Aesthetics, Industry and Innovation in Twentieth Century Photography: The Ilford Archive

This research investigates practices of technical innovation in the work of the Ilford Ltd. Photographic company and early colour photography enterprises during WWI and in the interwar period. It explores how new aesthetic and technical practices developed between 1914 and 1939, and the impact on the visual, sensual 'economy' of the period. It situates Ilford's work with photographic chemistry in relation to other developments in the period relating to colour photography and photosensitivity, and in relation to changes in photographic practice and style. It looks at how technical and aesthetic developments were designed to address specific problems or needs arising from war and from economic changes, such as the impact of the 1929 US stock market crash, and new business and retail practices. The project addresses an area of photographic history that has been little studied, mainly in the context of business history, although there have been useful photographic studies of companies such as Kodak, Corbis and Polaroid that this project will draw on for methodological insights. The aim is to explore the specific connections between corporate, everyday and avant-garde aesthetic and technical experimentation in photography in Britain in this period. A broader theoretical aim is to develop an understanding of how aesthetic and technical expertise embodied by human participants is transferred into technical apparatuses, and how it in turn re-emerges as human-technical practices. At stake in this work is the larger question of how technical images impact on everyday sensory experience.

The project aims to be field-defining research that produces a new body of knowledge about the under-researched Ilford archive and at the same time contributes to new and developing approaches in photography history and photography theory. These new approaches move away from older analyses of a break between analogue and digital image to a more nuanced understanding of the material, industrial and technological basis of twentieth-century photographic practices. Accordingly, this research takes account of the long technical development of photography and its close relation to other technical and engineered systems, without losing sight of questions of aesthetics and interpretation, which tend to be sidelined in historical and social-science accounts of technical change.

The other main aim of this project is to develop my research leadership skills and capacity. The project will enhance my own research skills and standing, and my ability to mentor junior colleagues. One way in which I ensure this is through a series of masterclasses or workshops for early career researchers and postgraduate students across different institutions and disciplines. The research project will also provide the basis for an international conference across the fields of photography and film studies. In this, I will work collaboratively with colleagues from my own and other universities, and with photographic practitioners and industry participants. The aim will be to create dialogue and to work alongside other research leaders in my university and outside, to actively raise the quality of the research environment in this interdisciplinary area, in particular focussing on the relationship between the material-industrial infrastructure of photography and film manufacture, and the intangible and aesthetic aspects of photography and film.

This project is intended to be of benefit to archivists, curators and librarians working with corporate and photographic collections. Research in these collections adds to the growing body of knowledge about the collections, especially where they are as yet relatively unused (as in the Ilford archive) and becomes part of the collection itself. However, this is an opportunity not just to research in the collections but to engage in a dialogue around industry archives and photography collections. I have worked with archivists in past projects and with museum staff in my research into museums, and this continues that work. Contacting archivists, curators and librarians and discussing the best form for their involvement in the collaborative leadership activities will be part of the work done in the second half of the project.

The project also aims to improve knowledge of historical corporate practices in the photography industry, especially in relation to innovation. This is potentially of benefit to these organisations themselves. The value attached by companies to their own heritage is evident in the establishing of corporate archives, and there are also community groups concerned with labour history and local history. My research will not aim to be of commercial use, but help to build bridges between private corporate interests and public interests, and between company history as embodied in corporate archives and academic analysis. This will be of mutual benefit in terms of its role in encouraging companies to open their archives to scrutiny and promoting academic use of corporate archives. It is expected that the first part of the research will be able to contribute to the existing historical understanding of the industry and the community by making findings available and accessible online, and through discussion with these groups regarding the best way to share findings.

The research also aims to benefit the wider photographic community, impacting on current practice by improving the understanding of past innovations and practices and their relevance, and helping to develop the dialogue between practitioners and researchers. Professionals,practitioners and collectors are addressed by numerous international photography conferences and festivals which include exhibitions, portfolio reviews, hands-on workshops, and talks by professionals. The collaborative leadership activities aim to include dialogue with photographers with an interest in technical processes from a historical and intellectual perspective, so that activities oriented toward impact are built into the project rather than additions. Research findings and outputs will be open access as far as possible and the project will also make use of e-mailing lists, press releases addressed to the photography press, photography websites and newsletters, to share findings and brief summaries of my research. All leadership activities will be fully documented, and with permission of participants, publicly shared online.