In today’s society, people use phones to draw images from disparate times and spaces, displaying a modern sensibility. In the post-internet era, artists, viewers, and residents of cities all receive information from people in various parts of the world. Phones now become “windows” to the intensity of visuality. Images on phones encircle us, ephemeral yet lingering. We, as viewers, must ascertain the information they convey. In street corners, these “windows” are transformed into glistening neon lights and electronic advertising boards. Their legibility is uncertain; they convey only fragmentary information. However, they arouse the sense of a city’s vitality, of the city as a secondary nature. The phone plays an important role in this process. Myriad hues and shapes replace content, and images rule our memories. The NEXT-IMAGE will eventually become the embodiment of the era.

It is an era where art has demonstrated an enormous amount of flexibility; artists, artistic mediums, artistic spaces, and art itself, are opening up into a field of infinite possibilities. With a phone in their hands, the modern subject is at once user, consumer, viewer, advertiser, image maker, and documentarian. Art spaces are now built in different social spaces: trade fairs, malls, cinemas, residential areas, and coffee shops. In contrast to other “windows” into daily life, such as cinema screens, computers, and billboards, cellphones are fully integrated into our lives. They are ideal nodes of information, extensions of the human body, creating two-way communication channel between humans and the world, whereby we receive images and send out consciousness. We present, and participate in, part of the history of the moving image.

It is the perfect time for the NEXT-IMAGE Awards. Using Huawei as a platform, users can make their images part of a comprehensive knowledge system. In Paris Photo 2018, these photos are displayed alongside those of other participants, spread across the globe. They share their experiences, revealing the hidden significance behind everyday stories, and integrating these stories into a large, virtual network. Finalists’ photos are shown in light-boxes; each demonstrates a unique artistic style. Viewers absorb these memories, becoming adherents of the NEXT-IMAGE themselves.