iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

LACP’s annual portfolio reviews are almost here, so I wanted to share this opportunity in case it’s useful for any photo-makers who might be interested. There are still a few days left to sign up, and I have last few spots available! 📅 Sept 30–Oct 2, 2026 @bsky.art #photography #onlinereviews

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

John Senese, WTC PATH station. August, 2001. Archival pigment print on Baryta Cotton Rag, 20" x 24" unframed. Currently on view at LACP (through September 12), John’s project depicts a world shifting forever in front of the lens.

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Reposted by Rotem Rozental

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

We are projected to spend $268 BILLION on deportations — costing the average American taxpayer about $2,358 (according to @epi.org). But somehow we “can’t afford” to make sure hungry children can eat or ensure everyone, no matter their income, can access healthcare. Priorities.

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Their legacy, then, extends beyond their work: it has to include the ways in which #DollyParton and #YayoiKusama undermined expectations and used what the world saw as their weakness to kick it in the butt, paint polka dots all over it, and place themselves front and center [end] More on Bytesize:

rotroz.substack.com

Dolly Parton, Yayoi Kusama, and Protective Shields

The two cultural icons who passed away this month shared more than global admiration: their public image was a coping mechanism they developed for self-preservation

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Kusama also played on her public image from the beginning of her career: she understood the intersection of the work of art, the artistic persona and the physical presence of the artist well before her contemporary, Andy Warhol

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

The character Parton created and the role she played allowed her to maintain control over her image and output on her own terms

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

But there's something else, not far beneath the surface: they both developed a protective shield while working in fields that did not have much regard toward their gender or personal histories

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

On the face of it, the only thing Dolly Parton and Yayoi Kusama share is that they passed away in the same month, and that the world learned the news on the same week. 🧵

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

A man walks into the kids' gym with a Stairway to Heaven t-shirt, Adidas sneakers, wallet chains and skinny jeans. There's either a glitch in the system or the wormhole is about to get me

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

The absence of a clear answer is another hint (or a huge, neon-lit warning sign) that the system does it for its benefit: that maxximizing feeds the algorithm and keeps audiences (users) engaged with the system, not the artists or the messages they’re hoping to convey More on Bytesize [end]

rotroz.substack.com

Artmaxxing to the Minimum

The forces of optimization are seeping into the art market, further complicating ideas around success and creative accomplishments

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

But optimized toward what end? If the system masks the markers of success by design, as I previously shared with you, what are artists expected to optimize?

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

#Artmaxxing is the idea that art, as the name implies, could be maxximized in order to gain cultural currency, or cachet, either for the artist or the collector, the buyer or the seller.🧵 #blueskyart

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

the inability to agree on a shared reality in a disjointed field, the illusion of openness and accessibility, and the constant feeling that everyone (who are they?) is doing much, much better than you. #FOMO

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

This is not a bug in the system, but a feature in the hardware: that this amorphous state of affairs reflects and correlates with the algorithmic logic that has taken hold of cultural production

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

The financial system that drives the #art world obscures the definition of success, leaving those whose labor shapes the field unsure as to whether they have arrived, and where, exactly, they are supposed to land when they become successful artists.

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

When the financial system obscures the goalposts of making it, the rules need to change.🧵

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

As a result, analog photography – as a practice, ritual and community – is flourishing. [end]

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Young people are searching for third places, away from their screens, where they can be together without the constant judgment of social media. They are discovering tangible media as a way of experiencing intentional shared moments.

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

We saw it clearly at the Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP) during the inaugural AnalogCon, a festival for all things #analogphotography held in April this year. Hundreds of people joined us to meet artists, exhibitors, vendors, and, mostly, one another

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

This move goes beyond any depoliticized nostalgia—it’s hard to yearn for an analog world you never knew. If anything, it’s postalgic, a deliberate and conscious insistence on a relationship with past technology and media as a rejection of algorithmic feeds and the alienation of social media.

