This essay will discuss the celebration of the principle of automatic photography in 20th-century art, and particularly the use of a special device known as the photo booth. To do this it is useful to briefly allude to two dimensions of 19th-century photographic portrait that can be seen in the uses that contemporary artists have made of photo IDs and the actual photo booth. On the one hand, in fact, photo ID portraits and certain uses of the photo booth contain methods and suggestions of 19th-century applications of photography by state, police,medical, scientific and anthropological bureaucratic agencies. On the other hand, the photo booth opens scenarios for escape and fantasy that intertwine with that of another exceptional photographic advent in the form of the 19th-century carte-de-visite. The first of these is attributable to the fact that, since its original and natural close association to the uses of science, photography was immediately exploited for its recognized ability to mirror reality, documenting human identity, studying ethnic diversity, identifying and classifying psychiatric disorders, eventually facilitating coercion, and the prevention of danger and civil insecurity. To do so, photographic portraits have been used since the second half of the 19th century for psychiatric, criminology and anthropology applications.
F.Muzzarelli (2016). The Photo Booth and the Automatic Photographic Portrait from Criminal and Pschychiatric Certification to Imaginary Escape. Milano : Pearson.
The Photo Booth and the Automatic Photographic Portrait from Criminal and Pschychiatric Certification to Imaginary Escape
MUZZARELLI, FEDERICA
2016
Abstract
This essay will discuss the celebration of the principle of automatic photography in 20th-century art, and particularly the use of a special device known as the photo booth. To do this it is useful to briefly allude to two dimensions of 19th-century photographic portrait that can be seen in the uses that contemporary artists have made of photo IDs and the actual photo booth. On the one hand, in fact, photo ID portraits and certain uses of the photo booth contain methods and suggestions of 19th-century applications of photography by state, police,medical, scientific and anthropological bureaucratic agencies. On the other hand, the photo booth opens scenarios for escape and fantasy that intertwine with that of another exceptional photographic advent in the form of the 19th-century carte-de-visite. The first of these is attributable to the fact that, since its original and natural close association to the uses of science, photography was immediately exploited for its recognized ability to mirror reality, documenting human identity, studying ethnic diversity, identifying and classifying psychiatric disorders, eventually facilitating coercion, and the prevention of danger and civil insecurity. To do so, photographic portraits have been used since the second half of the 19th century for psychiatric, criminology and anthropology applications.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.