Still Searching…

The conditions governing the digital world have led to a radical diversification not only in photography but also in the theory that underpins it and the history that is written about it. Photographic media and forms are incorporated into complex tech technological, capitalist and ideological networks; the experts who are conducting scholarly research into the role of photographic images thus come from very different disciplines. The expansion of the discourse surrounding these images is also reflected in Still Searching…, the blog on photographic theory that was initiated by Fotomuseum Winterthur in 2012 and which subjects all aspects of photography and its role in visual culture to interdisciplinary scrutiny. The bloggers invited to the online format operate at the forefront of research and enhance our awareness of current issues that are relevant to photography.

Blog series: What Remains of the Photographic beyond Photography

Sophie Berrebi | 01.03. – 14.04.2013
What Remains of the Photographic beyond Photography

Sophie Berrebi will be looking for what remains of the photographic beyond photography. Or in her own words: “This is what I would like to explore in the next few weeks: What remains when photography transforms itself? How does technological modification trigger ontological change – if at all – and how does this translate into the way we apprehend pictures as producers, sitters, and viewers? In short, what interests me is how photography has taught us to look and what remains of the photographic beyond photography.”

Platinum Blondes and a Bearded Lady

Friday, 01.03.2013

<div><em>The grammar of cinema is a grammar uniquely its own.</em><br>Jean Epstein<br><br></div><div>I remember once being fascinated at the discovery that the silky, almost-white, blond hair of many Hollywood stars from the Golden Age was only an illusion, – a contraption developed for the silver screen. The ability of platinum blond to reflect light endowed actresses clad in shimmering gowns with a radiant halo, bestowing upon them an enticing inaccessibility.<br><br></div>

Welsh Water

Monday, 11.03.2013

<p>One of the pictures that I always come back to when thinking about object photography is a black and white image by the artist Jean-Luc Moulène entitled <em>Bi-Fixe, 7 September 2003</em>. It shows two PET bottles of mineral water from Wales sold under the brand Ty Nant, which have been laid flat onto a medium-colored background and photographed directly from above so as to avoid distortion.</p>

The Opacity of Photography

Thursday, 21.03.2013

<div>One of my students recently declared she believed there was nothing to learn from Flusser’s writings on photography. For her, digital technology expanded the possibilities of photography well beyond what Flusser described as the pre-defined program contained within the camera apparatus. The same went for the idea of the impenetrability of the “black box,” which seemed ludicrous in today’s context of widely shared technical astuteness and the infinite possibilities offered by photo-editing software.<br><br></div>

Another Threshold

Thursday, 28.03.2013

<div>Edouard Manet’s <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manet,_Edouard_-_Portrait_of_Emile_Zola.jpg"><em>Portrait of Emile Zola</em></a>, from 1868, currently on view at the Royal Academy in London in the <a href="http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/manet/"><em>Manet: Portraying Life</em></a> exhibition is usually interpreted as a testimony of the friendship between the artist and a writer who was one of his strongest supporters in those years. <br><br></div>

The Production of Documents

Monday, 08.04.2013

<div>“In history everything begins with the gesture of <em>setting aside</em>, of putting together, of transforming certain classified objects into ‘documents.’ This new cultural distribution is the first task. In reality it consists in <em>producing</em> such documents by dint of copying, transcribing, or photographing these objects, simultaneously changing their locus and their status.” <br><br></div>