Journal Articles by Karen Cross
Photographies , Feb 5, 2015
A loss of meaning ensues as family photographs come into public circulation and display, and the ... more A loss of meaning ensues as family photographs come into public circulation and display, and the question of how memory endures within this process has become of increasing concern. Retaining photographic materiality, along with original meanings previously associated with images, has been presented as one way of defending against loss. This paper argues that this involves a particular dynamics of object-relating, which is important to consider. What is documented here is how a new cultural treatment of family photographs, within photographic theory and practice, performs a heightened fidelity to the photographic object, which can be challenged on certain grounds. The article takes as its particular focus the artistic adoption of images as “found photography”, where the provenance of the photograph is unknown. Rather than being concerned with defending against the loss of meaning that arises through the public-artistic appropriation of such material, I prefer to see the photograph as a “transitional object” and argue for both a greater recognition of the complexities of the process of appropriation, but also for an unbounded notion of “use”, as a means of releasing the potential of the “found” photograph, as a point of imagining for new realities.
This article reflects on research undertaken on beginners photography courses aimed at the aspiri... more This article reflects on research undertaken on beginners photography courses aimed at the aspiring amateur photographer. Within this particular educational context, a distinct technical-aesthetic approach to photography emerges, which is distinguished from the indiscriminate pointing-and-shooting associated with snapshot and family photography. The how-to manual provides an important framing device here, and through the particular techniques it promotes, domestic space is transformed, decluttered and aestheticised. But while students are keen to adopt such techniques, they continue to retain a familial attachment to photography, which is demonstrated in the way they relate to the images they produce. My argument is that rather than viewing such responses as mundane reflexes, to be ignored or eradicated, that photograph educationalists might understand them as a point from which the amateur might, once again be engaged with ‘a politics of focus’ in photography.
Book Chapters by Karen Cross
Edited collections by Karen Cross
Photographies, Sep 6, 2010
Reviews and other short works by Karen Cross
Double Exposure: Memory and Photography emphasises the importance of photography within the const... more Double Exposure: Memory and Photography emphasises the importance of photography within the construction of national memory, collective identities and historical imagination. The edited collection brings together work from the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology and media studies and includes essays from renowned scholars in the field, including Jeffrey K. Olick, Martin Jay, Richard Chalfen, Elizabeth Edwards and José van Djick, to mention a few. On this basis alone, it is an important text for those wishing to understand the relationship between photography and memory and the various ways that it has been conceptualised by researchers and intellectuals working in different disciplinary fields.
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Conference papers and other talks by Karen Cross
Papers by Karen Cross
Recently published photography training manuals focus attention on the diversifying outlets of so... more Recently published photography training manuals focus attention on the diversifying outlets of social media, ranging from the use of Twitter by the so-called citizen journalists to Instagram by artists and entrepreneurs. This chapter looks at shifting gender dynamics in this context while exploring the trend towards relationality now defining digital labour. The formula of ‘love-work’ compounds the previously neglected concerns of the amateur with professional values and expresses the new terms of social media practice as it promises to mitigate historical losses, especially those relating to the domestic and familial concerns of women, albeit in a potentially melancholic way. This illuminates how the online exchange of images through social networks rearticulates precarious and unstructured forms of labour hitherto associated with women’s work.
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Journal Articles by Karen Cross
Book Chapters by Karen Cross
Edited collections by Karen Cross
Reviews and other short works by Karen Cross
Conference papers and other talks by Karen Cross
Papers by Karen Cross