Source Magazine

Source Magazine

Issue : #114 Summer 2024

A significant part of our contemporary communications infrastructure is dedicated to the circulation of photographs of cats, apparently because of the way they make us feel. But cats themselves have an exceptionally limited range of expression, so where are these feelings coming from? Julia Tanner explores this paradox. In fact, the question of how emotions are bound up with images can be confusing. Looking at photographs can prompt an emotional reaction and photographs can be made to convey a feeling. Photographs might depict an emotion. But are these the same thing? Is showing an emotion the same as sharing it? David Bate disentangles these different relationships between pictures and the way we feel about them.