Photography and the ice sheets: a multi-medial investigation into the politics and poetics of photonic interaction.

我的艺术研究以实践为主导，通过摄影的过程和材料表现，研究光子的行为——它们的反射和吸收——与由于冰盖枯竭而导致的海洋反射能力的丧失有关。它的问题是：通过引起人们对这些难以察觉的光子相互作用的关注，我们对当代摄影文化的理解以及对气候变化的紧急概念化的贡献将获得什么？我们最频繁地在与互联网相连的屏幕上看到照片，却没有考虑到视网膜快速接收到的每张图像中嵌入的历史。当我们在手机上看到被阳光照射的物体的图像时，形成该图像的电光只有纳秒的时间，但所描绘的阳光在我们看来是大约4万年前开始的一个过程的结果。从太阳核心的光子形成开始，这个过程结束于光子从太阳表面流出，经过8分钟到达地球。有些光子会被物体反射，有些则会进入照相机的镜头。我认为这个反射过程，从物体进入相机，与接收表面（感光胶片或硅基传感器）碰撞——哲学家亨利·范·利尔（Henri Van Lier, 2018）所描述的“摄影事件”——类似于光子反射和吸收的过程，这一过程每天都会导致我们的生态危机。冰盖的表面就像一面巨大的镜子，将光子反射回太空。当这些镜子破裂和分裂时，更多的光子被地球的陆地和海洋表面吸收，从而升温。美国宇航局表示：“温室气体吸收和发射光子的能力是全球变暖的全部原因。”（地球观测2007）探索这两种基于光的过程之间的联系会有什么收获？海洋反射能力的丧失与个人接收和处理摄影图像的经历有什么关系？根据这些类比，我的目标是通过创造一系列多媒体艺术装置，利用不同的反射材料，光学设备和自然光，参与人为气候变化的元叙事。我研究中的创造性实践元素将以哲学语境分析为基础，特别是与摄影过程有关的新唯物主义哲学（Barad 2008, Bennett 2010）。通过将后者与光子在冰面上的地面反射联系起来，我将扩展传统摄影在气候变化概念化中可以发挥的作用。正如哲学家和物理学家凯伦·巴拉德（Karen Barad）在她的“代理现实主义”理论中所阐述的那样，一张照片捕捉到了反射表面上微弱的闪光，这是一个在量子和哲学层面上与世界不可分割地纠缠在一起的物质过程。在方法上，我的艺术实践旨在展示一种“表现主义的替代方案”（Barad, 2008），特别是传统摄影图像与“真相”关系的假设。因此，我的研究处于“扩展摄影领域”的背景下，通过对其材料和过程的调查，提供了思考媒介的另一种方式。摄影实践和理论在历史上一直处于艺术、科学和技术的交叉领域。我的研究不会将艺术和科学两极分化，而是通过实践主导的探究的混合方法寻求一种综合，并考虑艺术家如何定位以意想不到的，令人惊讶的方式回应特定的科学知识。

My practice-led artistic research investigates the behaviour of photons - their reflection and absorption - in relation to the loss of the sea's reflective power due to the depletion of the ice sheets, through the processes and material manifestations of photography.It asks: What is to be gained by drawing attention to these imperceptible photonic interactions, for both our understanding of contemporary photographic culture and as a contribution to the urgent conceptualisation of climate change?We most frequently encounter photographs on a screen connected to the internet without considering the history embedded in every image that the retina fleetingly receives. When we view an image of a sun-lit subject on our mobile telephone, the electric light that forms that image is only nanoseconds old, but the depicted sunlight appears to us as the result of a process beginning some 40,000 years before. Starting with the formation of photons in the sun's core this process ends with them streaming from the surface of the sun travelling eight minutes to reach earth. Some photons find their way to reflect off an object, some of these then find their way into the lens of a camera.I view this process of reflection, from object into camera to collide with a receptive surface (light-sensitive film or silicon-based sensor) - 'the photographic event', as described by philosopher Henri Van Lier (2018) - as analogous to the process of photon reflection and absorption that contributes to our ecological crisis every day. The surface of ice-sheets function as giant mirrors reflecting photons back to space. As these mirrors crack and break apart, more photons are absorbed by the Earth's land and ocean surfaces, which heat up. NASA has stated: 'The ability of greenhouse gases to absorb and emit photons is what global warming is all about.' (Earth Observatory 2007) What is to be gained from exploring the connections between these two light-based processes? How can the loss of the sea's reflective power relate to an individual's experience of receiving and processing a photographic image? Drawing on these analogies, I aim to engage with the meta-narrative of anthropogenic climate change through the creation of a series of multi-media art installations, utilising diverse reflective materials, optical devices and natural light.The creative-practical element of my research will be underpinned by philosophical-contextual analysis, especially New Materialist philosophy (Barad 2008, Bennett 2010) in relation to photographic processes. In connecting the latter to the terrestrial reflection of photons off-ice, I will expand the role conventional photography can play in the conceptualisation of climate change. A photograph capturing an insubstantial glint of light off a reflective surface is a material process inextricably entangled with the world on a quantum and philosophical level - as set out by philosopher and physicist Karen Barad in her theory of 'agential realism'.Methodologically, my artistic practice aims to demonstrate a 'performative alternative to representationalism' (Barad, 2008), specifically the assumption of the conventional photographic image's relationship to 'truth'. My research is thus situated in context of the 'expanded field of photography' that provides alternative ways of thinking about the medium through investigations of its materials and processes.Photographic practices and theories have historically been located at the intersecting fields of art, science and technology. My research will not polarise art and science but seek a synthesis through the hybrid approach of the practice-led inquiry and consider how an artist is positioned to respond to specific scientific knowledge in unexpected, surprising ways.