Making Photography Material: Siobhan Angus and The Elemental History of Photography

Our conversation with Professor Angus discusses her brand-new book Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography. As the title suggests, Angus connects photography with the materials that make it possible: bitumen, silver, platinum, iron, uranium, and rare earth elements. Each has been used at various points in photography's history to physically produce an image, and Siobhan tells us how photography doesn't exist without the mine and extraction. If, in Rob Nixon's words, capitalism "extract[s] in order to abstract", then Camera Geologica is undermining this abstraction by enmeshing photography with its material origin.

 

 

For more on Siobhan Angus:

 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/siobhanangus

Website: https://www.siobhanangus.com/

 

ASLE EcoCast:

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• Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
• Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette

 

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Episode recorded March 22, 2024.

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0