Historical Photographs Research Articles

An Academic Study of Clothing Ethnoculture and Modern Clothes Production: Interaction Practices in Ukraine

AbstractAs a result of globalization processes, the lives of average people are nowadays filled with uniform products. In Ukraine, contemporary clothing featuring national markers stands out from among the wide range of cultural and artistic trends. Ukrainian academics are currently studying the specific features of the diffusion of traditional clothing into everyday urban life. A knowledge of the historical path of the penetration, adaptation, and development of traditional Ukrainian clothing within the urban cultural system is necessary for an understanding of its modern transformation processes. An examination of the theoretical model of the diffusion and development of nationally marked clothing from 1861 to 2020 reveals that, in the context of urbanized culture, the spread of Ukrainian clothing is subject to five factors: social and economic, religious and ritual, identification (patriotic), cultural and artistic, and design and production. Within each subperiod, namely 1861–1920, 1921–1990, and 1991–2020, these factors have influenced clothing culture to varying extents, and their content is transformed in accordance with the historical circumstances. In addition to the publication of the above developments in scientific journals, considerable efforts to popularize them are also being made. Several thematic lectures have been given on the influence of the above-mentioned driving forces at different historical stages, accompanied by the multimedia presentation of prominent members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia posing in Ukrainian attire. The ZETA Atelier clothing manufacturing team produces collars embroidered with Ukrainian folk motifs, which became fashionable among Ukrainian intellectuals in the early 20th century. Collaboration based on the educational platform of the clothing brand Zerno has given rise to the idea of producing a line of stockinette T-shirts with prints of historical photographs of the Ukrainian cultural figures previously featured during lectures and presentations. The aim is to shape a contemporary urban culture of nationally marked clothing via the introduction of national images into consumer practices.

A morphological comparison between a death mask of the American Prophet Joseph Smith and a photograph likely to depict him

Application of forensic identification methods to establish authenticity of a historical photograph is made. Joseph Smith Junior was the Prophet and founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often referred to as Mormons. In 1844 Joseph and his brother Hyrum were shot and killed by a mob of angry men who opposed his church and its followers. Shortly after death, Joseph’s face was moulded, and a death mask was made. Photography was invented during the life of Joseph Smith Jnr and there are reports that he had a daguerreotype (photograph) taken, but no image has been verified to be of him. A photographic image of an Illinois man from the 1840s is linked by circumstantial evidence, such as similar clothing, to Joseph Smith Jnr and the photographer’s studio being close to where Joseph Smith III was at the time the photograph has been produced. A morphological comparison is made between the death mask and the photograph in order to establish the likelihood that the man in the photograph is the prophet. Sixteen points of anatomical similarity were found between the death mask and the photograph, the most compelling of which is asymmetry of the face and a possible scar in the area of the left eyebrow. Superim­position confirmed morphological similarity. Finding of close morphological similarity is not an ultimate proof of identification, but increases the probability that the photograph depicts Joseph Smith Junior. This is the first case of an anatomical comparison between a death mask and a photograph.

Towards a methodological approach to identify the main components used in historic photographs

In this work, a methodology is proposed to identify the components used in historic photographs using non-invasive and non-destructive characterisation techniques. The methodology provides an approach for analysing photographs by following three steps represented in a flowchart: firstly, the type of binder is determined by identifying morphological and structural characteristics; secondly, the presence or absence of a baryta layer is established; and finally, the presence of organic components used as part of a protective layer is determined. The characteristics and properties revealed using this methodology identify the type of historic photograph through different analytical techniques that provide science-based evidence for any qualitative observations first made. These techniques are interchangeable as they identify specific characteristics in the photographs by using infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopic ellipsometry, confocal microscopy and atomic force microscopy, among others. As such, the methodology proposed facilitates a secure evidence-based classification of photographs and provides valuable information for their conservation.

Negative/Positive: A History of Photography

Negative/Positive: A History of Photography

Photography and the Organic Nonhuman: Photographic Art with Light, Chlorophyll, Yeasts, and Bacteria

ABSTRACT The concept of nonhuman in relation to photography has recently been mostly theorized through technology, while organic nonhuman agents and processes at work in photography have received less attention. In this article, works by three contemporary Finnish artists who incorporate organic materials and processes into photography are analyzed to renegotiate the borders between photography, bioart, and science. This leads to a rethinking of the dichotomy between the concepts of technological and organic in the context of contemporary photographic art. Combining new materialist and posthumanist theories with photography history and theory allows for a multidisciplinary method that recognizes the worth of both human and nonhuman agents and processes at work. The artworks are analyzed as temporal and processual, taking into account their performative qualities.

