‘Little History’ of Digital Photography: Historical Criteria for Critiquing Post-Photography

Throughout the history of patent law, the manner of representation of invention influenced the process of the patent office in prosecuting them. This chapter traces how changes in the representation of the invention—from material to textual to digital—transformed patent prosecution. Early inventions were represented by working models, the materialized invention that needed little or no examination by the patent office, as they were the inventions themselves. Substantive examination became necessary when the representation of the invention shifted from material to textual, the point in history where the invention became textualized and represented by the patent specification, the written document that encompassed the invention. The textualized invention, apart from effecting critical changes in patent prosecution, centralized the operations of the patent office. With the adoption of new technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI), the manner of representation of invention will undergo yet another change resulting in the further evolution of patent prosecution. Like digital photography which changed the representation of images by radically changing the backend process, the digitalized invention will change the backend process of the patent office, ie, patent prosecution. The most significant systemic consequence of the digitalization of the invention will be the decentralization of patent system.

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPOSITE PORTRAITS IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Ulakbilge Dergisi ◽

10.7816/ulakbilge-09-57-07 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (57) ◽

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Layered Structure ◽

Digital Photography ◽

Child Labour ◽

Family Tree ◽

Historical Process ◽

History Of ◽

Francis Galton ◽

Adams Family ◽

Image Production

The composite photography technique, invented by Francis Galton in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, took its legacy from the new photography techniques that began to appear in the years immediately after the invention of photography. New perspectives affecting the photographs of that period and new image production greatly contributed to the development of this technique. The multi-layered structure that Galton used in his technique created a striking structure that lacked clarity and this technique has been used by many artists today. The composite portrait productions realized by the artists with the help of analog / digital techniques both challenge the photographic reality and combine innovation and art like the nature of composite photography. Galton's work on technique constitutes a highly developed field of photography practice through digital photography today. The traces of the multi-layered effect Galton created through photographic portraits are seen in the works like Lewis Hine's child labour, Ludwig Wittgenstein's family portrait, Wanda Wulz's cat portrait, William Wegman's family combinations, and Nancy Burson's composite portrait studies in the 1980s, Thomas Ruff's Andere Portrait, Booby Neel Adams' 'Family Tree' project, Daniel Gordon's collages, Ken Kitano's' Portraits of Our Face', and Idris Khan's' Nicholas Nixon's Brown Sisters', and these photos are important for the study. The spirit circulating in the layers of Galton's portraits has changed both aesthetically and technically through analog / digital techniques, shifting to a more unifying and compiling dimension. This article aims to investigate the effect of Francis Galton's photography technique on portrait work in the historical process. Keywords: Photography, art, portrait, composite photography

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Schreiben mit Licht

Bewegungsszenarien der Moderne ◽

10.33675/2021-82537264-6 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 93-109

Author(s):

Ralf Bohn

Keyword(s):

20Th Century ◽

19Th Century ◽

21St Century ◽

Digital Photography ◽

History Of ◽

The 19Th Century

In the 19th century, the stillness of movement during a photographic exposure required a staging based on academic traditions. Staging is the »spatialization« of a present absence – comparable to »writing« in the sense of Derrida. With the increasing mobility of camera techniques from the 20th century onwards, the focus is no longer on the reproduction of a moment, but instead on its performative invention.With the digital photography of the 21st century, a transformation from theatrical to functional staging takes place. The history of the writing scene of photography illustrates the interplay between concealment through technology and re-aestheticization, which with increasing oscillation turns into motor dizziness.

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