(Methodological) Black Holes in Photography

In 2019 newspapers excitedly reported that astronomers had finally “photographed” the black hole M87*. This famous image does not fit our usual definitions of photography as it used complex computer algorithms to fashion an image from collected data. Why and how is this image described as a “photograph?” This panel looks to examine objects that are named, described, titled, situated, or conventionally understood as “photographs” despite not using a camera, not recording light waves, or using other mechanical or digital methods to produce an image. Rather than being a novel phenomenon or problem, artists and scientists have struggled to define and name photography since the inception of the medium. From nineteenth-century photomechanical processes and photo-sculptures to AI image-making and astronomical visualizations, such objects are often subsumed into the category of “photography.”

Investigating photography from this set of examples, this panel asks: What kind of objects/processes have been called a photograph? Which features and technologies are used to define the medium? How can they reimagine the medium’s history and future? Contributions might explore the reception of objects as “photographs,” the aestheticization or mediation of alternative “photographic” methods, the use of photographic processes in science, or the circulation and transmission of photographs through other media. This panel seeks to bring together papers across geographies and time periods and encourages presentations that engage with interdisciplinary perspectives including scholars working on the definitions, devices, and debates surrounding photographic methods from the nineteenth century to the contemporary.