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The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

The Forum: 25/06/2011 GMT

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25/06/2011 GMT

BBC World Service - The Forum, 25/06/2011 GMT

David Baddiel presents this week's edition of The Forum on the power of images

In a world that has become dominated by visual imagery, have we become blase or desensitised? What's happening to the way that we digest pictures? David Baddiel presents this week's Forum.

Writer and comedian David Baddiel presents this week’s edition of The Forum.

In a world that has become dominated by visual imagery – with pictures and movies on phones, screens and advertising hoardings all around us, have we become blasé or desensitised?  What's happening to the way that we digest pictures? 

James Gow, Professor of International Peace and Security at Kings College London, argues that images have become more crucial than battles in the outcome of conflicts. How are images being used in the Arab Spring? 

Margaret Livingstone, a Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard University, has discovered that the way we process images depends in part on whether we can see in stereo or mono.  

And the Dutch poet laureate, Ramsey Nasr, believes that, with poetry, even the words on the page need to be rearranged to cope with the modern demand for the eye to be constantly stimulated.

Illustration by Emily Kasriel: how our minds translate what we see.

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25/06/2011 GMT

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