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Looking Beyond the Aesthetics of Nostalgia: TV Photography at the World Cup

Looking Beyond the Aesthetics of Nostalgia: TV Photography at the World Cup

Looking Beyond the Aesthetics of Nostalgia: TV Photography at the World Cup

The FIFA World Cup is a global celebration of the most popular sport in the world - football. Aside from the sporting aspect of these massive tournaments, however, each one of them seems to have a certain aesthetic which guides how they will be collectively remembered. Surprisingly, this year’s World Cup in the US seems set to be remembered in instantly nostalgic, distorted photographs of the tournament’s TV broadcast. In this article, we look at how and why this unlikely aesthetic charmed the world of football, and why we should look beyond viewing it as a hollowed-out aesthetic style.

by

Emil Voss

2 min read

2 min read

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2026 World Cup / Florence Pernet

2026 World Cup / Florence Pernet

2026 World Cup / Florence Pernet


With the 2026 FIFA World Cup freshly behind us, it is fair to assume the image above will long remain as a visual representation of the tournament in the collective memory of football fans around the world. What many people do not know, however, is that the photograph portraying the French national team superstar Kylian Mbappe was captured by Florence Pernet - an extremely accomplished photographer who rose to prominence by notoriously and gloriously capturing major sports events, including this year's Winter Olympics. 


This time around, however, Pernet decided not to apply for the tournament's press accreditation and instead opted to enjoy it the same way most fans do - through a TV in her Parisian apartment. It was there that Pernet started applying her lens to the TV screen. After sharing the first series of images on her Instagram account, it quickly became obvious that the grainy, dreamy and weirdly nostalgic aesthetic resonated with audiences extremely well. The success of her photographs was such that Pernet immediately followed them up by collaborating with the Portugal national team. 



Many other artists also started replicating her style to great success, with the most notable being Lukas Korschan, whose TV images now constitute 100% of the Instagram page of another French football superstar, Michael Olise, casually achieving around 5 million likes on every post. Surprisingly, however, few seem to ask themselves why this type of art resonates so well with (especially young) audiences or what broader political message this "trend" carries with it.


In order to delve into these questions, it is crucial to trace our way back to the origins of TV photography. The practice was first popularised in the 1970s by the Belgian photographer, Harry Gruyaert. Gruyaert, who worked in a historical context when television was at the peak of its power, created cleverly distorted images of his (at the time outdated) TV screen portraying scenes from various programmes, including news coverage, ads, and soap operas. 


1972 olympics / Harry Gruyaert

2026 Winter Olympics / Matthew Johnson


The goal here was very political. Gruyaert brilliantly showcased the banal, absurd and at times grotesque nature of the very things that kept our society in a trance of entertainment like nothing before. Gruyaert already acknowledged the role that sporting mega events like the infamous 1972 Munich Olympics play in this media machine by including images of their broadcasts in his TV shots series. The key point here, aside from a critique of the banality of the medium itself, was also to point out that the perspective caught on camera by Gruyaert was, in fact, the same perspective that most people around the world had on current events. 


While the distortion introduced by the photographer creates a kind of uncanny feeling, there remains a strong sense of relatability with the general public. There was no question that Gruyaert’s work felt extremely recognisable and relatable. Questions on his work, however, had been raised in the world of photography, with sceptics disregarding the originality of his images, considering the large degree to which it draws on the creative labour of TV crews.



Nevertheless, Gruyaert’s legacy lived on through various artists who ventured to photograph their TVs in the ensuing half-century, with recent years seeing an observable uptick in the popularity of photographs of TV broadcasts of sporting events. Worthy of noting here is the work of the photographer Pernet herself, credited for inspiring her TV photography series - Matthew Johnson. What Pernet refers to here is Johnson’s “screen time” series - a collection of distorted photographs of various (often archival) footage displayed mostly on TV screens. Johnson himself describes this project as a means to “evoke how certain collective cultural moments we experience might feel in the moment, or be remembered after the fact”. 


What the photographer gets at here is extremely insightful and may provide an extremely useful lens through which one can better understand the global appeal of TV photography. It is the shared distance and unique perspective on the programmes and events that we all follow which creates a strongly compelling and relatable image of the things we love, like in this case - football. It is worth noting, however, that for contemporary creators, television is no longer considered a dominant mode of media consumption, which adds a further layer of nostalgia in relation to the simpler, pre-social-media times of TV’s supremacy.



