This was the first paper presented at the Adam Art Gallery’s ‘Art History in Practice’ seminar series, on Thursday the 16th of July, 2015. Click here to view the calendar.
By Lucy Jackson
‘Cameraless photography’ is not a phrase you hear or read often. To the common ear it almost seems like an oxymoron - how can there be a photograph without a camera? It is fair to say when reading the title of Geoffrey Batchen’s paper, a certain level of skepticism, coupled with curiosity, was already present. In addition to the mystery of cameraless photographs, the title ‘The Politics of Cameraless Photography’ also implies these items may have a political agenda. But what could that be?
Batchen began his presentation by placing his paper in context, as part of a larger project that surveys cameraless photography as a medium. He then sought out to prove that this medium conveys its own unique set of ideas, by providing a chronological history of the cameraless photographer, the context they have worked in, and the politics their work conveyed. An outcome of his research will be an exhibition at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery: New Plymouth, opening in April 2016.
Although surrounded by the works of contemporary artist Andrew Beck in the Adam Art Gallery, Batchen took us back nearly 200 years, with cameraless photographs by Henry Fox Talbot. At first glance, the contact prints of lace that Talbot produced may appear to be nothing more than photographs of beautiful needlework. But Batchen suggests these images can be interpreted as a very deliberate choice by Talbot — to pictorially depict the industrialization of the time in which he was working. The lace matrix was a symbol for industrialization entering everyday life, as would photography in years to come - and this is reflected in the mechanical process of cameraless photography’s capturing of the material. Batchen proposes that with cameraless photography Talbot realised a truth to presence, even if it wasn’t a truth to appearance itself.
Batchen also discussed the importance of considering other artists such as Bronislaw Schlabs and Běla Kolářová who experimented with the medium of cameraless photography. Their work produced the terms ‘absolute photography’ and ‘anti-photography’, terms which encapsulate a sense of ambiguity and trepidation, reflecting the political situation of the time (i.e. cameraless photography as set up in opposition to the realistic, camera-oriented photography of the Soviet Union).
Batchen then jumped to the present and local, introducing the art of New Zealander Joyce Campbell (whose work will be in the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery exhibition). Campbell works in a range of photographic processes, but the examples shown by Batchen were again of cameraless photographs, which pictorially describe bacteria, fungi and other physical specimens. The physical contact creates a connection between the object and the image, the image and us. Batchen states that cameraless photography has a powerful, direct connection that promises to get us even closer to what is represented, narrowing the gap between image and observer.
One of Batchen’s final examples was Japanese photographer, Shimpei Takeda. Influenced by the tragedy of the 2011 tsunami and its damage of the nuclear power plant Fukushima Daiichi, Takeda collected soil samples from areas around Fukushima, and then placed them each on photographic film for a month. Batchen admits that about half of the film remained black, but some of the film was speckled with photographic evidence of radiation – a direct confrontation of environmental and political issues to the viewer. Batchen suggests that cameraless photographers today, like Takeda, accept that photography has always been politically charged in one way or another, and he has used the medium to showcase an important environmental and political problem.
Batchen concluded by stating that cameraless photography has always been seen as inferior, while the camera has been used as the ‘auto correct’. However, he posits that in cameraless photography we have an approach and an experience of the object which is direct and connects us with the world in a way that cameras do not.
I think it is fair to say the audience had reservations about this and especially the political nature of such works, either on entrance, during, or at conclusion of Batchen’s talk - as evidenced by the healthy debate that ensued. However, it cannot be denied that Batchen had succeeded in getting people to think; about both the nature of photography, and the position in which cameraless photography sits as a politically charged art form. In an age where the majority of people have a camera on them at all times, it was pleasantly refreshing to learn of contemporary photographers that were making art without one. Ironically, while listening to Batchen’s paper, we were presented with photographs taken with a camera, of photographs taken without one, suggesting that on another level, each is essential to the other.
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