VOL. II — IMAGE BANK (2024-present) The second volume of THE-ICONOMIST, launched in 2024, draws from Scott Watson’s idea that “we are all image banks” to explore the appropriation of digital images as a way of commenting on the world. Its editions are built from collections sourced from image banks, expanding the project’s research on contemporary visual flows and the possibilities of intervention within this vast collective repository.
THE-ICONOMIST publications are included in collections such as the contemporary art library at the Beaux-Arts in Paris (France), the Schaulager/Laurenz Foundation (Switzerland), the contemporary collection at the m-AG — Museum of the Avant-Garde (Switzerland), and the photography library at the Moreira Salles Institute (Brazil), among others. In 2023, the magazine was featured in the exhibition The Intelligent Library at PhotoVogue, at Base Milano. In 2025, THE-ICONOMIST participated in Offprint Paris as an exhibitor.
Whywar➝ Memoryscape➝ Mirror:Mirages➝ STAYNONSTOP➝
WhyWar? Memoryscape A Dress Grew Itself and Other Fragments➝ In the waiting room
Memoryscape.mp4 XXXSpace.mp4➝ theWorldAsAStage.mp4➝
“THE-ICONOMIST’s latest issue is hectic and “suffocating” in its use of online image banks. The magazine has never really operated within the requirements of a conventional magazine. This isn’t just because the issues don’t have any advertisements or an ISBN number, or even that it doesn’t have a website that can be indexed by Google. The magazine defies a traditional editorial approach at every turn.After its first four issues’ focus on AI-generated visuals, the magazine has returned with its fifth edition — a printed exploration of surveillance in the digital age.” — ELLIS TREE, It’s Nice That “Leafing through the eighth issue of The Iconomist feels like plunging into a dense sea of images drawn from widely different origins and visual regimes. Appropriated, manipulated, distorted, corrupted, cropped, filtered and recombined, these images accumulate into a surface that is intentionally overwhelming, producing a visual field that feels both vertiginous and delirious.” — ELAINE RAMOS