The Slide Lecture: Introduction to a Special Issue of History of Photography

The Slide Lecture: Introduction to a Special Issue of History of Photography

Southwest Cinematography: The Scientific, Ethnic and Aesthetic Nature of Sun Mingjing’s Frontier Photographic Perspective

Sun Mingjing is the pioneer of modern Chinese film education and the pioneer of Chinese TV industry. From 1938 to 1945, Sun Mingjing moved westward to Sichuan due to the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, and the southwest countries naturally became the theme of his photography. At that time, there were many provinces such as Sichuan, Kang, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Tibet in the southwest. However, the academic circles at that time paid little attention to and researched on this area due to the remote location, the difficult roads, and the distribution of many ethnic minorities. Photography is not only an image recording medium, but also an important image-building tool. A history of photography is also a history of visual viewing and image changes. The author tries to sort out Sun Mingjing’s Southwest photographic works, compare his photographic works with other works of similar themes in the same period, and study Sun Mingjing’s photography investigation of landscape, geography, ethnic minorities and people’s livelihood, in which way a glimpse of the social phenomenon in ethnic minority areas in modern Southwest China can be viewed from those real images, and we can explore the scientific, national and aesthetic approach to appreciate his works.

Putting a Human Face on It: Gender and Photographic Meaning in a Canadian Women's Coal Mine Campaign

AbstractIn January 1999, the Canadian government announced their withdrawal from the Cape Breton mining industry with a settlement package for redundant miners, which was considered inadequate by miners and their families. In response, a group of women organized a community-based campaign, United Families (UF), led by two women who traveled to Ottawa to meet national politicians presenting themselves explicitly as “miners’ wives.” While the UF located their campaign within the context of family and community, as expected of miners’ wives, their principal focus was the men disadvantaged by the settlement. Here they strayed onto the terrain of the men's union.To support their case the women took photographs of miners leaving the pit at the end of a shift and organized them into an album. This became a catalyst for the disjuncture between the gendered expectations associated with female roles, and the women's efforts to represent the interests of the men. Intended as objective evidence in support of their position, the photographs carried a range of complex emotions relating to the women's campaign: They expressed the subjective meanings of the women's relationship with mining and the men photographed, as well as providing material evidence of the condition of the miners. This subjectivity was overlaid onto gendered subtexts inscribed within the history of photography in the public and domestic spheres.In campaign negotiations the women struggled to control the meaning of the photographic images and their endeavors resulted in only very minor amendments to the original settlement. The UF women's creative use of photography ultimately undermined the legitimacy of the women's negotiations. However, the photographs remain a testament to the history of mining in Cape Breton and to the emotional commitment of women to a partnership with men forged through the sexual division of labor in coal mining.This article draws upon a range of evidence and theories of gender, activism, and photographic practice to analyze the ways in which the women were disadvantaged in their campaign.

Heritage Building Information Modeling (HBIM) of the ruined and damaged architectural heritage in Upper Kama Region (Russia)

Building Information Modeling is a tool for the disappearing architectural heritage and environment recreation in 3D virtual reality. The article presents the information modeling experience of ruined and damaged architectural heritage, located in theUpper Kama region in the north Perm Kray (Russia) . The Scan to HBIM technology applied for modeling: information modeling based on laser scanning and a photogrammetric survey. The challenges of the work process are specified. Using the collected data (archival documents and engineering survey results), the parameters of each building's elements are supplemented with information about the history, damage, transformation, and condition of structures and architectural elements. Historic photographs helped to restore the buildings' 3D appearance. Archival descriptions provide the colour and coating materials' characteristics. Full-fledged virtual copies of ruined Orthodox churches of the Upper Kama region were created. The article proposes further work using obtained 3D-information models, including gamification, and virtual and augmented reality.Keywords: Architectural Heritage; Heritage Building Information Modeling; Laser scanning; Virtual reconstruction.

