City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2010 Modern Time: Photography and Temporality Kris Belden-Adams The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3950 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] MODERN TIME: PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEMPORALITY by KRIS BELDEN-ADAMS A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, the City University of New York 2010 ii © 2010 KRIS BELDEN-ADAMS All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Art History in satisfaction of the dissertation requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _________________________________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee (Prof. Geoffrey Batchen) _________________________________________________________ Date Executive Officer (Prof. Patricia Mainardi) __________________________________________________________ (Prof. Katherine Manthorne) __________________________________________________________ (Prof. Alison Griffiths) __________________________________________________________ (Prof. Claire Bishop) Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract MODERN TIME: PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEMPORALITY by Kris Belden-Adams Advisor: Professor Geoffrey Batchen This dissertation explores the fluid relationship of photography to time. Many theorists have noted that photography has a distinctive manner of representing temporality. Roland Barthes, for example, wrote that the photograph has a peculiar capacity to represent the past in the present, and thus to imply the passing of time in general.1 As a consequence, Barthes argued, all photographs speak of the inevitability of our own death in the future. Moreover, he linked photography‘s peculiar temporality to its capacity for a certain kind of realism: ―false on the level of perception, true on the level of time.‖2 Barthes‘s analysis poses a challenge to all commentators on photography – what exactly is photography‘s relationship to time, and by extension, to reality? This dissertation addresses that two-part question by analyzing in detail a sample of understudied vernacular photographic practices. Rather than provide a comprehensive, and necessarily incomplete, study of every possible way in which photography can relate to time, this study instead focuses on a number of in-depth 1 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981). 2 Ibid, 115. v analyses of specific photographic practices. These practices represent time in at least three distinct ways: as narrative time, device-altered time, and composite time. My study examines the motivations for photography‘s insistent struggle to reorganize time‘s passage, to freeze or slow it for a moment, or to give form to time‘s fluctuating conditions. I suggest that this struggle is both symptomatic of modernity as a general phenomenon and a manifestation of the photographic medium‘s conditional relationship to reality, a relationship which arguably has been complicated by the use of digital technology. This dissertation examines photography‘s unique capacity to represent the passage of time with a degree of elasticity, simultaneity, and abstraction. The medium‘s ability to represent many levels of temporal experience and indexical slippage, I argue, illustrates photography‘s potential to relate to and reflect the complexities of modern consciousness. This dissertation also exemplifies the need for a new kind of history – one that addresses the multiple identities of ―the photographic‖ rather than simply ―the photograph.‖ This work is a contribution to that project. vi Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the assistance, encouragement and inspiration of others. For challenging and guiding my thinking – and always helping me to push it further – I wish to extend my thanks to my dissertation advisor and mentor Geoffrey Batchen. Many of the doors he has opened in photography discourse have allowed my generation of scholars much more possibility. And I thank him for that, too. I also thank my readers, especially Katherine Manthorne, for offering valuable insights that helped me make this project better. Some other individuals who have generously shared their thoughts and research with me along the way include: Andrew Davidhazy, Jerry O‘Neill, Tania Ruiz Gutierrez, Don Morehouse, Mac McBride, William L. Stefanov and his colleagues in the Image Science and Analysis department of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and my own Graduate Center colleagues, Damon Stanek and Kirsten Jensen. Many thanks go to Cathy Schenck of the Keeneland Library for her assistance with my research on the racing Photo Finish. On a personal note, I am grateful to my parents, Bill and Jane Belden for their help in making the completion of this project possible. And finally, I thank my husband John Adams for his unconditional