Photography Without Images: A Proposal to Think About the Medium as Practice, Apparatus, and Form of Social Interaction

Alise Tifentale, “Photography Without Images: A Proposal to Think About the Medium as Practice, Apparatus, and Form of Social Interaction,” in Latvian Photography 2022, edited by Arnis Balčus and Alexey Murashko (Riga: Kultkom, 2022): 152-171.

Download my article as a pdf here.

Abstract:

In this article I propose to think about photography without images, i.e., focusing on the medium as practice, apparatus, and form of social interaction. Based on concepts created by Pierre Bourdieu, Vilém Flusser, and Lev Manovich, among others, this article attempts to depart from the image-centered, art-historical approach to photography that has dominated this field so far. Instead of repeating the romanticized narrative of “great” or “important” images and their “talented” makers, this article proposes to look beyond the images’ surface and examine unpublished or deleted photographs in archives and on social media, the significance of darkroom work and collective or shared authorship, photography on the NFT art marketplace, and the role of AI and automation in photographic production. The article discusses the work of photographers, artists, digital creators, and social media content producers such as Sultan Gustaf Al Ghozali, Caroline Calloway, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Zenta Dzividzinska, Alan Govenar, Ivars Grāvlejs, Lucia Moholy, Emma Agnes Sheffer, Alnis Stakle, Sophie Thun, and others.

Sophie Thun Interprets Zenta Dzividzinska’s Negatives: A Case Study of Exploring and Re-evaluation of a Private Photo Archive

Alise Tifentale, “Sophie Thun Interprets Zenta Dzividzinska’s Negatives: A Case Study of Exploring and Re-evaluation of a Private Photo Archive,” in Mapping Methods and Materials: Photographic Heritage in Cultural and Art-historical Research. Proceedings of the National Library of Latvia 9 (XXIX). (Riga: The National Library of Latvia, 2022): 254-274. Open access.

Download my article as a pdf here.

Download the full volume from the publisher’s website: https://dom.lndb.lv/data/obj/file/33771027.pdf

Abstract of my article “Sophie Thun Interprets Zenta Dzividzinska’s Negatives: A Case Study of Exploring and Re-evaluation of a Private Photo Archive”:

Based on a case study of the private archive and estate of Zenta Dzividzinska (1944-2011), a Latvian artist and photographer active locally and internationally in the 1960s, the article highlights some of the difficulties of preserving forms of cultural heritage that so far have eluded the attention of both the professional art world and official memory institutions. Curator Zane Onckule envisioned a new model of collaboration between the estate of a deceased artist, the practice of a contemporary artist, and the labor of an archivist. The unusual vision resulted in the solo show of Austrian contemporary artist Sophie Thun, “I Don’t Remember a Thing: Entering the Elusive Estate of ZDZ” at the Kim? Contemporary Art Center in Riga, Latvia (July 15 to September 12, 2021). Onckule invited Thun to exhibit her own work as well as to study Dzividzinska’s archive. During the exhibition, Thun discovered Dzividzinska’s negatives and printed new images from them onsite. Thun referred to her practice as interpreting Dzividzinska’s work. Archivist Līga Goldberga opened the boxes where the family had kept Dzividzinska’s archive, described their contents, and helped Thun with the selection of negatives. Departing from the concepts of kinship, collaboration, and affective labor, Onckule, Thun, and Goldberga engaged with Dzividzinska’s archive to create an evolving space for a caring conversation. By physically bringing her archive into the gallery, the exhibition attempted to reverse the history that too often had overlooked and forgotten women photographers’ work. By centering the project around darkroom work, usually the most invisible part of photographer’s labor, the exhibition challenged the cultural status of that labor and encouraged a broader re-evaluation of Dzividzinska’s oeuvre. After the exhibition, part of Dzividzinska’s archive found a permanent home at the Latvian National Library.