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

David Hockney, Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studio, 1980 #blueskyart #DavidHockney

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I am jurying an #opencall about #documentary #photography, as part of an exhibitions program marking the 250th anniversary. My hope is to offer a kaleidoscopic and a very human view of life in this place now that the first quarter of this century had ended. Deadline: June 16 #blueskyart

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Documenting America at 250, Part I

An open call for documentary photography and updates on curatorial projects marking America’s 250th anniversary

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

The #catalog for Reservoir: Photography, #Loneliness and Well-Being, designed by Caleb Cain Marcus, was just selected for the 2026 Society of Typographic Arts 100. I wrote about the project, the catalog, and why #photography is a technology of connection. #art #printmaking #digitalart #culture

rotroz.substack.com

Reservoir's Catalog Selected for the 2026 Society of Typographic Arts 100

Designed by Caleb Cain Marcus, the catalog features 40 projects by international artists that address the global crisis of loneliness

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

What if photography communities are becoming support systems? Over the past two years, I watched artists from across the US and beyond respond to loneliness through creative practice. What emerged was more than a series of projects—it became a community.

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Artists of the past were driven by the energies of progress and the potential of machines: Italian Futurism began in 1909 with a manifesto published in Le Figaro, promoting modernity and a need for speed Fortunato Depero, The New Babel, 1930 (detail) #art #painting #blueskyart #futurism #modernity

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Hannah Höch, Der Strauß (The Bouquet), 1929/1965, 22.3 × 23.7 cm Thinking about human eyes and machine perception, and how dada artists captured our confusion by media and vision a century ago #collage #collage #HannahHoch #art #dada #avantgarde #visualstorytelling #photocollage

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

In this moment, #photojournalism reveals something significant about our expectations as viewers: that we desperately want to believe the image, while it desperately shows us repeatedly that we should have a more nuanced understanding of what it says about the world

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

What if we consider the #photographer as a participant, as the generator instead of the chronicler? Photographers tell us something significant that would not be visible to us in any other way - a subjective truth that needs to be chronicled [end]

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Image manipulation has been integral to #photography since its early days. Fake images and pictures that stretch the limits of our vision are nothing new. #doubleexposure and #spiritphotography are just a few examples!

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

And beyond the image, we want to believe its creator

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Generative AI introduced a new feature into #photojournalism’s complex operational system: the production of speculative, fictional images of events that could have been 🧵

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

As long as AGI systems do not have a physical body that can smell, taste, see or touch, they might let us stay here for a little while longer.

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

We may soon have AI agents that can run companies, write code, and complete tasks autonomously. But even the most advanced systems still lack something fundamental: a body that can sense the world. That limitation might keep humans in the loop longer than many assume. 🧵

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Across countries, languages and cultures, I remember all of them. Happy International Women’s Day. There’s still much work to be done. Let's make sure rising professionals today will never be subjected to such behaviors #internationalwomensday

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

I remember you, boss, who stopped talking to me after I sent an email to complain about an arbitrary requirement made by your VP, a guy who made all the women in the building scared to complain about anything.

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

I remember you, famous collector, and how you surrounded yourself with strong women as your subordinates. I remember how a colleague, herself a famous artist and scholar, told me you forced a kiss on her when you were alone with her, and how she knew there’s no point complaining to anyone

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

I remember you, famous artist and professor, who was so beloved by feminist and leftist scholars, but all your art students talked about how much you loved hitting on them. I avoided you throughout my career.

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

I remember you, famous artist and educator, who loved coming on to young students, and I remember how my partner made me promise I will join her whenever we needed to meet you.

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

I remember you, the boss who loved to cheat on his wife on business trips, and slapped me on my butt at a company party in front of everyone, even though I was high up on the chain. I was 24 years old.

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

2026 encapsulates a tension between digital and impermanent technological advances and a renewed insistence on the tactile, physical presence of art objects that are produced through a contemplative, thoughtful, and intentional process

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

As doomsday scrolling accelerates, artists and audiences turn toward contemplation, materiality, and presence

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

2026 is all about the tension between accelerated technologies and the renewed interest in slow art production and deep reflection and looking

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Rotem Rozental @rotroz.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Can we have a mini-podcast for movies hat did not age well? I'll start: Watching Get Him to the Greek in 2026 is a cringe fest @billsimmons.bsky.social

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