Gijs Van Den Berg / Foam

A visitor to Erik Kessels' 24 hrs photo installation at the Foam Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam.

Gijs Van Den Berg / Foam

Dutch curator Erik Kessels has created a gallery installation made up of over a million photo prints. Kessels printed out all the images that were publically posted on Flickr during a 24-hour period and dumped them on the floor of the Foam museum in Amsterdam. Visitors are being encouraged to interact with the mountains of photographs, as seen in the picture above.

"We're exposed to an overload of images nowadays," Kessels told Creative Review. "This glut is in large part the result of image-sharing sites like Flickr, networking sites like Facebook, and picture-based search engines. Their content mingles public and private, with the very personal being openly and un-selfconsciously displayed. By printing all the images uploaded in a 24-hour period, I visualize the feeling of drowning in representations of other peoples' experiences."

Kessels told the BBC he hopes the installation also shows people "how public your private photos have become. Before, you had your photo album and only your family and friends could look at it," he said. "Now people all over the world can look at it if they find it."

The installation forms part of The Future of the Photography Museum, an exhibition running at Foam until December 7.

It's a slow day for me today (don't tell my boss), so I took the opportunity to go look for cool pictures at Flickr Commons, searching for the word "dog." Here are four of the most interesting results:

Brooklyn Museum Archives via Flickr Commons

Paris Exposition: ship, Paris, France, 1900. View of a dog on deck of a ship. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection (S03_06_01_015 image 2049).

The George Eastman House via Flickr Commons

Dog Training | Accession Number: 1974:0056:0316 | Maker: William M. Vander Weyde (American 1871–1929) | Title: Dog Training | Date: ca. 1900 | Medium: negative, gelatin on glass | Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.5 inches

Charles O'Rear / National Archives via Flickr Commons

Original Caption: Hitchhiker with His Dog, "Tripper", on U.S. 66. U.S. 66 Crosses The Colorado River At Topock: 05/1972 | U.S. National Archives' Local Identifier: NWDNS-412-DA-6626 | From: Series: DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency's Program to Photographically Document Subjects of Environmental Concern, compiled 1972-1977 (Record Group 412)

Bain News Service / Library of Congress via Flickr Commons

Mrs. J.M. Gray [between ca. 1910 and ca. 1915] 1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.

We've posted from Flickr Commons before, leading off with a sweet mustache, and explaining the site's noble and engaging mission.

Raed Qutena / EPA file

A demolished TV studio is seen after an angry crowd stormed a Kuwaiti private television station on Oct. 17, 2010. Fajr al-Saeed, owner of the station, said she had received threats to her life after the talk show "Zain wa Shain" ("Good and Bad") was aired.

When this television studio was attacked in October, the AP reported that:

Kuwait has some of the most vibrant political debate and press freedoms in the Gulf, but censorship is widespread across the Middle East and journalists often face tight controls[...]

Interior Minister Sheik Jaber Al Khaled Al Sabah told the Arab Times newspaper that authorities had the attackers in custody.

"We will not accept an attack against anybody," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "This is an offensive act and it is not in line with our customs. We are on top of the situation to forestall further degeneration."

Since that time, the Kuwaiti Parliament has debated whether or not Scope TV should be able to broadcast after airing a "malicious program," according to the Arab Times.

Also, the Guardian reports this week that Kuwait has banned the use of digital single-lens-reflex (DSLR) cameras in Kuwait, citing a local English-language newspaper:

The Kuwait Times reports: "What most Kuwaiti photographers have come to wonder is how such a decision could be reached by authorities, especially considering digital cameras and cell phone cameras have the same abilities.

"What most people think of photography as a hobby has become a bit misguided due to the fact that the country has so little exposure to art."

Digital SLR cameras may have been targeted as "big black camera[s] tend to worry people", the newspaper said. "Taking a picture of a stranger would seem like much less of an issue if you were using a more discreet camera or even a cell phone."

This is a downright strange policy. My Micro Four Thirds point-and-shoot camera has 60% of the sensor size as a chip in a professional DSLR. My iPhone takes very nice, fairly big files. Why ban the big cameras? More the point, why ban any cameras? I wonder this in particular given how nice some of the DSLR pictures of Kuwait on Flickr are. From pictures from unusual perspectives to celebrations of development to beautiful landscapes to pictures of kids to nature photographs, it's hard to understand why a nation would want to restrict high-quality amateur images of its sights. See all of the Flickr pictures tagged "Kuwait" and "DSLR" here on Flickr.

Oh wait--it's not just Kuwait. We've asked here, about American laws, "Is photography a crime"? The comment thread on that post is worth reading and contributing to as well.