We live in a moment of multiple photographic possibilities Blair French
We live in a moment of multiple photographic possibilities. But is this reflected in the current history, theories or critiques of photography? Conventional theories of photography are absorbed in critiquing the subject matter of photographs and the history of photography is locked into an out-moded (and frequently discredited) model. The theories don't consider that photography might be more than the resulting product - a photograph; and the history is no more than an articulation of the art-historical model, which excludes most forms of photography. Is it time to engage in "real time scholarship"? Mitchell 2003
This thesis offers a contemporary account of photography by presenting it as a system of complex connections, ideas, processes, and technologies. It is an approach to photography which resonates with emerging research in other fields including the life and social sciences. It explores and highlights the complexity of photography, and emphasizes the connectedness of this view of photography to broader cultural ideas and activities. In order to pursue this inquiry, it is necessary to move away from conventional critiques of photography which limit the analysis to the photograph and its subject matter. Restricting analysis to the photograph, at best distorts and at worst ignores, the dynamic sets of relationships, connections and interactions that constitute photography. To understand photography in terms of its complexity, this thesis engages with principles and tools derived from systems thinking, cybernetics, network science, and other concepts related to the sciences of complexity. It is photography at a systems level.
As a Major Studio Project, complexity has informed the generation and presentation of a system of artifacts. Some of the artifacts are the result of working with marginalized or obscure processes, in order to critique our assumptions about what photography is. Others are an engagement across technologies, exploring the integration of photography into digital media, and highlighting the processes that underlie these translations. As a whole, the artifacts form a system that speaks of photography's history, contemporary condition and possible futures. The wiki website functions as an exegesis and an artifact. As an exegesis it embodies the interactions and connections that have formed throughout the research process. It is an online resource; and a portal to the essays, archives and artifacts of this research project. As an artifact the wiki is an embodiment of the principles of complexity addressed in the thesis.
Approaching photography as a complex system has many advantages. It is able to include marginalized, unconventional and hybrid photographic practices; accounts for change (technological, ideological and historical); has the capacity to investigate and offer insight into photography's contemporary condition; and highlights photography's relationship/position within visual and information cultures. Within the context of this research project it supports the generation of artifacts and forms the basis for the critique of those artifacts. It provides insight into the study of photography more generally while still being inclusive of conventional critiques and theories of photography. Complexity offers a range of principles and concepts that better account for photography's transitions within information culture. Understanding complexity provides possibilities for new kinds of photography.
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