News
04/07/2024
Published:
The Afloat Photographer: Corporeal Immersivity as an Instance of Sheer Inactivity
(Journal of Image & Narrative)
By discussing the bodily aspects of undersea immersion, this paper investigates the lived experiences of the photographer’s body in space. To do this, it draws on the work of phenomenological philosophers who have theorized the body, such as Edmund Husserl, Edward S. Casey, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Gaston Bachelard, showing how the body is simultaneously active and passive in its environs. To make this point tangible, it examines a recent photographic work by contemporary Dutch artist Roosmarijn Pallandt, who attempts to capture her bodily sensations by submerging herself underwater while taking photographs. The paper argues that her photographic practice augments the bilaterality of the phenomenal body: being both a physical body (Körper) that needs to hold together kinesthetically and a lived body (Leib) that can go further proprioceptively. Consequently, by employing phenomenology vis-à-vis Pallandt’s photographic practice, the author defines immersivity as being concurrently still and moving, static and dynamic, passive and active, that is: as being inactive in space. Following this line of argument, he puts forward that the bodily immersivity is an instance of sheer inactivity.
︎
09/11/2023
Published:
Anxious and Precarious: Entanglements of Affect and Labour in Contemporary Culture
(Journal of Literature & Aesthetics)
As the COVID-19 pandemic has made it palpable, anxieties can turn into pervasive affects with detrimental effects on the psychological well-being of the individual. To be anxious is to be on edge, not only psychologically, but also ontologically and existentially; or to use Heidegger’s terms, it is to be in a state of “groundless floating”. 1 Ranging from general anxiety, PTSD, OCD, and phobias to the simple sentiment of being out of sort, anxieties operate as harbingers of imminent disruptions. Often linked with the concept of “disorder”, anxieties are mostly mentioned in a context that frames personal and socio-economic behavioural patterns in terms of pathology, normality, and abnormality, which implicitly refer to normative views of what constitutes a fulfilled, “good” life.
︎
09/11/2023
Published:
Gesturality: An Ethico-Aesthetic of Anxiety in Late Photography
(Journal of Literature & Aesthetics)
By examining the iconised photographs of the COVID-19 pandemic, published under the heading of The Great Empty by the New York Times in March 2020, this article explores the aesthetic operations and ethical implications of representing anxiety through photographing desolate landscapes. To do so, it situates these images within the genre of late photography, also known as aftermath photography, to discuss how emptiness can function as a surrogate for anxiety. First, by foregrounding the unique temporality of the landscape genre in photography, it examines the aesthetic dimension of seeing deserted places in photographs. By shifting its focus from the image to its caption, it then discusses how the caption of such photographs can interpolate an ethical dimension onto them. Finally, by drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy of “gesture,” the article puts forward that the combination of aestheticized photographs with ethicised captions in The Great Empty expresses anxiety as a mode of gesturality: a sui generis communicational mode that simultaneously galvanizes and paralyzes the viewer.
︎
25/07/2023
Published:
Photography and Memory
(The Palgrave encyclopedia of memory studies)
The affinity between photography and memory is rather axiomatic: We take photos to preserve our memories. This formulation considers photographs as aide-mémoire and photography as a mnemotechnique. Such a basic analogy, however, falls short in explaining the spatiotemporality and materiality of photography and overlooks the mediated aspects of memory in narrating the past. The difficulty with describing the conjunction of memory and photography lies in the fact that neither of them has a static essence: Both remembering and photography are inherently dynamic processes.
18/04/2023
Call for Book Chapters:
Virtual Photography
Deadline: June 15th, 2023
By pivoting around the concept of “virtual” and via the medium of photography, this book project inquires:
What are the ontological and epistemological modalities of virtual photography in contemporary cultures and how can they enable us to conceive memory, identity, and subjectivity anew?
To this end, we welcome disciplinary and interdisciplinary abstracts that reflect on the topic of Virtual Photography via the most recent photographic practices and technologies, including but not limited to: Artificial Intelligence, Extended Reality, and In-game photography.
10/04/2023
Published:
Psychosomatic Imagery
(co-edited book)
This book explores the potential of specific photographic images for reflecting on experiences of mental disorders. Instead of looking at photographs of (people suffering from) mental disorders, this volume aspires to comprehend the complexities of such conditions through photographic lexicons, metaphors, and practices.
