7-8/10

Dark Rooms: Photography and Invisibility

A two-day symposium, Dark Rooms: Photography and Invisibility, will be held
in McCormick Hall at Princeton University on October 7-8, 2005. The
symposium, organized by Professor Anne McCauley and sponsored by the David
A. Gardner '69 Magic Project and the Department of Art and Archaeology,
focuses on the ways that photography has been used to document and explore
the limits of the visible and the world of the invisible from its invention
through the early twentieth century. Speakers will include Pierre Apraxine,
Carol Armstrong, Marta Braun, Clément Chéroux, Jonathan Crary, Andreas
Fischer, Peter Geimer, Tom Gunning, André Gunthert, Linda Henderson,
Christoph Hoffman, and Alexandra Owen. The symposium coincides with the
exhibition, The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, held at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from September 27-December 31, 2005.

Registration is free, but must be made via the website,
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ArtandArchaeology/DarkRooms.

For further information, contact Professor Anne McCauley,
mccauleyprinceton.edu.

Symposium Program

Friday, October 7, 2005
12:30-1:00 pm Registration

- Welcome and Introduction, Anne McCauley, Princeton University

- Perfecting 'The Perfect Medium': An Introduction to the Exhibition,
Pierre Apraxine, Gilman Paper Collection

- Visual Incapacities in the Early Nineteenth Century, Jonathan Crary,
Columbia University

Coffee Break

- Blow-Up/Break-Down: Microphotography and the 'Optical Unconscious',
Peter Geimer, Institute for Science Studies/ ETH Zurich

- The Invisible of Photographs: Separating Effects, Christophe Hoffman,
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

5:30-6:30 pm Reception, McCormick Hall

Saturday, October 8, 2005
8:30-9:00 am Coffee and late registration

- Specters of Photography: Gustave Le Bon, Science or Glory, André
Gunthert, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

- Invisible and Ubiquitous: The Ether, Photography, and Art in the Early
Twentieth Century, Linda Henderson, University of Texas at Austin

Coffee Break

- Bragaglia, the Occult, and its Invisible, Marta Braun, Ryerson
Polytechnic University, Toronto

- Hands-on Photography: Heat, Sweat, and the Absence of Light, Carol
Armstrong, Princeton University

12:30-2:00 pm Lunch

- Photographs of Fluids around 1900, Clément Chéroux, French Academy in
Rome

- Photography as a Link between Art, Hypnosis and Mediumship:The Work of
Albert von Schrenck-Notzing (1862-1929), Andreas Fischer, Institut für
Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene

Coffee break

- Arthur Conan Doyle and the Case of the Cottingley Fairy Photographs,
Alexandra Owen, Northwestern University

- Fixing the Invisible Images: Discourses of Transparency and Reflection
from Pepper's Ghosts to Cinema Specters, Tom Gunning, University of Chicago

Panel Discussion and Conclusion

6:00-7:00 Reception, McCormick Hall