Foam Magazine has been awarded several prizes for both its high-grade graphic design and the quality of its content. Most recently, Foam Magazine was awarded Photography Magazine of the Year at the Lucie Awards 2017 and 2019.

Foam Magazine is an international photography magazine published three times a year by Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam.

Foam Magazine is sponsored by Igepa Netherlands BV, supplier of excellent paper.

From art, literature and media to academia and internet culture, the visual and the written language have crossed paths many a time, creating a genre of their own. Learn more about the current issue of Foam Magazine

Image from the photo series 3eib!

Foam Magazine #60 Glyphs – The Image + Text Issue

Foam Magazine #60: Glyphs - The Image + Text Issue

Text-to-image generators have gained tremendous popularity over the past years. This specific application of artificial intelligence allows users to create digital images based on textual input. It seems that any desired image is just a few clicks away, with little to no technological knowledge about the inner workings needed.  

But what happens underneath the hood? How does a text-to-image AI exactly work? This step-by-step explainer will lift (some) of the curtains of image generation and shed light inside the black box of AI. 

Disclaimer: this is a simplified explanation of text-to-image generation. In reality, there are many different types of generation models, approaches and techniques. To learn more about this complex technology, we recommend reading 

Inside the Black Box


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Text to Image explained

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Wedding day from the series Las Flores mueren dos veces, 2022

Louis Vuitton Jeff Koons Rubens Bag, 2020

From the series Home Leaving One for Another

"Mohlokomedi wa Tora", Scene 2, 2018 

Killa from the series Madre

In a sandstone mine 1 from the series This isn't Divide and Conquer

Dialect, 2020

authenticity (2 CHAINZ) from the series BLACK SNAFU, 2022

Wait from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here, 2022

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Opening of Tyler Mitchell, photo by Almicheal Fraay

About

Created by Gerco de Ruijter in 2003. The artwork is a c-print on aluminum and displayed at 50 x 50 cm.

Today one might think that this image was taken with the help of a drone. However, back in 2003, drones weren’t all that common. Instead, the Dutch photographer Gerco de Ruijter attached an analogue camera to a kite to get a bird's-eye view of the construction site. De Ruijter’s artistic practice is characterised by his use of unique perspectives, allowing him to search for patterns from the sky to create abstract representations of the landscape. The geometric shapes in the image consist of areas from the building site in different stages of construction, giving the image a mosaic-like feel. 

In the early 2000s, several photographers were invited to capture the construction of the financial district of Amsterdam (Zuidas). 

 belongs to a series that presents Gerco de Ruijter’s interpretation of this project. 

Mahler IV

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 is the well-known Photoshop selection tool of the same name. For Xin Li, the tool is much more than a handy feature to edit images. It becomes a means to draw parallels with societal control and censorship during the COVID lockdowns in China.  

The magic wand tool selects areas of images based on colour and hue—allowing smart selection and quick manipulation of images. Enforced with machine learning, it nowadays easily predicts which objects a user would like to see selected. Xin Li uses the tool to distort images, obscuring their original meaning behind layers of other images, often of other artworks.  

For Xin Li, this process symbolises the mechanisms of hiding and revealing facts and fake news, regulating the flow of information and controlling the dominant narrative. Metaphorically captured in the overwhelming fusion of shapes and colours, the visually explosive works tempt the viewer to look what lies beneath the apparent chaos. 

Xin Li

 weaves together several historical routes: that of his mother, growing up in Botswana after escaping the Apartheid regime of South Africa with her parents. That of his great-uncle, Zephania Mothopeng, the anti-Apartheid activist, imprisoned on Robben Island. And that of his grandfather, and his love for music, inspiring Makepe to pursue a creative career.

What at first glance may appear as a personal family narrative, in fact reveals the painful, racist and discriminatory political history of South Africa and the remnants of its colonial regimes. The series unfolds as a multi-dimensional, visual journey along these historical paths, touching on land dispossession, activism and colonialism.

includes striking portraits of his close relatives, sometimes re-enacting historical scenes, documentary photographs of important landmarks, as well as documents from Makepe’s family archive. Accompanying the visual material is a playlist of music, curated by the artist himself—connecting the work beautifully through the shared love for music. 