Learn more about Zenta Dzividzinska’s life and works here: www.artdays.net

Mapping Methods and Materials: Photographic Heritage in Cultural and Art-historical Research is a peer-reviewed volume that I co-edited with Katrīna Teivāne and which includes articles by Maria Garth, Leila Anne Harris, Elita Ansone, Baiba Tetere, Stella Hermanovska, Aigars Lielbārdis, Kate Švinka, Līga Goldberga, Mārtiņš Mintaurs, Liāna Ivete Beņķe, Šelda Puķīte, Ieva Melgalve and Andra Silapētere. 

The volume grew out of an eponymously titled photography research symposium and summer school that Katrīna and I organized in August 2021 at the National Library of Latvia and Art Academy of Latvia—read more about it here.

What Is the Flag We Rally Around? Trust in Information Sources at the Outset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Latvia

Alise Tifentale, Anda Rožukalne, Vineta Kleinberga, and Ieva Strode. “What Is the Flag We Rally Around? Trust in Information Sources at the Outset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Latvia.” Social Sciences, Volume 11, Issue 3 (March 2022), 123; doi:10.3390/socsci11030123.

Download the open access article from the journal’s website: https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11030123

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This article is one of the deliverables in the research project, Life with COVID-19: Evaluation of overcoming the coronavirus crisis in Latvia and recommendations for societal resilience in the future (VPP-COVID-2020/1-0013) that was implemented from June 2020 to March 2021. The project was led by Alise Tifentale who from December 2019 to March 2021 served a visiting researcher at the Communication Studies department, Riga Stradins University, Riga, Latvia.

The project was carried out by 88 leading scholars from RSU and a consortium of four other Latvian research institutions. The project won EUR 500,000 in a nation-wide competition within the framework of the State Research Program. Read more about the project here: http://www.alisetifentale.net/research-blog-at/rsu-research-completed

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Abstract:

Trust in information sources about COVID-19 may influence the public attitude toward the disease and the imposed restrictions, thus determining the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in a given country. Acknowledging an increase in trust in the government or the so-called rally ‘round the flag’ effect around the world at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study explores possible determinants of this effect in Latvia, looking at such variables as the perceived disease risk, gender, age, education, income, and language spoken in the family. Presuming that risk perception may be amplified by trust in various information sources, we investigate a spill-over of the rally ‘round the flag’ effect on healthcare professionals, media, and interpersonal networks. Studying data from a nationally representative sociological survey conducted in September 2020, we confirm a positive relationship between trust in all information sources, except friends, relatives, and colleagues, and perceived disease risk. Correlations are also strong regarding trust in almost all information sources and the measured socio-demographic variables, except gender. Interpersonal trust seems to be relatively stable, and in most cases the correlations are statistically insignificant. With this study we suggest that increase in trust in government institutions as well as other information sources, even in crisis situations, does not depend on any single element, but instead presents a more complex phenomenon.

New View on Latvian Soviet-Era Press Photography

Alise Tifentale, “Jauns skats uz Latvijas padomju laika preses fotogrāfiju” [New View on Latvian Soviet-Era Press Photography], FK Magazine, January 24, 2022.

Read the article now:

—> download a PDF here

—> or read it online on FK Magazine website: https://fotokvartals.lv/2022/01/24/jauns-skats-uz-latvijas-padomju-laika-preses-fotografiju/

The books I reviewed:

1. Dominiks Gedzjuns. 1956-1961, edited by Toms Zariņš and Aleksejs Muraško. Riga: Kultkom, 2021. Selected works by press photographer Dominiks Gedzjuns (1918-1998)

2. Bonifācijs Tiknuss fotografē pirms pusgadsimta [Bonifācijs Tiknuss Takes Photographs Half a Century Ago], edited by Andrejs Tiknuss in collaboration with Ēriks Hānbergs and Voldemārs Hermanis. Riga: Madris, n.d. The story of the life and career of the newspaper Cīņa photojournalist Bonifācijs Tiknuss (1915-1986) as told by his son and former colleagues with a broad selection of his photographs.