become subjects of both scientific inquiry and aesthetic contemplation. Yet Menthonnex departs from pure objectivity, breaking into the invisible through subtle manipulations of colour and texture. In this shifting terrain, time becomes fertile ground for transformation, allowing a pensive reconnection to the real. The work balances objective methods of archiving and observation with a persistent personal sensitivity, attending closely to the “other-than-self” in its many forms.

In “Me, the black-box”, Alessio Pellicoro turns his advanced-stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma into a medium of introspection and visual transformation. Diagnosed with stage-IV cancer, he uses photographic tools – ultrasound, X-ray, CT, PET – as mirrors into his altered interior, positioning himself as both subject and object. Pellicoro views himself as data input – chewed, processed, and reinterpreted by diagnostic technologies – becoming a “black-box” of anomalies and digital flux. A clinical clarity and detachment, updated – here, the gaze is both precision-bound and deeply personal, unflinching yet resonant.

Pellicoro’s “Me, the black‑box” and Aline Bovard Rudaz’s “Cherche RADIUMINEUSE” both harness photography’s archival rigor and impartial gaze to expose hidden narratives. Rudaz resurrects "Radiumineuses" – Swiss women watch‑dial painters exposed to radiation – through layered archives, photos, and contaminated objects, reclaiming erased histories. Her work too mirrors New Objectivity’s commitment to clarity, documentation, and neutrality, yet infuses it with empathy and memory, turning factual observation into poignant testimony. Through a meticulous assemblage of photographs, archival records, and reproductions of contaminated objects, Rudaz conducts both an investigation and an homage, restoring the memory of the Radiumineuses.

Together, these works by FUTURES talents form a constellation of contemporary practices that echo the ethos of New Objectivity while expanding its scope into the urgencies of our time. They share a commitment to sustained looking, to the patient act of uncovering what lies beneath the visible, yet they resist the cold detachment of the past. Instead, they weave in empathy, vulnerability, and care – qualities that transform observation into entanglements. In a world oversaturated with fleeting images, these artists remind us that clarity is not only about seeing more sharply, but about feeling more deeply.