History and Theory of Photography 1

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Name of lecturer(s)

Learning outcomes of the course unit

students will be introduced to the history of photography, media and visual culture of the 19th century and to the main contemporary historical and theoretical approaches in the field

Mode of study

lecture

Prerequisites and co-requisites

n/a

Course contents

History and Theory of Photography 1

winter 2018

(01/10 and 8/10, no lecture)

1. (15/10)Introduction: theory and history of photography(Tomáš Dvořák)

Course structure overview; requirements for completion and study materials; introduction to required reading for the next lecture. Libraries and online sources, techniques of academic writing.

1. (22/10)The Emergence of Technical Images(Tomáš Dvořák)

The lecture is devoted to visual culture at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries with emphasis on the mechanical and technical forms of depiction (camera obscura, camera lucida, laterna magica, Lichtenberg and Chladni figures, panorama and diorama, optical toys, mechanical recording devices, print and lithograph). It also covers various approaches to issues in historical perception and its relation to the development of visual technologies and artifacts, particularly the method of media archeology.

Jonathan CRARY, “Modernizing Vision.” In: Hal Foster (ed.), Vision and Visuality. Seattle: Bay Press 1988, pp. 29–44.

1. (29/10)Photographic portrait and the problem of modern individuality(Tomáš Dvořák)

The lecture covers photographic portraits of the 19th and early 20th centuries with emphasis on Nadar, Daumier, Galton and Sander; tracing the changes and mutual relationships of the portrait genre in painting, drawing and graphics, including the silhouette and caricature traditions. It explains the genesis of the concept of photographic portrait in relation to the tradition of physiognomy, criminological identification or attempts to define and capture social types and thus trace the mutual conditions of photographic conventions of representing human individuality and the philosophical, sociological and bureaucratic understanding of the subject at the time.

John STAUFFER – Zoe TRODD – Celeste-Marie BERNIER, Picturing Frederick Douglass. An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American, New York – London: W. W. Norton & Co. 2015, pp. 8–55.

1. (05/11)Pictorialism(Josef Ledvina)

The lecture will cover the development of the relationship of photography to painting, touching on issues of indexicality, respectively iconicity of the photographic image and points towards various times in the history of photography when photographers were interested in the potential use of photographic technology for creating stylized images rather than objective copies of reality. This begins with the self-awareness process of photography - (Anna Fárová), refined printing and Stieglitz's pictorial photography. The issues of photography as an image and intersecting of painting and photography will be further developed in examples from 20th century art („Picture Generation“, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Gerhard Richter, etc.) through theory writings pointing at the image considerations of photography in contemporary art (Michael Fried, Jean Francois Chevrier, Douglas Crimp).

A. D. Coleman, “The Directorial Mode. Note towards a Definition” (1976), in: Vicky Goldberg, ed., Photography in Print. Writings from 1816 to the Present, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1981, s. 480–491.

1. (12/11) Visit at the photography archive of the Institute of Art History(Petra Trnková)

Historical photographic techniques and nineteenth-century Prague photographers.

1. (19/11)Technical images in social sciences(Michal Šimůnek)

When reflecting on the mutual relations between technical images and social sciences, many scholars have observed that social sciences (mainly sociology and anthropology) and technical images (mainly photography and film) were products of the same set of historical circumstances. In this respect, the birth of both photography and sociology is understood as the response on uncertainties, risks, and desires that have emerged on the dawn of modernity. Drawing on the analysis of this specific historical moment the lecture traces relations between thinking on photography and the paradigmatic changes in social sciences. The role, uses and meanings of photographs in social sciences are thus discussed from the paradigmatic perspective of positivism and colonialism, post-positivism and post-colonialism and from the perspective of several turns in social sciences (visual, sensory, reflexive, postmodern, dialogical, digital etc.). Alongside this historical and theoretical overview three main areas of using photographs in social sciences are described: 1) using photographs in the sense of data gathering (researchers take photographs to study the social world); 2) studying photographs produced by the culture (researchers analyse photographs others have taken); 3) using photographs for representing and dissemination of knowledge on society. The lecture focuses not only on the contributions of photography to social sciences but also on the potential uses of social sciences (theories, concepts, methods and knowledge on society) for photographic practices.

Howard S. BECKER. 1995. „Visual Sociology, Documentary Photography, and Photojournalism: It's (Almost) All a Matter of Context.“Visual Sociology10 (1–2): 4–14.

