Natalya Hughes. Review of "Emanations: The Art of the Cameraless Photograph" by Geoffrey Batchen and Philomena Mariani.

Abstract

There has been a spate of recent exhibitions identifying and reflecting upon a turn in photographic practice: a turn toward the materiality of the photograph and the full embrace of its unique processes of “capture.” These exhibitions, and the catalogue texts that supplement them, often seize on the notion of photography’s essence as indexical. Photography’s material structure and process of image making are said to be determined by their causal relationship to the world. Their indexical trace of this world, rather than the iconic depiction of it, determines photography’s unique contribution to representation. And those practices that reflect on this condition are said to raise the standing and the stakes of photography and representation alike.