DeepSummary
In this podcast episode, Siobhan Angus discusses her book 'Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography' which explores the history of photography through the lens of the minerals and materials required for the medium. She explains how the mining of materials like bitumen, silver, platinum, iron, uranium, and rare earth elements is a precondition for photography and reveals the connections between image-making, resource extraction, colonization, labor, and environmental degradation.
Angus discusses how the materiality of photography challenges the emphasis on immateriality in photographic discourse. She examines how different minerals enable specific visual forms and representational possibilities, and how contemporary artists are using analog processes to engage with these histories materially. The episode delves into the work of artists like Ann Atkins, Warren Cariou, and Susannah Creaman, exploring the meta-narratives and performative aspects of their photographic practices.
The conversation also touches on the implications of digital photography and its mineral-intensive nature, as well as the broader ethical considerations of pursuing photography under capitalism and the extractive economy. Angus suggests that while art and photography play a crucial role in making sense of the world, sustainable practices require collective choices and broader social change rooted in environmental justice.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Photography is deeply dependent on the mining and extraction of minerals, challenging the emphasis on immateriality in photographic discourse.
- The use of different minerals enables specific visual forms and representational possibilities in photography.
- Contemporary artists are using analog photographic processes to materially engage with the extractive histories of photography.
- Digital photography is highly mineral-intensive, expanding rather than moving past the histories of extraction.
- Art and photography play a crucial role in helping us rethink our relationship with nature and the environment.
- Achieving sustainable practices in photography requires broader societal changes and collective choices beyond the medium itself.
- The materiality of photography reveals connections between image-making, resource extraction, colonization, labor, and environmental degradation.
- The book explores the meta-narratives and performative aspects of photographs that engage with these histories materially.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “I mean, ultimately, right, as a response to the sort of perceived deskilling of photography that comes with the digital. But I also think it's an attempt to materially engage with these histories. Many of the artists who are doing this really tactile work live in some kind of proximity to the extractive histories they're documenting.“ by Siobhan Angus
- “Ultimately, the things that would make photography more sustainable are not so much about photography, but about these kind of larger collective choices that we make as a society. And it's hard to imagine a sort of sustainable photography within the context of our current system, which is so geared towards scale and accumulation.“ by Siobhan Angus
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Episode Information
New Books in Environmental Studies
Marshall Poe
6/21/24
In Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography (Duke UP, 2024) Siobhan Angus tells the history of photography through the minerals upon which the medium depends. Challenging the emphasis on immateriality in discourses on photography, Angus focuses on the inextricable links between image-making and resource extraction, revealing how the mining of bitumen, silver, platinum, iron, uranium, and rare earth elements is a precondition of photography. Through a materials-driven analysis of visual culture, she illustrates histories of colonization, labor, and environmental degradation to expose the ways in which photography is enmeshed within and enables global extractive capitalism.
This conversation discusses the meta-narrative and performative aspects of some of the photographs shown in the text, dives into some of the stories and examples from Ann Atkin's cyanotypes of the 1800s to Warren Cariou's contemporary bitumin prints, and asks what ethical photography looks like given the resource extraction required.
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