VCC304H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Media Culture, Daguerreotype, Alphonse Bertillon
9 Jan 2017
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1839: camera obscura: device you can see in the distance, produced non-reproducible photographs. The daguerreotype: one exposure/ one shot to take a photo. You need to be trained as a daguerreotypist. How to produce a negative -> fox talbot --> calotype. Reproducing can be done since there is a negative. You can retouch the negative to make it look better. First time an international global event was recorded in images. 1850: robert w. gibbes: hired joseph t. zealy (professional daguerreotypist) to record 1st and 2nd generation slaves. Teamed up with louis agassiz (1907-73) to watch the slaves. Fruits -- shows luxurious lifestyle, wealth and class. 1880s/1890s beginning of all these institutions to record data -- museums. Western cultures started on projects of recording/memory. Curators put up the exhibition with intent. The gaze of the camera was to represent non-western faces to westerners. Divides the image world to non-western/exotic who are being photographed versus westerners who view these photographs.
