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Cover image for book A History of Light

A History of Light

The Idea of Photography
By:Junko Theresa Mikuriya
Publisher:Bloomsbury UK
Print ISBN:9781350084575
eText ISBN:9781474254205
Edition:1
Copyright:2016
Format:Reflowable

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When was photography invented, in 1826 with the first permanent photograph? If we depart from the technologically oriented accounts and consider photography as a philosophical discourse an alternative history appears, one which examines the human impulse to reconstruct the photographic or “the evoking of light”. It's significance throughout the history of ideas is explored via the Platonic Dialogues, Iamblichus' theurgic writings, and Marsilio Ficino's texts.

This alternative history is not a replacement of other narratives of photographic history but rather offers a way of rethinking photography's ontological instability.