What if...

... a terrorist is running across the landscape with a machine gun. He is running towards the future. A futurologist calculates the terrorist´s trajectory on his computer and finds that he is headed toward the present. Eventually these two paths cross. The terrorist jumps out from the landscape (out of the computer) onto the futurologist´s desk and says, “Unfortunately, I have to shoot you because you stand in the way of the future,” Then he pulls the trigger. The futurologist, if he could still speak, might say, “I reckoned that this might happen.”

– Vilém Flusser, What If?

We live in a time where the development of trends, technology, and politics is going at a breakneck pace. Moore's law predicts that the amount of information, the amount of computing power, and the amount of memory power required, will double every other year in our hyper-technological society. This rapid acceleration changes how we interact with information, texts, and images. The present suddenly feels shorter somehow. The future becomes a faster present and the present a faster past. Our ability to concentrate deteriorates as the amount of information steadily increases.

A book can be understood as a linear presentation of information, texts, and images. It functions as a container which structures our attention and delineates information. So, what can the limited book do to us at a time when our senses are under siege every day? Is the book’s limitations a problem or a solution? Is the photo book’s anachronistic nature also its superpower? Through its various events, the festival will explore the subversive potential of the photo book and speculate on its place in the future.

In 1984, philosopher and media theorist, Vilém Flusser published What If? (Angenommen) which is a collection of twenty-two scenarios for the future, divided into three main chapters; scenes from the family life, scenes from the economy, and scenes from politics. In these texts, Flusser explores ideas of fantastical futures, which, among other things, feature talking fetuses, exploding super-cows, and information-producing insects. Fotobokfestival Oslo 2024 is organised according to the same division; the family, the economy and politics. By utilising these divisions, around 80 books and three commissioned works will show us the way through the flow of information.