El edificio histórico del Instituto de Botánica Darwinion de San Isidro: el mensaje silencioso del legado del Dr. Cristóbal M. Hicken

The Instituto de Botánica Darwinion (CONICET and ANCEFyN) was founded by the end of 1910 in the San Martín district by Cristóbal María Hicken as his private botanical research laboratory. Its name honors Charles Darwin for his brilliant theory of biological evolution. In 1924, Cristóbal M. Hicken made public his desire to bequeath the Instituto de Botánica Darwinion to the National State, a fact that only materialized in 1934. But in the early ‘30s, he decided to move the Instituto de Botánica Darwinion to a new building located in the San Isidro district, built especially to contain the institute and also his retirement home. After 87 years of existence and five building extensions, the historic building of the Instituto de Botánica Darwinion of San Isidro maintains its integrity and attracts the attention of both the public and architecture and design professionals. Based on the study of building characteristics and the thought of Cristóbal M. Hicken, the main objective of this work is to evaluate whether the external and internal structure of the historic Darwinion building in San Isidro, together with the ornamentation and distribution of original functions of each room, respond only to an aesthetic and functional design or if, in addition, they have a symbolic meaning, a vision of the world, a silent message for those who want (and know how) to understand. With this central purpose as a guide, we carried out a multidisciplinary investigation to reconstruct Cristóbal M. Hicken’s vision in the design of the Instituto de Botánica Darwinion of San Isidro. We started from the analysis of the original building in the San Martín district in search of any possible design background, to then focus the attention entirely on the building in San Isidro. Plans, public documents, correspondence, historical photographs, academic and dissemination articles of the time, pre-Hispanic South American ethnographic information, Argentine historical information between 1860 and 1930, and interviews with relatives and historians were studied. In short, the Instituto de Botánica Darwinion in San Isidro was created as a museum and a laboratory plus a home. The design of the museum agrees with the concept of “temple of Botany” manifested by Cristóbal M. Hicken himself, and whose first sign is observed in the etymology of the name of the institute. Its ornamentation is eclectic, since it combines symbols of Andean pre-Hispanic cultures with symbols of Western civilization, and it is structured according to each room (portal, front rooms, herbarium, library) and orientation (towards the street or towards the inner garden). This ornamentation works like a discourse in symbolic key with multiple messages for the visitor: it reflects an original, foundational, and ancient Argentine identity, which in turn communicates that the Darwinion is a place where a silent and fertile unveiling of the knowledge, of the secrets of evolution, takes place protected from evils and misfortunes by Nature itself. The design plan of the institute, the portal, the access terrace, and the internal garden convey desirable masonic values through the symbolic language, typical and traditional of Freemasonry. Likewise, we show evidence of Dr. Cristóbal M. Hicken’s great interest in Andean pre-Hispanic cultures, of his refined knowledge of Greco-Roman mythology, his belonging to Argentine Freemasonry and consequent ability to symbolic language, and his knowledge of construction, cosmology, and analytic geometry. For these reasons, and considering his participation in the supervision of the building work declared by the newspapers of his time, the probable direct intervention of Cristóbal M. Hicken is proposed both in the design of the building of the Instituto de Botánica Darwinion of San Isidro, as well as in the design of its ornamentation. In addition, evidence is provided of the possible intervention of Arturo Prins and Fernando de Estrada in the project of the building.

Geoarchaeological remote sensing prospection of Miocene limestone quarries in the hinterland of Roman Carnuntum and Vindobona (Vienna Basin, Austria)

Abstract We have documented quarries in Miocene limestone in the Vienna Basin (Austria), Hundsheim Mountains, Leitha Mountains and Rust Hills in high-resolution airborne laser scanning data and orthophotos aiming for a diachronic quarry inventory since the Roman period. The study region was divided into 6 quarry regions and the quarries of the whole study area as well as each separate region were analyzed concerning different rock types, mean, minimum and maximum quarry area and development in the different maps. Age information have been sought from historical maps, historical photography and paintings as well as quarry face graffiti. In total, 658 quarries, possible quarries and shallow quarries have been outlined in the detailed digital terrain models, which were compared with 453 quarries indicated in four generations of historical maps between the years 1754 to 1872. The numbers of quarries are generally low in the Walter map (1754–1756), the First Military Survey (1773–1785) and Second Military Survey (1809–1846) but increase tremendously in the maps of the Third Military Survey (1872–1873). Most old quarries were quarried also in subsequent periods, commonly destroying virtually all pre-existing traces. According to our results two types of quarries represent highly interesting targets for more detailed studies in the search for Roman quarries: (i) areas in historical maps with suspicious uneven terrain, which have never been outlined as quarries and areas that have been mapped as “old quarries” – especially in the Third Military Survey; examples represent areas northwest and west of Pfaffenberg in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg (Lower Austria), “Gruibert” in Winden am See (Burgenland) and “Hoher Berg” in Stotzing (Burgenland); (ii) Shallow quarries, which neither appear in historical maps nor in the mining archive of the Geological Survey of Austria like the one from the saddle between Pfaffenberg and Hundsheimer Berg.

