As images become infinite and untethered from cameras, Natasha Chuk traces the evolving influence of photography in a world saturated with digital art.
Photo Obscura brings a much-needed reflection on the radical transformations of photography in the digital age, where AI, computational media, and hybrid art practices challenge traditional definitions of the photographic image. Moving beyond nostalgia for analog or the simple embrace of digital, this book positions post-photography as a movement reshaping our visual culture. It is a movement in which images may no longer look like photographs but remain deeply influenced by photographys logic and history.
Through discussions of key artworks and a variety of artists, the book explores themes including AI-generated imagery and the blurred line between representation and perception. Grounded in art history and media studies, Photo Obscura offers a new outlook on photographys evolving role in contemporary art. Particularly suited for students, artists, and scholars of photography, digital arts, and visual culture, this work redefines what it means to see and believe in an era of infinite images.
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction: From Photography to Photographic
On Post-Photography: With, Through, and Because of Photography
A Brief History of AI Images, or the New Composite, Cameraless,
Post-Photographic, Statistical, Vernacular Image
Expressive Realities: Claudia Hart, Maria Mavropoulou, and Diana Velasco
A Robust Flatness: Rosa Menkman, Auriea Harvey, Penelope Umbrico, and
Richard A. Carter
Virtual Landscapes and Hybrid Bodies: Pascal Greco and Snow Yunxue Fu
Performing the Archive: Stephanie Dinkins and Carla Gannis
Photo Objects: Sophie Kahn, Colette Robbins, and Ida Kvetny
Between Resistance and the Expansion of Photography: Lev Manovich
Bibliography
Natasha Chuk, PhD is a New York City-based media theorist, educator, and independent curator whose work is situated at the intersection of art, philosophy, and creative technologies. She is the author of Vanishing Points: Articulations of Death, Fragmentation, and the Unexperienced Experience of Created Objects (Intellect, 2015).
