Les snapshots

Fig. 1. Amateur anonyme, petite fille sur le pas de la porte, tirage gélatino-argentique, 12 x 7,6 cm, v. 1943-44, coll. Frank Maresca/ The Newark Museum, New Jersey. L’histoire de l’art a son cauchemar : les images ennuyeuses. J’entends par là les instantanés, qui forment le plus incontournable et le plus populaire des genres photographiques. J’aborderai donc ici le problème que pose l’écriture d’une histoire consacrée à l’instantané. Un problème qui tient à l’embarras du choix qui s’impose,..

Les snapshots

Fig. 1. Amateur anonyme, petite fille sur le pas de la porte, tirage gélatino-argentique, 12 x 7,6 cm, v. 1943-44, coll. Frank Maresca/ The Newark Museum, New Jersey. L’histoire de l’art a son cauchemar : les images ennuyeuses. J’entends par là les instantanés, qui forment le plus incontournable et le plus populaire des genres photographiques. J’aborderai donc ici le problème que pose l’écriture d’une histoire consacrée à l’instantané. Un problème qui tient à l’embarras du choix qui s’impose,..

The polaroid image as photo-object

This article is part of a larger project on the cultural history of Polaroid photography and draws on research done at the Polaroid Corporate archive at Harvard and at the Polaroid company itself. It identifies two cultural practices engendered by Polaroid photography, which, at the point of its extinction, has briefly flared into visibility again. It argues that these practices are mistaken as novel but are in fact rediscoveries of practices that stretch back as many as five decades. The first section identifies Polaroid image-making as a photographic equivalent of what Tom Gunning calls the ‘cinema of attractions’. That is, the emphasis in its use is on the display of photographic technologies rather than the resultant image. Equally, the common practice, in both fine art and vernacular circles, of making composite pictures with Polaroid prints, draws attention from image content and redirects it to the photo as object

Is this photograph taken? - The active (act of) collaboration with photography

Over more than thirty years of commercial and fine art photographic practice, I have often noticed remarkable disparities between the scenes, objects, events or moments ‘out there’ I had attempted to record – and the images within the resulting photographs. These (sometimes subtle, sometimes profound, but rarely anticipatable) disparities between what I had seen and what the photograph shows me offer the tantalising suggestion that there may be something else going on here – but something which the popular conception of photography may hinder our ability to recognise. This article explores the implications of four central assumptions implicit within the popular conception of photography which may impede new ways of thinking about photographic practice. Supported by a number of photographs that depict scenes, events and ‘moments’ which were not ‘taken’ but were created by the act of photographing them, I will suggest that new opportunities for practice may be available by ‘re-imagining’ the practice of photography as an active – or, as an act of – collaboration between medium and practitioner

Duchamp's Erotic Stereoscopic Exercises

This article explores certain links between medicine and art, with regard to their use of stereoscopy. I highlight a work by the artist Marcel Duchamp (the ready-made Stéréoscopie a la Main) and stereoscopic cards used in ophthalmic medicine. Both instances involve the drawing of graphic marks over previously existing stereoscopic cards. This similarity between Stéréoscopie a la Main and stereoscopic cards is echoed in the form of "stereoscopic exercises." Stereoscopic exercises were prescribed by doctors to be performed with the stereoscope as early as 1864. Stereoscopic cards were widely diffused in the 19th century, often promoted as "stay-at-home travel." It was over such kinds of materials that both Marcel Duchamp and doctors of ophthalmic medicine drew their graphic marks. I explore Duchamp's Stéréoscopie a la Main as a hypothetical basis for stereoscopic exercises of different types, proposing that this rectified ready-made is the locus for erotic stereoscopic exercises.Este artigo busca explorar certos elos entre a medicina e a arte por meio da estereoscopia. Destaca-se uma obra do artista Marcel Duchamp (o ready-made Stéréoscopie a la Main) e cartões estereoscópicos usados na oftalmologia. As duas instâncias envolvem o desenho de marcas gráficas sobre cartões estereoscópicos pré-existentes. A similaridade entre Stéréoscopie a la Main e os ditos cartões ecoa também na forma dos exercícios estereoscópicos. O cartão estereoscópico foi amplamente difundido na segunda metade do séc. XIX, frequentemente na forma da "viagem sem sair de casa." Foi sobre esse tipo de material que tanto médicos quanto Marcel Duchamp desenharam suas marcas. Explora-se a obra Stéréoscopie a la Main como um sítio hipotético para uma espécie de exercício, propondo que tal ready-made retificado seja um lugar para exercícios estereoscópicos eróticos

Analog, digital - Opposition oder Kontinuum? : zur Theorie und Geschichte einer Unterscheidung

Forschungsprojekt gefördert durch die DFGDie Opposition der 'neuen digitalen' zu den 'alten analogen' Medien findet sich in Werbung, Popkultur, Wirtschaft, Politik und Wissenschaft. Offenbar hat sich die Unterscheidung analog/digital zur paradigmatischen Leitdifferenz des späten 20. und frühen 21. Jahrhunderts entwickelt. Doch was bedeutet 'analog' bzw. 'digital' in verschiedenen Kontexten genau und gibt es nicht auch Übergänge zwischen beiden Formen? Wann taucht die Unterscheidung auf und in welchem Zusammenhang? Indem sich die Anthologie mit diesen und anderen Fragen aus verschiedenen Perspektiven beschäftigt, räumt sie ein erhebliches Forschungsdefizit nicht nur in den Medienwissenschaften aus

Memória dos desaparecidos: algumas estratégias visuais

The politics of forced disappearance, established by the Junta Militar that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983, had as a corollary the denial of the desaparecido’s existence, defined “non entity” by president Jorge Rafael Videla in a press conference held in December 1979. The attempt to erase the very existence of desaparecidos has been contested by public actions and artistic interventions that enunciate the theme of the memory in many ways.A política de desaparecimentos forçados, implementada pela Junta Militar que governou a Argentina entre 1976 e 1983, tinha como corolário a negação da existência do desaparecido, denominado “não entidade” pelo presidente Jorge Rafael Videla numa coletiva de imprensa, em dezembro de 1979. Essa política de apagamento da existência dos desaparecidos é posta em xeque por ações públicas e intervenções artísticas, que articulam, de diversas maneiras, a problemática da memória

Each Wild Idea : Writing, Photography, History

"In Each Wild Idea, Geoffrey Batchen explores widely ranging aspects of photography, from the timing of photography's invention to the various implications of cyberculture. Along the way, he reflects on contemporary art photography, the role of the vernacular in photography's history, and the Australianness of Australian photography." p. [4] of cover