Photography as Absence: Implicit Histories (Africa, Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries)

Photographic material can sometimes pose an overwhelming and distorting presence, especially when it comes to the writing of history. Some of the first visual recordings of African social worlds via photography would long serve as a model for images of the continent. This phenomenon has only been reinforced by recirculations of images from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Intended as a counterpoint, this article will contemplate a paradoxical history of photography by considering it based not on its presence but on its very absence. A work of history supported by photographic and written sources from the years 1870 to 1910, this contribution focuses on photography as absence, as disappearance, and as erasure. This implicit history focuses on various essential phenomena that characterize the (non)production of photographic images of African social worlds in the age of colonial expansion. It first deals with the key question of the material destruction of old photographs of Africa. For a variety of reasons, an entire part of what was photographed is now either lost or in the process of becoming lost. One of the long-standing major effects of this has been a double erasure of African photography pioneers, who are poorly represented or underrepresented in institutional archives and have been deprived of historiographical attention; in many cases, their history remains to be written. The article then raises the question of refusals to pose and potential refusals to take photographs. We will see several scattered traces of such evasions of photography. The problem of self-censorship and the very restricted circulation of certain images, particularly those threatening the stability of colonial narratives, will also be studied at this juncture. Finally, the article will take a closer look at the photographs taken by Alex J. Braham. This individual, a district agent in Ogugu (southern Nigeria) for the Royal Niger Company at the turn of the twentieth century, was an eager photographer. His personal album contains several shots of a secret ceremony that he took without the participants’ knowledge, having hidden with his camera in a tent. This example of concealment (not of the image but of the photographic act itself) is also one of the possible manifestations of the invisibilities that have played a major part in forming and deforming photographic imagery of Africa.

DEVELOPING A VIRTUAL OPEN-AIR MUSEUM OF VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE

Vernacular architecture is an integral part of the national cultural heritage. Today, however, many of these buildings exist only on old plans or photographs and the average citizen has no opportunity to get acquainted with this part of the national identity. Therefore, in our work, we present the development of two web applications with the aim of creating a virtual open-air museum for presenting vernacular architecture in the Czech Republic. The applications were created using open-source technologies, and are implemented with methods that allow easy transfer from one operating system to another. The presented content is a carefully selected sub-sample of more than 10,000 available records representing all regional types of vernacular architecture. The result is one application designed for editors to manage the presented content and one application allowing interactive viewing of the available geo-located records designed for the general public. Individual records can be searched either directly using the map window or by querying the attribute table. These records contain descriptive information about the object, as well as historical photographs and plans and, for some objects, additional information in the form of 3D models, PDF documents and other files. The applications are designed in such a way that their content can be freely expanded in the future and thus contribute to the popularization of vernacular architecture among the general public, which was the main reason for their creation.

Double Index. The Self-Shadow in American Photography of the Second Half of the 20th Century

