Table Of ContentNonhuman Photography
Nonhuman Photography
Joanna Zylinska
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2017 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information
storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Zylinska, Joanna, 1971- author.
Title: Nonhuman photography / Joanna Zylinska.
Description: Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017010149 | ISBN 9780262037020 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Photography--Philosophy. | Hidden camera photography. |
Electronic surveillance. | Automatic machinery. | Extinction (Biology)
Classification: LCC TR183 .Z95 2017 | DDC 770--dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2017010149
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Capturing the End of the World 1
1 Nonhuman Vision 13
2 The Creative Power of Nonhuman Photography 51
3 Photography after the Human 81
4 Photography and Extinction 103
5 Ecomedia between Extinction and Obsolescence 129
6 We Have Always Been Digital 167
Conclusion: Postphotography? 195
Notes 203
Bibliography 239
Index 253
Acknowledgments
The seeds for this book were planted with the inaugural professorial lec-
ture on nonhuman photography that I gave at Goldsmiths, University of
London, in March 2014. I am grateful to my Goldsmiths colleagues and
students for ongoing support and inspiration, in particular Lisa Black-
man, Sean Cubitt, Natalie Fenton, Julian Henriques, and Sarah Kem-
ber. Many other institutions and organizations have generously invited
me to present material from this project as it unfolded: Aalto Univer-
sity, Centre Culturel International de Cerisy, Coventry University, the
Center for 21st Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwau-
kee, Courtauld Institute of Art, European Communication Research
and Education Association (ECREA), Institut National d’Histoire de
l’Art (INHA), the International Media Art Biennale WRO 2015, Katho-
lieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), King’s College London, Lincoln
University, Lund University, New York University Abu Dhabi, Onassis
Cultural Centre, Polish Academy of Sciences, Princeton University, Uni-
versidad de las Américas Puebla, the Universities of Bergen, Copenha-
gen, Greenwich, Kent, Minnesota, Oregon, Westminster, and the West
of England, and the Winchester School of Art. I received invaluable feed-
back at all of those places, which helped me improve the manuscript
immensely.
I am truly grateful to many individuals who have inspired me and
helped me develop the ideas contained in this book. I would especially
like to thank Clare Birchall, Dave Boothroyd, Ting Ting Cheng, Theodo-
ros Chiotos, Gabriela Méndez Cota, Alberto López Cuenca, David Cun-
ningham, Ewa Domańska, Mika Elo, Richard Grusin, Kamila Kuc, Max
Liljefors, Nina Sellars, Doug Sery, Jonathan Shaw, Stelarc, Frederik Truyen,
viii Acknowledgments
Ross Varney, Michael Wamposzyc, Bernadette Wegenstein, and Paul
Wombell. I am also very grateful for the generosity of many artists whose
work has long served as inspiration for me, and who have kindly allowed
me to reproduce their images in this book: Bonamy Devas, Véronique
Ducharme, Juliet Ferguson, Alexa Horochowski, Pieter Hugo, Tong Lam,
Lindsay Seers, and Richard Whitlock. As always, a special thank-you goes to
Gary Hall.
Introduction: Capturing the End of the World
At the very beginning of the twenty-first century, a professional photogra-
pher with an interest in environmental issues named James Balog decided
to record glacier retreat, a phenomenon that is considered the most vis-
ible indicator of climate change in the world today (figure 0.1). To realize
his project, Balog invested in a number of Nikon DSLR cameras, which
he subsequently customized with microcomputers to enable them to cap-
ture images over a period of several years, in different weather conditions.
The cameras were then installed in high-resistance cases and soldered onto
rocks. Exposed to extremely harsh weather in Iceland, Alaska, and the Arc-
tic, these cameras recorded, for years on end, the transformations of the geo-
and hydrosphere. Upon retrieving them, Balog uploaded the data from the
cameras’ memory cards onto his computer, and then edited the still images
into time-lapse videos that illustrated the progressive ice loss from glaciers.
Subsequently developed into the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated
documentary Chasing Ice (2012), the project has been promoted worldwide
via a series of events under the umbrella of “the Anthropocene”—i.e., the
present time interval, going back to at least the Industrial Revolution, in
which the human has been recognized as a geological agent that has had
irreversible impact upon the Earth.1 The project has also served as a driver
for the activities of the Earth Vision Institute, a donor-funded organization
headed by Balog whose goal is to help global citizens see the impact of envi-
ronmental change and envisage a better tomorrow.
The above anecdote encapsulates all of the key concerns of Nonhuman
Photography. On the one hand, the production process involved in shoot-
ing the multiyear collection of images of glaciers from high vantage points
in extreme weather conditions signals that today, in the age of CCTV,
drone media, medical body scans, and satellite imaging, photography is
Description:A new philosophy of photography that goes beyond humanist concepts to consider imaging practices from which the human is absent, as both subject and agent.Today, in the age of CCTV, drones, medical body scans, and satellite images, photography is increasingly decoupled from human agency and human vi
