When was photography invented, in 1826 with the first permanent photograph? If we depart from the technologically oriented accounts and consider photography as a philosophical discourse an alternative history appears, one which examines the human impulse to reconstruct the photographic or "the evoking of light". It's significance throughout the history of ideas is explored via the Platonic Dialogues, Iamblichus' theurgic writings, and Marsilio Ficino's texts. This alternative history is not a replacement of other narratives of photographic history but rather offers a way of rethinking photography's ontological instability.
Autorentext
Junko Theresa Mikuriya is Senior Lecturer in Photography at the London School of Film, Media and Design, University of West London, UK. She is an Honorary Fellow of the School of Arts, University of Kent, UK.
Inhalt
Acknowledgements
Notes on References
Introduction
1. Plato's Allegorical Camera-Cave
2. Plato's Chora and the Uneasy Place of Photography
3. Iamblichus's Receptacle of Light
4. Photographing the Divine: Philotheos of Batos
5. Marsilio Ficino: Light and Photosensitivity
Coda
Notes
Bibliography
Index