The article focuses on the notion of the image of self-shadow in American photography in the second half of the twentieth century, understood as a shadow silhouette of the creator captured in a photograph. The two main problems that concern the author’s research are the lack of current, theoretical study on the problem of shadow in the history of photography from the perspective of art history (V. Stoichita, R. Casati, P. Cavanagh, H. Kanaan) and the lack of the definition of the phenomenon of self-shadow and its possible types in self-portraiture. The author’s proposition of a definition of self-shadow is based on selected photographs by four artists whose works touch upon the problem of shadow in the context of relations between the “self” and the “other” (Lee Friedlander), race and subjective invisibility (Shawn W. Walker), mask and the other-self (Andy Warhol), and the intimate recording of identity (Nan Goldin). In her analyses, the author discusses the problem of the hybrid ontology of the shadow, which is both visible and visual. In this understanding, the shadow not only refers to a physical body, present “here and now” but more importantly evokes a sense of presence, even when the artist’s body is absent in the picture. The double index refers to the image leaving its mark both in reality and on light-sensitive paper. The rudimentary, vitalistic relation linking the human body with its shadow is only a starting point for analyses of the complexity of its status and symbolism. The concepts framing Andy Warhol’s Polaroid are twinning, the mask, and the Jungian theory of the shadow archetype. To discuss the self-portrait of Shawn W. Walker, the author applies the literary-philosophical concept of invisibility based on writings from Black existentialists (W.E.B. Du Bois, F. Fanon, R. Ellison). The analyses of Lee Friedlander’s photograph have been based on the psychological distinction between the figures of the “self” and the “other”. The closing concepts that frame Nan Goldin’s self-portrait are the haptic thinking subject (M. Smolińska) and the notion of a diary. The critical apparatus of the study is supplemented by contemporary analyses of the myth of Narcissus, the mythical origins of the self-portrait, and the notion of the index (after R. Krauss, M. Michałowska, M.A. Doane).

La digitalizzazione del patrimonio come strumento per la conoscenza, un’esperienza sull’architettura ferroviaria siciliana

The process of digitisation of the artistic and cultural heritage has enriched the possibilitiesof representation and communication of architecture, increasing the modes of reproduction,fruition as well as the possibilities of protection and preservation. The study of this researchdraws attention on the continuous progress of technology in the cultural fi eld and highlightsthe important collaboration that exists between digital and analog representation, identifying,with this synergy, a virtuous path that allows, through the use of different methodologies, tobe able to know and analyze the historical phases of a building. In particular, the attentionwas directed to the Caltanissetta Centrale station, a signifi cant junction of the Sicilian railwaynetwork both for the connection of the island and for the sulfur trade. With its late modernism,the station under study is part of the story of Art Nouveau stations in Sicily, and it becomes awitness to economic and social changes in the region, thus making itself an asset to be protectedand disseminated. Through the study of iconographic documents, historical photos, and graphicanalysis it was possible to retrace, through a backward process from the laser scanning survey tothe study of photographic restitution, the main historical phases that characterised the evolutionand extension of the factory. Through such 3D graphic representations, it was also possible toreproduce the characteristics of the building and highlight the changes that occurred over timeand the evident divergences that existed between the building and the original design idea.

Photo Art Project Erotics in Photography: From Analogue to Digital. Part 2

The author’s idea. The idea of this photographic project was to create an erotic photographic work, namely such images that contain elements of fine art, which are closely intertwined with the myths and legends of ancient Greece. Throughout photographic history, both historical aspects and stylistic images of the visual art of each era are explored and intersected.
 The photographic project is based on the story of characters such as Eros, and the three graces – Innocence, Beauty, and Love. During the development of the storyline, the characters go through the ages, their aesthetics, and expressiveness. The passage of time and the development of society in terms of morality change the attitude toward the naked human body and its interpretation.
 The analysis of the beauty of the human body in various forms of sensuality is carried out. It is established that eroticism is the result of the process of ontogenetic, and cultural development and expresses the individual psychological and semantic components of the human body’s uniqueness. And photography, as the most common way of visual communication, has formed modern ideas about it.

The historical impact of anthropogenic air-borne sulphur on the Pleistocene rock art of Sulawesi

The Maros-Pangkep karst in southwest Sulawesi, Indonesia, contains some of the world’s oldest rock art. However, the Pleistocene images survive only as weathered patches of pigment on exfoliated limestone surfaces. Salt efflorescence underneath the case-hardened limestone substrate causes spall-flaking, and it has been proposed that the loss of artwork has accelerated over recent decades. Here, we utilise historical photographs and superposition constraints to show that the bulk of the damage was present before 1950 CE, and describe the role of anthropogenic sulphur emissions in promoting gypsum-salt efflorescence and rock art decay. The rock art shelters have been exposed to domestic fire-use and intensive rice cultivation with post-harvest burning of straw for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, both of which release chemically reactive sulphur oxides for gypsum formation, with cumulative effects. Analysis of time-lapse photography indicates that the rate of rock art loss may be on the decline, consistent with the history of fire-use in southwest Sulawesi. At present, vandalism and sulphur emissions from diesel-powered traffic and cement-based infrastructure development constitute localised threats. Our findings indicate that there are grounds for being cautiously optimistic that targeted conservation measures will ensure the longevity of some of our oldest artistic treasures.

