The Unphotographable
In his famous discussion of the transparency of the photographic image, Walton (1984) claimed there are opaque photographs that fail to be transparent because of technological error, willful dishonesty, or author experimentation. Photographic history, philosophy, and epistemology have rarely interp...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Simon Dawes, Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines (CHCSC), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)
2024-06-01
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| Series: | Media Theory |
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| Online Access: | https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/1077 |
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| Summary: | In his famous discussion of the transparency of the photographic image, Walton (1984) claimed there are opaque photographs that fail to be transparent because of technological error, willful dishonesty, or author experimentation. Photographic history, philosophy, and epistemology have rarely interpreted such photos. The Fraenkel Gallery’s exhibition Unphotographable (2013) explored such failed, doubtful, and experimental photographs. This essay aims to further advance the concept of the unphotographable by interpreting this exhibition in relation to abstract images from the project Scotoma (2014–2018) by the Slovenian artist DK. Evoking Lacanian scotomization, DK’s project Scotoma points towards defining the unphotographable as a photographic black spot enforced by its technological, ideological, or operator-imposed conditions. Yet, since these shots are still photographs, the unphotographable is part of the photo-universe (Laruelle, 2011). Thus the unphotographable becomes a way of defining the photographable, revealing it as a dynamic field in which technology makes something that was previously unphotographable into part of the photographable.
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| ISSN: | 2557-826X |