Mythologies of photography

In 1975, American photographer Joel-Peter Witkin submitted an MA thesis to the University of New Mexico entitled "Revolt Against the Mystical." This obscure yet fascinating text—autobiography, hagiography, a collection of anecdotes—provides the starting point for a series of explorations into the myth and discourse history of photography.

The following are examined in four chapters:

• the history of retouching between visibility and invisibility;
• the conflict between the technical medium and the signature principle,
• the competitive relationship between early photography and painting
• the experiments and speculations about a photograph of the invisible
• the reception of the first photos of the Shroud of Turin
• the mythical device of the mortifying gaze of Medusa

The focus is on the photo-theoretical debates of the 19th century, in which the expectations, conceptions and reservations developed that are still virulent in the notes of the photographer Witkin, created one hundred years later.

 

info

Author: Stefanie Diekmann

Number of pages: 244 pages

Published: 2003

ISBN: 9783770537778

Publisher: Fink

Type: Paperback

Language: German

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