emotional and intellectual support, his patience, his relentless belief in me, and for his encouragement through the dureé. This dissertation is dedicated to Lily. Her experiences with space and time will surpass mine. vii Table of Contents Chapter One: Picturing ‗Modern Time‘ 1 I. The Multiplicitous Temporal Experience 2 II. Time and Photography: State of the Discourse 9 III. Benjamin: Theorizing Temporal ‗Shock,‘ ‗Trauma‘ and the ‗Aura‘ 16 IV. Roland Barthes: Time as Photographic „Punctum‟ 21 V. Reconsidering ‗Photographic Time‘ 29 VI. Closing Comments 33 Chapter Two: ‗Instantaneity‘ 36 I. Case Study: Death of a Light Bulb – Temporal ‗Otherness‘ 49 II. Complications of the Altered Series 56 III. ‗Fraction-of-a-Second‘ Temporality 58 IV. The Institutionalization of ‗Instantaneity‘ 59 Chapter Three: Narrative Time 69 I. A Case Study: The Leighton Family Portrait 70 II. The Temporal Complexity of „The One I Think I Am‟ and „The One I Want Others to Think I Am‟ 75 III. Observers‘ Reinterpretations of the „Exhibition Self‟ 81 IV. The Leighton Family Portrait in Time/s 101 V. The Fallible Faculty of Human Memory 102 VI. Vernacular History and ‗Objectivity‘ 109 viii Chapter Four: Asynchronous Time 121 I. A Pre-History of the Photo Finish 126 A. Abstraction and the Fraction-of-a-Second- Exposure Image 130 B. Capturing Race Finishes with the Fraction- of-a-Second, Full-Field Photo Finish 140 II. The Strip-Photography Photo Finish 145 A. The Time-and-Space Matrix of the Strip- Photography Photo Finish 148 B. Strip Photography in Technological Context 154 C. Peripheral Photography as a Precedent 163 III. Conclusions 165 Chapter Five: Composite Time 167 I. The Development of Planetary Photography 169 II. Big Blue Marble‘s Re-Generation 183 III. Photographic Precedents to Digital Composite Practices 191 Chapter Six: Concluding Thoughts 212 Selected Bibliography 226 Illustrations 255 ix List of Illustrations, Charts and Diagrams: Fig. 1 – Harold Edgerton, Milk Drop, Coronet, 1936, gelatin silver print, 18 1/8 in. x 14 5/16 in. (46.04 cm. x 36.35 cm.). (The Harold & Esther Edgerton Foundation) The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Fig. 2 – Harold Edgerton, Death of a Light Bulb/.30 Caliber Bullet, 1936, gelatin silver print, 16 7/16 in. x 19 15/16 in. (41.75 cm. x 50.64 cm.). (Harold Edgerton, The Harold & Esther Edgerton Foundation, 2001) Courtesy of Palm Press, Inc. Fig. 3 – Photographer Unknown, Leighton Family, 1899, copy print, 4 ½ in. x 6 ½ in. (11.4 cm. x 16.5 cm). (Photograph provided by Karen (Leighton) Belden, Lenexa, KS). Fig. 4 – Nancy Ellen Leighton Miller, The Gumps‟s Pitcher Tooken (unpublished poem, with notes added by S. B. Leighton), n.d. (Provided by Karen (Leighton) Belden, Lenexa, KS). Fig. 5 – Photographers Unknown/Billie Hazel Leighton Flora, Leighton Family, c. 1980, photocopied photomontage, 4 ½ in. x 6 ½ in. (11.4 cm. x 16.5 cm). (Photograph provided by Karen (Leighton) Belden, Lenexa, KS). Fig. 6 – Raphael Studio, St. Louis, Mo., Untitled Portrait, c. 1915-1916, albumen print on postcard stock, 3 in. x 5 in. (7.6 cm. x 12.7 cm). (Photograph provided by Karen (Leighton) Belden, Lenexa, KS). Fig. 7 – Photographer Unknown, Photo Finish, Triple Dead Heat, Carter Handicap, Aqueduct Race Track, Jamaica, N.Y., June 10, 1944, copy print, 8 in. x 10 in. (20.3 cm x 25.4 cm). Don Morehouse, D&S Photo (Photograph provided by Kris Belden-Adams). Fig. 8 - Unknown Artist / Kris Belden-Adams, How a Photo-Finish/Strip Camera Works, 2005, digital file of variable size. Adapted by Kris Belden-Adams from an undated diagram by Jones Precision Photo Finish. Figs. 9-10 – Eadweard Muybridge, The Horse in Motion: „Sallie Gardner,‟ Owned by Leland Stanford: Running at a 140 Gait over the Palo Alto Track, 19th June, 1878, (full image and detail of eleventh and twelfth photographs), digital image number cph.3a45870, variable size. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (United States Library of Congress). x Fig. 11 – Theodore Géricault, Derby/Racetrack at Epsom, 1821, oil on canvas, 35 83/100 in. × 48 3/100 in. (91cm. × 122 cm.). Public domain (Musée du Louvre, Paris). Fig. 12 – Ernest Marx/J. C. Hemment, Sketches of Photo Finish Photographs, The Spirit of the Times, June 26, 1886, pg. 702. Fig. 13 – J. C. Hemment, Close Finishes at Sheepshead Bay (full image and detail), The Spirit of the Times, July 12, 1890, pp. 1084-1085. Fig. 14 – J. C. Hemment, Salvator-Tenny Match Race, Sheepshead Bay, N.Y., June 25, 1890, 4 ½ in. x 6 ½ in. (11.4 cm. x 16.5 cm.) Hemment Album, Vol. 1. J. C. Hemment (Photo provided by Keeneland Library) Fig. 15 – J. C. Hemment, Fried Chicken Outside the Track, Sheepshead Bay, N.Y., ―Suburban Day,‖ 1896, digital photograph of albumen print, size unknown. J. C. Hemment Album, Image 512. J. C. Hemment (Photo provided by Keeneland Library) Fig. 16 – Robert Capon, Patent Drawings, 1926, Patent No.