This PhD research project examines the agency of photography and the photographic image. The research develops insights into photography as one of the dominant image making, cultural practices in the Twenty-first Century. Its focus is on digital photography and it begins by understanding agency as distributed, connected and networked: properties predominantly associated with an image that is digital. The intended contribution to knowledge is a philosophical engagement with how images embody notions of representational failure because they present themselves as image in support of a fiction of reality. What this means philosophically, is that there is no access to reality other than through representations that fail to represent. Underpinned by the question as to whether and how “practice interpellates a subject of the signifier” (Burgin, 2011: 196) the research considers the role of photography in helping to determine individuals as viewing subjects. Since photography is the “quintessential practice of life” (Kember & Zylinkska, 2015:07) in which seemingly every moment is recorded, captured and represented, this project investigates how we become who we are through interactions and encounters with photography. I conclude that photographic agency conceals a structure sustained by a form of labour and production that is masked by creativity and enjoyment. The research also provides new ideas towards understanding how technology has shaped perceptual experiences and aligns agency to algorithms and software. Since amateurs and casual image-makers – those “without the spirit of mastery” (Barthes 1977/1975: 52) – are the producers of the majority of images we encounter today, much of the inquiry focused on their experiences. This approach, focusing on the amateur, was also taken within the context of the “massive production of photos in the conduct of everyday life” (Hand, 2012: 02) and the “identifiable increase in image-making as an ordinary aspect of people’s lives” (Ibid: 03). In this sense photography is addressed as a dominant cultural practice. Drawing on the experiences of those who take photographs, the research develops an understanding of an interconnected object of inquiry: photography and the photographic image. Practice contributes two fold to this research. Firstly, as the output of photographic labour, secondly, in the form of my own practice, as a set of responses to the theoretical ideas developed within the project. This research delivers a refined theory of photographic agency. It proposes, through a chain of reasoning, that in photography we do not create likeness of places. Instead, we grasp how unlike places photographs really are and in turn the ground of representation is questioned and repositioned. If photography is not “another visual form of representation, but an immersive economy that offers an entirely new way to inhabit materiality and its relation to bodies, machines and brains” (Rubinstein, 2015), then it is this new, emerging and complex photographic ontology that my project contributes toward.

This study examines the intersection of painting and cinema through the oeuvre of American artist Julian Schnabel. A controversial painter who came to prominence in the contemporary art world of the eighties, the study begins by contextualizing Schnabel within the art critical debates of the period. Addressing and revising the perceived reputation of the artist, the first chapter re-positions Schnabel predominantly as an inheritor of various traits of post-war American painting, in particular the somatic, affective and existential treatment of the canvas characteristic of action painting. The body of the study proceeds to compare the ways in which Schnabel’s cinematic practice borrows, extends and thus affirms many of his painterly approaches. Examining his four major film works (Basquiat, Before Night Falls, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Miral) in tandem with his paintings, these chapters plot major confluences between the two media, in particular Schnabel’s overall use of a subjective, phenomenological method. Crucially, this aesthetic approach is shown to be in the service of an existential as opposed to epicurean aim, as it is most overtly expressed in his use of the objet trouvé and the dedication. The study ends by changing the vector of analysis to trace how Schnabel’s foray into the cinema may have influenced the aesthetic of his paintings, and subsequently how a reproductive medium such as film is able to push the boundaries of painting, not necessarily to announce its death. Ultimately, the goal of this study, beyond the monographic examination of a single artist, is to propose ways in which the medium of film has contributed to an evolving understanding of visual representation. For, unlike the modernist premise, the assumption is that it is precisely through the interaction and absorption of various formats that a medium can change, evolve and expand.

