Dark Space and the Early Days of Photography as a Medium

Abstract

Underwater photography first appeared on the screen of modern visual consciousness at the ornate Palace of Optics at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900. Far from being benign distraction, this new medium revealed optics itself to be in state of suspended animation. A cursory inventory of the Palace's contents-a reading of its architectural cross section, evenreveals the outline of the situation. Planned as working observatory, the Palace housed colossal refracting telescope that promised to produce the largest, brightest, and most distinct photographs possible of the celestial vault.' Representing the leading edge in resolution, the telescope was part of an international project to catalogue the night sky. Indeed, photography had become the reason for, and not only the result of, new advances in optics. What such claim meant for the progress of vision, however, is another question. The fact that photography represented a different kind of retina than the human eye had already been noted by one prominent astronomer, who reported that certain nebulae visible through telescope failed to expose photographic plate, and others that made photographic impression could not be seen by the eye.2 That this fact was interpreted as an argument against the blindness of animals living in the pretended darkness of the ocean's depths points to an unusual space that had opened up between vision and visuality.3 What appeared on the screen at the Palace was the notion of visual milieu.