Description
What is photography theory and how is it used? Sharon Harper’s essay in Photographies proposes considering more established film- and art-historical processes that contextualise and historicise an image alongside analysis of its form and content. But did not writers she mentioned, such as Victor Burgin and Roland Barthes, already do this? John Tagg certainly described photographs as having no identity outside of their (disciplinary) contextual frame: ‘Its nature as a practice depends on the institutions and agents which define it and set it to work’.To apply Harper’s ideas to ourselves, we should consider the context and history of the very subject area and consider the nature of the photographic education, particular in regards to profound changes in relation to the marketisation of Higher Education, changing concepts of a ‘student’, and the very identity of Photography degrees within a broader reconsideration of the role of universities within the UK. Does curriculum design interrelate theory and practice to form a ‘praxis’ (at the risk of reductionism, how can historical context, form and content become ‘applied knowledge’)?
And yet, within academia, the very term ‘photography’ is perceived to be in ‘crisis’. There appears to be an impulse (perhaps anxiety?) to question, or at least readdress, photography’s status. There is clearly an aporia between definitions of photography; the ‘end of photography’ opposed to the digital proliferation of photography. What ‘photography’ is therefore really being questioned?
| Period | 5 Apr 2019 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Association for Art History 2019: Brighton University |
| Event type | Conference |