PHOTOGRAPHY'S PAST FUTURES
Workshop at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
May 8th, 2013

From its introduction onwards, photography was loaded with hopes and
promises. It would change the work of the astronomer as much as that
of the archaeologist; it would transform art as much as industry. Such
expectations - nourished by the experience of rapid change in the 19th
century - seemed to be the driving force of photography's further
developments and applications. Could the history of photography, then,
be written as a history of expectations?

This one-day workshop at the Getty Research Institute brings together
scholars from the U.S. and from Europe to consider photographyís past
futures. How did beliefs about what it would become shape what it
actually became? Which expectations materialized, and which proved to
be a burden?

PROGRAM

10:00 Coffee

10:15 Introduction: Vanessa Schwartz (USC) and Jan von Brevern (FU
Berlin)

10.45-1pm PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPECTATIONS
Chair: Kate Flint (USC)
- Jennifer Tucker (Wesleyan): The Future of Photography and the
Evolution of Science
- Robin Kelsey (Harvard): Photography's Promise of Self-Representation
- Katja Müller-Helle (FU Berlin): Photography as Time Machine - The
Photodynamic Experiments of Anton Giulio Bragaglia
Discussion

1pm-2pm Lunch

2pm-3:30 THE PROMISE OF COLOR
Chair: Ann-Sophie Lehmann (Utrecht University/Getty Scholar)
- Laura Kalba (Smith College): Chronicling the Color Revolution: Color
Photography in Belle Époque France
- Peter Geimer (FU Berlin): Displays of Emptiness. World War I in
Color
Discussion

3:30-3:45 Coffee

3:45-5:15 Round Table Conclusion & Discussion:
Sally Stein (UC Irvine), Joanne Pillsbury (GRI), Vanessa Schwartz and
Jan von Brevern

Space is limited. Please RSVP by April 25, 2013 to GRIEventsgetty.edu.

The workshop is organized by Jan von Brevern and Vanessa Schwartz.
Sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation, the Getty Research Institute,
the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at
the University of Southern California, and USC's Visual Studies
Research Institute.