The symposium ‘Shadow without Object’ considers emerging photographic technologies against a wider historical context of overlooked and marginalised practices, exploring in particular one of the medium’s long-held and contentious theoretical tenets which describes the physical relationship between a photograph and its subject – the index.

Bringing together new research from across the visual arts, particle physics and conservation studies, the symposium addresses renewed interest in photographic indexicality, reconsidering ideas around materiality, subjectivity and realism in light of emerging imaging processes and their historical contexts. Challenging linear histories of photography, the contributions at this event promise to open up photography’s technical and conceptual operations beyond narrow dichotomies of past/future, analogue/digital and light/matter.

Speakers include Peter Geimer, Michael Doser, Daniel Rubinstein, Jananne Al-Ani, Sam Burford, Giacomo Raffaelli, Louisa Minkin, Betty Sacher, Duncan Wooldridge and Bernd Behr.