Acts of Memory: Gilles Peress’s Telex: Iran, Then and Now

<jats:p> This article explores the visual rhetoric and cultural significance of Gilles Peress’s photographic book Telex: Iran of 1984. It is a book focused on the Iranian revolution which began in 1978, and for which Peress traveled to Iran in late 1979/early 1980 in order to create a body of images about the revolution. The author analyzes a few key sequences of images from within the book in relation to other kinds of images being produced by media outlets in the US at the time. The article moves beyond a visually-based interpretation of the book’s photographic narrative and points to a future collaborative process of reading and writing about Telex: Iran with Peress himself. </jats:p>