Art & Philosophy Forum at the DJCAD: Ontology of Photography

View from the Window at Le Gras. Heliographic image by Nicéphore Niépce, 1826

I will be presenting a paper at the Art & Philosophy Forum in DJCAD lecture theatre 5017 at 16:00 on 14 March. As always, these seminars are open to all interested students from across Philosophy as well as Contemporary Art Practice.

The paper is titled "Ontology of Photography and the Crisis of Representation: In Search of the Real". We will look into how our understanding of the 'photographic real' changed throughout history and discuss the challenges and possibilities that the notion of reality presents us with in photography. This interdisciplinary presentation will address the following questions:

• What is real in photography?
• Is realness something that needs to be explained?
• Should we strive for the kind of explanation that refuses to reduce reality to manipulable ingredients?
• What is 'crisis of representation' in photography and how can philosophy address it?
• Can information be a sufficient ground for the new ontology of photography that contemporary philosophy poses?
• What role does manipulation play in our understanding of realness?

Waltzing with the Undead: Before, After, Beyond, and Without Photography

Gytis Skudžinskas, "12 Truths of Photography" in "Titanikas" gallery (Vilnius Academy of Arts, Vilnius). 2015

Echo Gone Wrong Magazine published my reflections on contemporary photography and G.Skužinskas' show "12 Truths of Photography":

It is an attempt to reflect on an exhibition “12 Truths of Photography” (“Titanikas” Gallery, Vilnius, 27.01.-14.03.2015)—a series of media-specific artworks created over the period of the last decade by a photographer Gytis Skudžinskas. The fact that the exhibition has already taken place will not prevent us from talking about it as if it was still present, especially having in mind that a photographic exhibition, on its own part, can—and this text invites to exercise this possibility—take place without the conventional presence of photography as such. It is also an attempt to show how the event presents itself in this mode of ‘as if’ by becoming operative in both ways: positive (as if it is still there) and negative (let’s carry on as if nothing happened). Instead of it being a ‘review’ or a generalisation of Skudžinskas’ oeuvre, this reflection will try to problematize the very cultural context of his retrospective gesture, namely: what does it mean to turn towards photography as a medium and photographic practice today?

See full text in EchoGoneWrong.com