Superadded Light: Photographic Transits

Abstract

This doctoral study (comprised of written and studio work) investigates radiance that emanates from the sun and the stars as a form of contemporary photographic knowledge. Specifically, the doctorate questions how the intense glow of natural light, especially the glare of the Australian sun, translates photographically, and whether this quality might be found elsewhere. The doctorate aims to enhance the current field of knowledge by developing new ways of conceptualising how both the depiction and theorisation of excessive radiance might further challenge and expand the medium’s empirical and ontological definitions. And, in turn, it aims to explore and develop new ways of conceptualising how this model mirrors and inflects articulations of subjectivity and experiences of light in relation to place, photography and Australia. Reframing Roland Barthes’ notion of “superadded light”, it explores how photography’s materiality and discursive influence can operate as a form of excessive light. The written thesis employs ficto-critical and discursive writing modes, which run in tandem and sometimes spill and crossover with one another. It interweaves stories and images of light that follow the temporal dynamics of everyday experiences and events, against analogous narratives of photography’s histories and theories. The reflexive structure of the thesis is designed to evoke the qualities of light it seeks, to generate resonant meanings that radiate intensely both in and beyond the ground of an image or where we might stand, at any given moment. The thesis and studio work present new ways of conceptualising how excessive light within photo-based works operates as an affective, and often readymade, indicator of the photographic conditions of a place, particularly in relation to geopolitical symbols and the legacy of photographic economies connected to Australian nationalism.