Subaltern? Illustrated: A Study of Ambedkar Cartoons

Just like any other narrative form, cartoons too, by virtue of their storytelling ability, have problematized Dalit life history and delineated the trauma, tragedy and unflinching representational terms. Charting sociopolitical topics, cartoons are an example of popular culture influencing public opinion. With caricature, prose, topical content and a dash of humour, cartoons form a special category of news and a critical form of political journalism. When Elizabeth Edwards discusses the raw history and potential of photographs, she emphasizes their visual sovereignty, which is not only vital for the production of photography but also for the interpretation of images, and through them, the insertion of the human voice. Similarly, cartoons succeed in combining their visual sovereignty with their ethnographic potential because of their interpretive ingenuousness. As such, cartoons articulate lines of instability indiscernible under the garb of mythical solidarity of a myriad of political ideologies. Cartoonists construct publics and counter publics by problematizing the impact of sociopolitics on human beings through the construction of interpretative communities bound by visual perceptions. In other words, cartoons, particularly political cartoons, represent highly complex modern attempts to formulate visual identities under specific historical and political conditions that resonate with the readership. The present research article seeks to problematize Dalit representation in cartoons by non-Dalit illustrators against the work of a Dalit cartoonist to critically study the politics of representation, the discourse of powers and the dialectics of caste. The article seeks to study if and how Dalit agency is, respectively, illustrated or elided, how symbols and caricatures demonstrate the truth of Dalit life and the aesthetics of the Dalit experience. For the purpose of the study, the article especially focusses on the figure of Ambedkar, the iconic Dalit voice and the benevolent patriarch of Dalit ideology, and studies his representation in a series of political cartoons published between 1932 and 1956.

Work Culture and Corporate America

Essay| December 01 2022 Work Culture and Corporate America: Understanding the Life and Work of Chauncey Hare Brian Arnold Brian Arnold Brian Arnold is a photographer and writer based in Ithaca, New York, who works with the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University. He has published books with Oxford University Press, Afterhours Books, and the Johnson Museum of Art. Brian’s most recent book, A History of Photography in Indonesia: From the Colonial Era to the Digital Age, was co-published in 2022 by Afterhours Books in Jakarta and Amsterdam University Press. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Afterimage (2022) 49 (4): 3–13. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2022.49.4.3 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Brian Arnold; Work Culture and Corporate America: Understanding the Life and Work of Chauncey Hare. Afterimage 1 December 2022; 49 (4): 3–13. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2022.49.4.3 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAfterimage Search Every kid in school a political prisonerEvery lawyer in his cubicle a political prisonerEvery doctor brainwashed by AMA a political prisonerEvery housewife a political prisonerEvery teacher lying thru sad teeth a political prisoner—Diane di Prima, from “Revolutionary Letters #63” (1968–71)This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence—to the spirit as well as to the body. It is about ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around. It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.—Studs Terkel, Working (1974) I got into the arts, at least in part, in an attempt to avoid institutional control of my life. I was very idealistic, and as a young man was... You do not currently have access to this content.

Remixing to Queer the Archives of Diaspora: Qajar Photography and the Persian Carpet

Abstract This article reveals how engagements with the photographic archives of premodern Iran and the Persian carpet break open transtemporal, affective, and queer interplays in diaspora. Examining a digital remix of a photograph of a Qajar princess, ‘Ismat al-Dowlah, from the archives of nineteenth-century Iran, the article argues that the digital (mis)use of archives exposes what forms such as the Persian carpet and photography erase: each medium's close ties with power, labor, gender, and sexuality. It develops a relational approach to understandings of photography that highlights the performative registers for a diasporic gaze while also troubling the imperial investment in understanding photography's history and its practices as a new technology that developed in the nineteenth century. This work considers how unlearning the history of Qajar photography entails deemphasizing the Qajar's king Naser Al Din Shah's fascination with photography's technological newness and instead exposes what desires his fascination was tethered to. This piece brings into conversation techno-historical overlaps between carpet weaving, the Jacquard machine, and computational arts, opening up critical questions about gender vis-à-vis production, labor, and computation within both carpets and computers as media interface.