This practice-based thesis presents the results of experimental research devoted to ethnic tourism among the Kayan minority and has involved the interconnection of artistic and anthropological languages. Known worldwide for the traditional female custom of wearing a long coiled brass necklace aimed at causing a considerable extension to the neck, the Kayan are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group originally from Burma. Due to the prolonged civil war in their own homeland, a large number of Kayan recently fled from Burma to refuge in neighbouring Thailand. Here, over the past years, in response to the “incisive” tourism policy promoted by the Thai government in the northern areas of the country, some families, abandoning the refugee camps where they were hosted, have been resettled in several new villages open to tourists, on payment of a modest entrance fee. Here the Kayan, their culture and their daily life, have been transformed into an authentic tourist attraction capable of drawing about 10,000 visitors a year. Founded on a strictly “visual media primitivist” approach and inspired by its peculiar aesthetics – as systematically presented in the first, theoretical, section of the thesis –, the enquiry involves a multimedia perspective. In such a context, analogue photography and filmmaking, creative writing and sound composition have been combined to give concrete shape to an original artwork firmly grounded in ethnographic practice. The choice, far from being a solely arbitrary and subjective option, has indeed been motivated by the critical employment of specific theoretical assumptions of some of the most recent streams of anthropology and epistemology of the human sciences. The multidisciplinary methodology adopted to develop the research, as well as the multifaceted language employed to display its results, represent an innovative and experimental way of approaching the complex theme of cultural identity in present-day Asian contexts, as well as of highlighting the most aesthetic and philosophic implications connected to the revival of analogue vintage media in contemporary artistic practice.

The Longest Journey is an experimental Master essay which consists of 27 images with accompanying texts. Part of the images are digital photographs and part of them are images created through a special process involving different software tools – mainly Adobe Photoshop and Google Earth. The texts comment on how the images themselves were created and how one might understand what they are and how they function as aesthetic objects and as potential catalysts for thought. / <p>The essay was published as part of a Master of Fine Art Degree exhibition with the same title. For an English translation of it and photographic documentation of the exhibition, please contact: markus.bowie@gmail.com</p>

The master thesis is focused on recent inosculation of photography and modern information technologies and also on a daptation of photography to current trends in communication. Special emphasis is set on fine-art photography. Besides delimitation of problem the first part of the text is dedicated to foundation and history of photography where the author refers to dramatic changes that had taken place in the early beginnings. The second part is dealing with contemporary phenomenon - social networks and their moving into the virtual space of the Internet during last decade. The author aims on key aspects of social networks which have a significant influence when in combination with photography. The next part shortly deals with problems of copyright that show up in relation to digital photography. Part of text is devoted analysis of several selected systems specialized in fine-art photography publishing and eventually their selling. The author describes their significant attributes, principles on which they are based and mentions differences among each other. The fundamental part of the document is focused on practical view of interconnection between fine-art photography and digital information technologies whereas the ideas relates to pieces of knowledge gained from several selected and interviewed...

Den här studien undersöker hur webbplatsen kan användas i syfte att förmedla en varumärkesidentitet hos företag inom kultursektorn. Fotografiska, en privat konsthall för samtida fotokonst, belägen i Stockholm, publicerar på sin webbplats texter om varje utställning som konsthallen arrangerar. Undersökningen utgår från antagandet att såväl den omgivande kontexten som innehållet i texterna bidrar till att skapa en varumärkesidentitet. Genom en multimodal och narrativ diskursanalys av webbplatsen och utställningstexterna analyserar jag hur denna identitet realiseras i samspelet mellan semiotiska och narrativa resurser och vilken bild den förmedlar av Fotografiska till betraktaren. Resultatet visar, enligt min tolkning, att Fotografiska använder webbplatsen i identitetsskapande syfte genom porträtteringen av fotokonsten och dess centrala aktörer som bärare av ett antal socioestetiska kärnvärden; minimalism, intellektualitet, exklusivitet, tradition och kunnighet. / This study examines how websites can be used for corporate branding purposes of institutions in the cultural field. It is based on my analytical findings on the website of Fotografiska, a gallery for contemporary fine art photography in central Stockholm. The thesis is based on the claim that both the surrounding context and the content of the exhibition texts plays a crucial role in the creation of a corporate brand for art galleries. Therefore my intention here is to show how Fotografiska all together use semiotic and narrative resources on their website in order to brand themselves. Supported by the findings from my sociosemiotic discourse analysis I argue that the extensive portraying of fine art photography and its key figures, maintains a few artistic core values that are characteristic for the branding of Fotografiska. Those are minimalism, intellectuality, exclusiveness, tradition and expertise.