Published:
The Afloat Photographer: Corporeal Immersivity as an Instance of Sheer Inactivity
(Journal of Image & Narrative)
By discussing the bodily aspects of undersea immersion, this paper investigates the lived experiences of the photographer’s body in space. To do this, it draws on the work of phenomenological philosophers who have theorized the body, such as Edmund Husserl, Edward S. Casey, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Gaston Bachelard, showing how the body is simultaneously active and passive in its environs. To make this point tangible, it examines a recent photographic work by contemporary Dutch artist Roosmarijn Pallandt, who attempts to capture her bodily sensations by submerging herself underwater while taking photographs. The paper argues that her photographic practice augments the bilaterality of the phenomenal body: being both a physical body (Körper) that needs to hold together kinesthetically and a lived body (Leib) that can go further proprioceptively. Consequently, by employing phenomenology vis-à-vis Pallandt’s photographic practice, the author defines immersivity as being concurrently still and moving, static and dynamic, passive and active, that is: as being inactive in space. Following this line of argument, he puts forward that the bodily immersivity is an instance of sheer inactivity.
︎
09/11/2023
Published:
Anxious and Precarious: Entanglements of Affect and Labour in Contemporary Culture
(Journal of Literature & Aesthetics)
As the COVID-19 pandemic has made it palpable, anxieties can turn into pervasive affects with detrimental effects on the psychological well-being of the individual. To be anxious is to be on edge, not only psychologically, but also ontologically and existentially; or to use Heidegger’s terms, it is to be in a state of “groundless floating”. 1 Ranging from general anxiety, PTSD, OCD, and phobias to the simple sentiment of being out of sort, anxieties operate as harbingers of imminent disruptions. Often linked with the concept of “disorder”, anxieties are mostly mentioned in a context that frames personal and socio-economic behavioural patterns in terms of pathology, normality, and abnormality, which implicitly refer to normative views of what constitutes a fulfilled, “good” life.
︎
09/11/2023
Published:
Gesturality: An Ethico-Aesthetic of Anxiety in Late Photography
(Journal of Literature & Aesthetics)
By examining the iconised photographs of the COVID-19 pandemic, published under the heading of The Great Empty by the New York Times in March 2020, this article explores the aesthetic operations and ethical implications of representing anxiety through photographing desolate landscapes. To do so, it situates these images within the genre of late photography, also known as aftermath photography, to discuss how emptiness can function as a surrogate for anxiety. First, by foregrounding the unique temporality of the landscape genre in photography, it examines the aesthetic dimension of seeing deserted places in photographs. By shifting its focus from the image to its caption, it then discusses how the caption of such photographs can interpolate an ethical dimension onto them. Finally, by drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy of “gesture,” the article puts forward that the combination of aestheticized photographs with ethicised captions in The Great Empty expresses anxiety as a mode of gesturality: a sui generis communicational mode that simultaneously galvanizes and paralyzes the viewer.
︎
25/07/2023
Published:
Photography and Memory
(The Palgrave encyclopedia of memory studies)
The affinity between photography and memory is rather axiomatic: We take photos to preserve our memories. This formulation considers photographs as aide-mémoire and photography as a mnemotechnique. Such a basic analogy, however, falls short in explaining the spatiotemporality and materiality of photography and overlooks the mediated aspects of memory in narrating the past. The difficulty with describing the conjunction of memory and photography lies in the fact that neither of them has a static essence: Both remembering and photography are inherently dynamic processes.
︎
18/04/2023
Call for Book Chapters:
Virtual Photography
Deadline: June 15th, 2023
By pivoting around the concept of “virtual” and via the medium of photography, this book project inquires:
What are the ontological and epistemological modalities of virtual photography in contemporary cultures and how can they enable us to conceive memory, identity, and subjectivity anew?
To this end, we welcome disciplinary and interdisciplinary abstracts that reflect on the topic of Virtual Photography via the most recent photographic practices and technologies, including but not limited to: Artificial Intelligence, Extended Reality, and In-game photography.
︎
10/04/2023
Published:
Psychosomatic Imagery
(co-edited book)
This book explores the potential of specific photographic images for reflecting on experiences of mental disorders. Instead of looking at photographs of (people suffering from) mental disorders, this volume aspires to comprehend the complexities of such conditions through photographic lexicons, metaphors, and practices.