The Darkroom Encounter: Towards a Diffractive Theory of Contempoary Photographic Portraiture
Lead Research Organisation:
Royal College of Art
Department Name: School of Art and Humanities
Abstract
This research proposal proposes a radical new paradigm for a sophisticated theoretical/material rethinking of contemporary photographic portraiture. Early 19th Century photography via anthropology, ethnography and eugenics created a 'perverse' way of engaging with photography, the Black Body and archive. Current debates in photography tend to reduce photography to a 'captured', ' representational' image with an emphasis on the latent ( barthes et al) image and given the impact of digital technologies and selfies ( Rubenstein et all) photography has nothing to do with the image.
In the UK, academic context there remains complex and oppressive marginalisation of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer + ( LGBTQ+) nuanced and embodied experiences. This seems to result from how racism, and homophobia, sexism and transphobia, intersect. Despite the advances in feminism, queer theory, de-colonisation, post-colonial theory and critical race theory, these debates are locked into staid binary frameworks ( analogue v digital, meaning v matter, subject v object, researcher v data, Black v white, Self v other etc)
This proposal will sidestep this entrapment of both notions of the latent and non-representational photography by privileging 'making' in the context of the materials used in the darkroom ( metals, tones, chemicals, digital enviroments , darkroom and archive ( surface, atmostphere , smell, touch, tacility, sensastion) It will also draw on the analytic works of ( Bataille, Deleuze, Derridha, Golding, Nancy) as well as photographers historical and contempoary ( Fani-Kayode, Molinier, Lazlo-Moholy-Nagy, Man-Ray, Mann, Witkin)
Diffraction emphasizes the role of light waves patterns and how these patterns become intererences when encountering an object ( Barad, Haraway); specifically concerning the way light enters the photographic lens creating image distortion. Here it is critical to be engaged in studio/darkroom and archival practices in order to rethink photographic portraiture. Throughout this research , a working portfolio of early 19th century printing processess in particular wet-plate collodion will be created. Overall , this project by bringing a diffractive methodology into a more intimate encounter between early analogue printing processes; contempoary photographic portraiture , and archive will open up a newly emergiing field both in research.
It is vital that a new kind of photographic -darkroom -archival praxis begins to emerge, without staid notions of " Photography' ,' archival' or otherwise entering into the picture.
In the UK, academic context there remains complex and oppressive marginalisation of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer + ( LGBTQ+) nuanced and embodied experiences. This seems to result from how racism, and homophobia, sexism and transphobia, intersect. Despite the advances in feminism, queer theory, de-colonisation, post-colonial theory and critical race theory, these debates are locked into staid binary frameworks ( analogue v digital, meaning v matter, subject v object, researcher v data, Black v white, Self v other etc)
This proposal will sidestep this entrapment of both notions of the latent and non-representational photography by privileging 'making' in the context of the materials used in the darkroom ( metals, tones, chemicals, digital enviroments , darkroom and archive ( surface, atmostphere , smell, touch, tacility, sensastion) It will also draw on the analytic works of ( Bataille, Deleuze, Derridha, Golding, Nancy) as well as photographers historical and contempoary ( Fani-Kayode, Molinier, Lazlo-Moholy-Nagy, Man-Ray, Mann, Witkin)
Diffraction emphasizes the role of light waves patterns and how these patterns become intererences when encountering an object ( Barad, Haraway); specifically concerning the way light enters the photographic lens creating image distortion. Here it is critical to be engaged in studio/darkroom and archival practices in order to rethink photographic portraiture. Throughout this research , a working portfolio of early 19th century printing processess in particular wet-plate collodion will be created. Overall , this project by bringing a diffractive methodology into a more intimate encounter between early analogue printing processes; contempoary photographic portraiture , and archive will open up a newly emergiing field both in research.
It is vital that a new kind of photographic -darkroom -archival praxis begins to emerge, without staid notions of " Photography' ,' archival' or otherwise entering into the picture.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Johnny Golding (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Ajamu Ikwe-Tyehimba (Student) |