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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

a national festival of photography « Previous | |Next »
July 12, 2008

The Picture Paradise: Asia-Pacific Photography1840s-1940s at the National Gallery of Australia is part of a larger number (50) of photographic exhibitions around the country that constitute one festival--Vivid My interest is in the intellectual discourse around this festival in our visual culture as distinct from the art historical discourse around photography.

This is what I came across: Photographies; New Histories, New Practices It sounds promising---the conference will be interdisciplinary in scope, exploring connections with anthropology, ethics, history and much more. It aims to consider new ways of thinking about photographic history, writing and practice. Nothing much is online apart from the abstracts. Geoffrey Batchen's paper, which is about the debate in the photographic world about the effects of the advent of digital technologies, abstract looks interesting. He says:

not much has been said about the economics of photography at any stage of its history. There are a few honorable exceptions, of course, but in general the literature on the history of photography has tended to avoid discussion of the tawdry commercial side of the photographic industry, to repress even the notion that photography is an industry. This repression, another sign of the dominance of art history as a way of talking about photography, is faithful to nineteenth-century prejudices, when there was a concerted effort to associate photography with those "in society" rather than with those "in trade." It is time to overturn this prejudice and consider the degree to which a history of photography should be based on a business, rather than a fine art, model. In short, we need to think of photography as a form of work and the photographer as a worker if we are to ever grasp the full complexity of the photographic experience.

How true. I cannot economically survive as a photographer. So I am an amateur. Batchen says that his paper will go back again to the beginnings of photography, a moment long framed by the preoccupations of Romanticism, in order to reconsider this new phenomenon within the economic, social and political contexts of industrialization and consumer capitalism. Particular attention will be paid to Henry Talbot's effort to establish a photography business.he says that from this consideration, an alternative model of photographic history will be proposed, a model with implications for our understanding of photography's past, but also its present and possible futures.

I wonder what the alternative model of photographic history will be?

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:40 AM |