journal of visual culture journal of visual culture [http://vcu.sagepub.com] SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC and Melbourne) Copyright © The Author(s), 2015. Reprints and permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalspermissions.nav Vol 15(1): 103–117 DOI 10.1177/1470412915619785 Acts of Memory: Gilles Peress’s Telex: Iran, Then and Now Amy Lyford 619785VCU 0 0 10.1177/1470412915619785journal of visual culture<bold>Lyford</bold> Acts of Memory research-article 2015 Abstract 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. Keywords activism • Gilles Peress • Iran • photography • Telex: Iran As an Iranian I want you corresponders [sic] and journalists and film-takers [sic] tell the truth to the world – 20 December 1979. (Text from an English-language sign outside the US Embassy in Tehran, photographed by Gilles Peress) 1 On 4 November 1978, three Iranian students were shot dead by Pahlavi government military forces during a protest against the shah of Iran at Tehran University (Kandell, 1978: 18). On the same day one year later, a group of university students seized the US Embassy in Tehran and took 72 hostages. These students understood the media’s power to disseminate information,