Alise Tifentale, “Photography Without Images: A Proposal to Think About the Medium as Practice, Apparatus, and Form of Social Interaction,” in Latvian Photography 2022, edited by Arnis Balčus and Alexey Murashko (Riga: Kultkom, 2022): 152-171.
Download my article as a pdf here.
Abstract:
In this article I propose to think about photography without images, i.e., focusing on the medium as practice, apparatus, and form of social interaction. Based on concepts created by Pierre Bourdieu, Vilém Flusser, and Lev Manovich, among others, this article attempts to depart from the image-centered, art-historical approach to photography that has dominated this field so far. Instead of repeating the romanticized narrative of “great” or “important” images and their “talented” makers, this article proposes to look beyond the images’ surface and examine unpublished or deleted photographs in archives and on social media, the significance of darkroom work and collective or shared authorship, photography on the NFT art marketplace, and the role of AI and automation in photographic production. The article discusses the work of photographers, artists, digital creators, and social media content producers such as Sultan Gustaf Al Ghozali, Caroline Calloway, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Zenta Dzividzinska, Alan Govenar, Ivars Grāvlejs, Lucia Moholy, Emma Agnes Sheffer, Alnis Stakle, Sophie Thun, and others.