Nevertheless, Gruyaert’s legacy lived on through various artists who ventured to photograph their TVs in the ensuing half-century, with recent years seeing an observable uptick in the popularity of photographs of TV broadcasts of sporting events. Worthy of noting here is the work of the photographer Pernet herself, credited for inspiring her TV photography series - Matthew Johnson. What Pernet refers to here is Johnson’s “screen time” series - a collection of distorted photographs of various (often archival) footage displayed mostly on TV screens. Johnson himself describes this project as a means to “evoke how certain collective cultural moments we experience might feel in the moment, or be remembered after the fact”. 


What the photographer gets at here is extremely insightful and may provide an extremely useful lens through which one can better understand the global appeal of TV photography. It is the shared distance and unique perspective on the programmes and events that we all follow which creates a strongly compelling and relatable image of the things we love, like in this case - football. It is worth noting, however, that for contemporary creators, television is no longer considered a dominant mode of media consumption, which adds a further layer of nostalgia in relation to the simpler, pre-social-media times of TV’s supremacy.



Contemporary creators, like Pernet, seem to lean into this sense of nostalgia by a purposeful distortion of modern broadcasts, rendering their work reminiscent of the past imperfection so characteristic of the TV medium. There is, however, something else lurking underneath this compelling aesthetic. These modern renditions of TV photography, not unlike Harry Gruyaert’s work, can also be ascribed a strong political message. By this, I mean that these works pose extremely important questions on accessibility to the things we love. 


This comes across particularly in the context of this year's World Cup, considering the drama surrounding the inability of various supporters and even one referee from underprivileged regions to enter the United States to take part in the tournament due to the extreme difficulty of acquiring a Visa. Additionally, the tournament also boasts the title of the most expensive World Cup in terms of ticket pricing ever, making it extremely inaccessible for some of the communities that cherish the sport the most. The perspective of the TV broadcast remains, therefore, the only way in which fans of the sport are enabled access to the very thing they love the most. 


This theme, of course, expands far outside the realm of football, with people increasingly being priced out of direct access to the sources of their passion. There is, of course, beauty in this shared experience of communally experiencing such mediated events, which is exactly what produces the aesthetic appeal of TV photography. Expanding past the nostalgic aesthetic of these works is, however, key to fully appreciate their value and protect this distinctive style from getting hijacked as a cheap marketing trend. Perhaps, however, it already is too late.

 

2026 Winter Olympics / Matthew Johnson

2026 World Cup / Lukas Korschan

2026 World Cup / Lukas Korschan

1972 olympics / Harry Gruyaert


Contemporary creators, like Pernet, seem to lean into this sense of nostalgia by a purposeful distortion of modern broadcasts, rendering their work reminiscent of the past imperfection so characteristic of the TV medium. There is, however, something else lurking underneath this compelling aesthetic. These modern renditions of TV photography, not unlike Harry Gruyaert’s work, can also be ascribed a strong political message. By this, I mean that these works pose extremely important questions on accessibility to the things we love. 


This comes across particularly in the context of this year's World Cup, considering the drama surrounding the inability of various supporters and even one referee from underprivileged regions to enter the United States to take part in the tournament due to the extreme difficulty of acquiring a Visa. Additionally, the tournament also boasts the title of the most expensive World Cup in terms of ticket pricing ever, making it extremely inaccessible for some of the communities that cherish the sport the most. The perspective of the TV broadcast remains, therefore, the only way in which fans of the sport are enabled access to the very thing they love the most. 


This theme, of course, expands far outside the realm of football, with people increasingly being priced out of direct access to the sources of their passion. There is, of course, beauty in this shared experience of communally experiencing such mediated events, which is exactly what produces the aesthetic appeal of TV photography. Expanding past the nostalgic aesthetic of these works is, however, key to fully appreciate their value and protect this distinctive style from getting hijacked as a cheap marketing trend. Perhaps, however, it already is too late.

 


The goal here was very political. Gruyaert brilliantly showcased the banal, absurd and at times grotesque nature of the very things that kept our society in a trance of entertainment like nothing before. Gruyaert already acknowledged the role that sporting mega events like the infamous 1972 Munich Olympics play in this media machine by including images of their broadcasts in his TV shots series. The key point here, aside from a critique of the banality of the medium itself, was also to point out that the perspective caught on camera by Gruyaert was, in fact, the same perspective that most people around the world had on current events. 


While the distortion introduced by the photographer creates a kind of uncanny feeling, there remains a strong sense of relatability with the general public. There was no question that Gruyaert’s work felt extremely recognisable and relatable. Questions on his work, however, had been raised in the world of photography, with sceptics disregarding the originality of his images, considering the large degree to which it draws on the creative labour of TV crews.


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