The Immaterial Photograph

The de-objectification of the photograph in the digital era of the medium is one of the many issues regarding 'post-photography' although its consequences on the identity and principles of photography are as yet largely obscure and argued upon. Alongside other more structural transformations, objectless photography will have effects on the medium regarding issues such as memory, indexicality, authenticity and monetary value. While apparent that the object continues to survive alongside new immaterial photographs and influences their implementations, whether or not it is possible for object properties to be assimilated into the new system without transfiguring the medium completely remains to be seen. With the help of discourses from scholars such as Geoffrey Batchen, Damian Sutton and W. J. Mitchell, this master's thesis seeks to answer how vital objecthood is to the medium photography by examining, respectively, the connection of memory to the object and the ideological differences between the object and its digital counterpart.