1. (26/11)Photography as (scientific) visualization(Tomáš Dvořák)

The lecture focuses on epistemological aspects of photography: it analyses the relationships among technical devices, automation and knowledge and presents the use of photography in scientific research of the 19th century (astronomy, physic, physiology, psychiatry, statistics) with emphasis on the graphic and photographic methods of E.-J. Marey and changes in the understanding of objectivity in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Thomas KEENAN, „Counter-forensics and Photography.“ Grey Room, 2014, č. 55, s. 58–77.

1. (03/12)Photographic reproductions of artworks(Tomáš Dvořák)

The lecture is devoted to the development of photograph reproduction processes (photogravure and photolithograph) in the 19th century with emphasis on the reproduction of artworks and its consequences for expert and lay perception (tradition) of visual arts and the understanding of the difference between painting and photography.

Walter BENJAMIN, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.” The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 2008, pp. 19–55.

1. (10/12)Technological and semiotic specificity of photography(Michal Šimůnek)

The nature or specificity of photography is usually considered in three mutually related aspects: in technological sense, photography is often regarded as an automatic, mechanical reproduction of reality; from semiotic perspective, the specificity of photography is associated mainly with indexicality of photographic image; from epistemological point of view the distinctiveness of photography is recognised in its ability to meet the conventional conception of realistic and objective depiction. The lecture describes the development of thinking about these distinctive features of photography and outlines three possible theoretical stances towards its “supposed” distinctiveness: 1) recognition of the specificity of photography and its “unique” identity; 2) rejection of all specificity claims and denial of mono-media understanding of photography – that is understanding the nature and meaning of photography as always given by discourses and contexts that surround it; 2) recognition/rejection stance that understands photography as deeply uncertain and ambivalent medium that has several distinctive features but that is at the same time deeply context-bound.

Geoffrey BATCHEN, „Electricity Made Visible.“ in: W. Chun – T. Keenan (eds.), New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader.New York – London: Routledge 2006, pp. 27–44.

1. (17/12)Cameraless photography(Michal Šimůnek)

Although cameraless photography has a stable place in the history (the very first photographs were produced without the use of a camera) and the present of the medium, it is a peripheral photographic practice occurring at the edge of photography and simultaneously making boundaries of photography uncertain. The lecture offers an overview of various cameraless techniques and experimental photographic practices (e.g. anthotypes, the chlorophyll/photosynthesis photography, cliché verre, photograms, x-rays and other other-then-light-rays images, chemigraphs, skiagraphs, screenshots, in-game photography, scanned images) and examples of their application as practiced by some selected inventors, scientists, artists and amateurs. We will pay attention to the specific status and materiality of these images and will consider diverse “off-camera” (post-)production techniques and “contra-apparatus” tactics disrupting mechanical nature of images taken by cameras or produced by other “automatic” means. In this connection we will also consider the question of the specificity of photography and will concern with several theoretical conceptions helping us to think through particular aspects of cameraless photography (e.g. Batchen’s conception of the politics of cameraless photography, reproducibility, copy and original, photorealism, Flusser’s conception of techno-imagination and play against apparatuses, semiotics of photography, aesthetics of imperfection, creative misuse, practices of bricolage and DIY ethos, found-photography, post-photography, liminality of photography, copy-and-paste aesthetic, algorithmic photography).

Winfried GERLING, “Photography in the Digital.” Photographies, 2018, vol. 11, n. 2–3, p. 149–167.

Recommended or required reading

see course contents

texts available at:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B36pcjuZK5yyUW1rVWNzMXRBclU

Assessment methods and criteria

A requirement for completing the course attendance requirements (max. 2 absences per semester are tolerated), submission of both required results (if not submitted then only one paper on the assigned date, overall course grade: F).

The following grades are determined by the content of the two results (100-90% = A, 90-80% = B, 80-70% = C, 70-60% = D, 60-50% = E, 50-0% = F).

40% - 1st written paper of 2 -3 standard pages, description & interpretation of a 19th-century photograph.

Due date: November 20, 2017

60% - 2nd written paper of 5 - 10 standard pages on a priorly agreed topic must be submitted by January 8, 2018 (both texts in doc or pdf format sent to tomdvorak@famu.cz. If there is no confirmation of the sent email recieved the paper will be considered NOT submitted.

The exam will have the form of a discussion of both texts with the teacher.

Note

On alternate year for 1. and 2. class

Further information

No schedule has been prepared for this course

The subject is a part of the following study plans