Sentlhane, 2022, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Monna Wa Mmino III, 2020, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Re A Hlopela Tombstone Unveiling from the series We Didn’t Choose to be Born Here, 2019

Archival footage from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Hippolytus Mothopeng [left] (1958), from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Hippolytus Mothopeng Citizenship, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

The Metronome Swing Orchestra in Botswana (1966), from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Garden, 2022, from the series We Didn't Choose to Be Born Here

The Aunt I Almost Had, 2021, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Wait, 2021, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Kgomo Tsaka Deile Kae, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Kereke, 2019, from the series We Didn't Choose to Be Born Here

Sello, 2021, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Martha and Hippolytus Mothopeng (1982), from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Robben Island University, 2020, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Mama Mo Metsi, 2019, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Under Surveillance, 2021, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Thero Makepe

Stuck at home during the COVID-19 lockdown, Shwe Wutt Hmon was unable to visit the hospital for her regular check-ups and scans, necessary because of a life-long health issue. Coming to terms with this limitation, she started scanning her body, as well as flowers and medical records, by herself with an ordinary at-home scanner, creating a variety of abstract self-portraits. 

 that emerged from these experiments, reveal a poetic and symbolic documentation of the ongoing assault of medical procedures and operations on her body. Hmon’s image-making practice strongly ties together process and concept: the withering flowers symbolise the decay of the body and dark colours reflect somber emotions experienced right before scheduled operations.  

Another dimension was added when she moved from Myanmar to Thailand in 2022. Printing her work on local Saa paper, the works received an almost skin-like texture. Again, restrictions–this time due to the delicate paper type–required her to improvise, causing her to print the works small scale at home. The final accumulated process turned out to present a healing capacity: by carefully printing, cutting and sewing her works together, Shwe ultimately was also mending herself.

From the series I Do Miss Hospital Visit

Shwe Wutt Hmon

From the series (Inter)Faces of Predictions

, Sheung Yiu looks into different practices of face reading, facial prediction and facial recognition. For this multi-medial series, consisting of a video essay, a series of self-portraits and an extensive research notebook of visual references, he submitted his own face as a test case: scanning, screening and analysing his features in order to understand the processes behind it. 

In his practice, Sheung Yiu combines East-Asian traditions of facial readings, promising to predict one's future based on facial features, with contemporary facial recognition technologies, drawing a striking parallel between Eastern and Western practices around facial studies.  

On a deeper level, the project questions the way different technologies, whether digital or analogue, algorithmic or esoteric, shape the perceptions and biases connected to our faces. Through this, he recognises that a face is never just a face: it is what we, or the systems we use, want to read into it. 

Animation

Notebook scan, from the series Interfaces of Prediction

Facial landmarks (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Twisted Face (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Fortune in My Thirties from the series Interfaces of Predictions, 2023

Faceless (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Scan (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Between Two Charts (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Old and new moles (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Face Mesh (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Ancient Prediction (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Sheung Yiu

How does a photograph shape our understanding of the past? 

 is a series of A.I.-generated images, combined with archival images, questioning the construction of memory and masculinity through our image culture. 

In an attempt to grasp the full story of his deceased grandfather and his Indonesian heritage, Sander Coers turned to the artificial intelligence programme 

Feeding archival family photos into its system, he asked the programme to describe them, specifically listing their technical details such as dominant colour tones and type of camera, film and lens. Altering these descriptions allowed Sander to prompt the programme to create new images, yet maintain the exact visual look and feel of the family snapshots. Finally, by blending multiple A.I.-generated images together with the originals, he created a surprisingly intimate, genuine, yet completely fictional family album. 

The way the photos are cropped stands out. Coers used an element of collaging when assembling the final images, in order to emphasise the constructed nature of the photographs, and ultimately, the constructed nature of one’s memory, too. 

 alludes to the ‘afterlife’ of his grandfather, through the photo albums he left behind, as well as to the realm of post-photography: a space where images can be generated without the use of a camera.  

