Negative Images: On Photography, Causation and Absences

Mikael Pettersson (Stockholm University)

We welcome you to the third session of this Autumn Term. Mikael Pettersson is a member of Faculty at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Stockholm. His primary research interest is in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, with a focus on photography. He also works on metaphysics, philosophy of mind (especially imagination and perception), and Schopenhauer's philosophy.

Abstract
'Negative Images: On Photography, Causation and Absences'

Many photographs seem to be images of privations, lacks and absences. Umbo’s The Mystery of the Street, for example, is primarily a photograph of shadows, and if shadows are absences of light, this image is a photograph of absences. In a different way, some photographs of Manhattan’s skyline, taken after 9/11, would seem to be photographs of the absence of the Twin Towers. But the very idea of photographs of absences is paradoxical, or at least puzzling. Photography is commonly held to be an essentially causal medium, and it is unclear how, or even if, absences can be causally efficacious. So can there really be photographs of absences? In this paper, I investigate various ways to unravel the puzzle.