Tim Otto Roth
Body. Projection. Image: A comparative survey of shadow pictures
Shadow records - especially x-rays - have changed essentially modern pictorial concepts. A shadow record can be comprehended as a category of a shadow picture fixing a shadow by the means of a photochemical or photoelectrical process. This dissertation project examines for the first time theoretically the history of shadow records but also of shadow pictures in general.
Referring to work by artists and art historical reflections I compare shadow records and painted shadow pictures. This examination turns against conventionals approaches, which relate shadow records as "photograms" positively or negatively to photography. Focussin shadow records in the sciences it becomes clear that the technical procedure constitutes a break with hitherto visual conventions and methods of picture production. In particular x-rays caused a revolution in medicine (Dommann), history of law (Golan) and finally in the arts (Henderson). Comparisons with contact copy methods and the nature print in botany help to specify the concept of a shadow record.
The dissertation focuses the "material culture" (Galison) of shadow pictures and shadow records and demonstrates how the emergence of new techniques is related to the developement of new pictorial concepts. Methodically it is necessary to clarify the relation between shadows and shadow pictures and to distinguish between shadow pictures and shadow representations in pictures. The question is, if a phenomenological concept of a picture, as developed for instance by Lambert Wiesing, needs to be enhanced by the "physics of a picture" demanded by Hans Belting in his anthropology of the image. The pivotal point for this approach is to differentiate between the pictorial structuring by the the shadow projection and the recording by its fixation on picture carrier. This implicates the consideration if digital recording methods really produce postphotographic images or if shadow records rather constitute - as an archaic and modern picture at the same time - a paradigm for postphotographic pictures.
Biography
Tim Otto Roth was born 1974 in Oppenau/Black Forest (D), 1994-1995 studies of philosophy and politics in Tübingen (D), 1995-2000 studies of the fine arts at Kunsthochschule Kassel (D), 2004 diploma in theory of visual communication in Kassel, 2004/05 lectureship at Kunsthochschule Kassel, 2006 conference chair with Peter Weibel of the symposium "The Photogram. Light, Trace and Shadow" at the Center for Art & Media ZKM Karlsruhe, since 2008 doctoral study at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.
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