Adobe Stock image

From the series POST, 2023

Image from the series POST, 2023

From the series POST

Sander Coers

Ricardo Nagaoka presents a series of intimate portraits that addresses the prevailing societal ideas on what makes a man a man. Born in Paraguay to Japanese parents, Ricardo found himself stuck between the macho culture of Latin America and the strict patriarchal norms of his family.  

The photographs, all black and white, vary in crop and position: sometimes up close, cutting off certain body parts and revealing others, whilst others zoom out and show the portrayed head to toe. All images carry a quiet, timeless atmosphere, yet they express a distinct softness. Together, they call for a more inclusive understanding of gender, away from masculine stereotypes—largely based on Ricardo Nagaoka’s own experiences and desires. 

Nagaoka’s projects are not only about breaking down the ruling ideas on masculinity, but more so about building up what this term can include in the future.  

Kitchen, 2022

Aprétame (Justin), 2022

Wrestlers (Self), 2022

Daniel, 2022

Touching (Self), 2022

Brit II, 2023

El Mundo (Rose), 2023

Breaking (John & Timme), 2021

Ivan, 2022

John, 2022

Ricardo Nagaoka

In search for a sense of belonging, Rehab Eldalil traced back her family roots to the Bedouin community of South Sinai, Egypt. This confirmed a spiritual connection she long felt towards the region and sent her on a ten-year long collaboration with the locals of St. Catherine, guiding herself through the lands of her ancestors. 

The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken (

شوق الغريب للي تقطّع سبيله)

 Rehab closely participates with community members during this longstanding encounter, weaving together photographs with sound, video, and local Bedouin traditions of poetry, embroidery and plant medicines in a truly collaborative effort. 

The works emphasise the strong connection of the close-knit Bedouin community to their land, as its protective keeper. At the same time, the project reveals the hardships and constant struggle against displacement, violence, and governmental power, to which the community continues to be subjected. Recent plans for urban developments in the region stress the urgency of the project, becoming a testament of and protest to protect the natural state of the lands and its indigenous keepers. 

Oh Valley

From the series The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

From the series The Longing Of The Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

From the project The Longing of The Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

Allaseeq (The Sticker)

From the Series The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

Alrabel (Mountain Tea)

From the series The Longing of The Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

Rehab Eldalil

records the artist’s personal search for her heritage. With little to no information about her family history, MAryam Touzani sets off on a journey tracing the story of her Moroccan ancestry and multicultural upbringing. 

Using her teeth—carriers of one’s unique genetic encoding—as a starting point, MAryam Touzani photographs and assembles all the pieces of evidence she can collect: from dental X-rays and passport images, to her father’s death certificate and colonial maps omitting her ancestor’s region of origin. In her investigation where answers do not seem to come straightforward, photography becomes a poetic tool, allowing Touzani to reconstruct her past, in order to imagine her future.  

The title refers to the scientific name of the argan tree, one of the oldest existing trees growing in the Sous valley in southwestern Morocco. Traditionally, the fruits are processed into argan oil by women from the local Amazigh community. As an Amazigh woman, but born and raised in The Netherlands, MAryam Touzani uses the symbol of the argan tree to trace back her roots and honour her female ancestors. 

Smile

Denture

From the series Argania: Lack of Information is my Family History

If I take care of you, will u stay with me for a lifetime

Go fix it

From the series Argania: Lack of Information Is My Family History

Laugh MAryam laugh

Land of Afrika

Teeth bus stop

Behind the Abri

Traceable

MAryam Touzani

Credo, from the series MADRE

challenges the binary opposition between the ‘good girl’ and the ‘bad girl’ deeply rooted in the Catholic traditions within Bolivian society. Closely collaborating with the sitters of her portraits, Marisol Mendez counters the simplified, sinner-versus-saint, vision on femininity. 

Text

Out now: Foam Magazine #60 Glyphs – The Image + Text Issue

Text to Image explained

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Xin Li

Thero Makepe

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Marisol Mendez

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Issam Larkat

Florian Braakman

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Cristóbal Ascencio

Cansu Yıldıran

Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

André Ramos-Woodard