Photography as Data: Augmentation, Extraction, Objectification

This exhibition examined the ways in which photography has been read, used, and manipulated as data through objects from the Loeb’s permanent collection. How do these photographs, most of which predate digital technology by decades, relate to data? How are they read as data? How do they reflect upon practices of collecting data? And what do they tell us about how we are captured in and as data? While today we typically associate the relationship between photography and data with servers, digital pixels, and online data mining, this history stretches back to photography’s earliest inventions. We argue that photography has always served as a technology for the augmentation of reality, allowing the human eye to overcome the limitations of vision, and for the extraction of information about people, places, and cultures that are rendered objects of study and consumption.

This project was co-organized by Jessica D. Brier, curator of photography, and Anna Mayer, visiting assistant professor of German Studies. It was developed with students enrolled in the fall of 2023 Vassar course “Of States and Their Terrorists,” offered by Professor Mayer and cross-listed in the departments of German Studies and Media Studies. Through close looking and object-based research, the students contributed ideas, text, and questions.

The exhibition was presented in two complementary parts: Part 1 in the Hoene Hoy Photography Gallery, a space dedicated to exhibiting photography from the Loeb’s permanent collection, and Part 2 in the downstairs galleries. This exhibition was generously supported by the Hoene Hoy Photography Fund.