Introduction

Introduction

The linage of the photograph and the computer can be traced respectively to Henry Fox Talbot's photogenic drawings, and Charles Babbage's Difference and Analytical Engines. Babbage, a close confidante of Talbot, would display Talbot's photogenic drawings and calotypes at his famous London soirees. Babbage would entertain his guests with demostrations of a working model of his first computing machine, the Difference Engine. These visitors to Babbage's drawing room encountered photography and computing together for the first time. The computer and the photograph share a common history. _{Each Wild Idea-ch 8}

This research project has emerged out of a desire to pursue a process-based photographic practice that explores photography's own history, materiality and contemporary condition. A critical inquiry of this nature, encompasses the relationship between the computer (through new imaging technologies) and traditional forms of photography, as they "weave back and forth and through each other in complex patterns of effect and meaning"._{What is this thing called Photography?}

To this end, the emerging discourse of postphotography is useful. It has evolved out of a need to reflect upon and critique the relationship between photography and digital imagingtechnologies. Initially responsible for such claims as "From today, photography is dead!", postphotographic discourse has evolved into a critique of "a condition where the photographic, as a set of conventions and references, is absorbed into and across other representational media."_{What is this thing called Photography?}

By shifting the emphasis from what the photograph means to how it derives meaning through process, a postphtographic arts practice asks What is this thing called photography? It questions traditional photographic relationships and goes on to reflect, critique and redefine its own processes of production. The aim of my research is to pursue a process/material based practice that is guided by postphotographic discourse and critiqued as postphotographic practice.

Field of Thesis

Contemporary Visual Arts Practice

Focus of Thesis

The continuing presence of materiality as a key theme in contemporary photographic practice

Thesis Topic

The manifestation and possibilites of materiality in contemporary photographic practice.

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