End of Module Reflection: CS

Three-minute read

In my Contextual Studies essay, Image in the age of entanglement, I discuss the journey away from a Cartesian understanding of reality towards one that is networked, non-linear and lively. I was influenced by a wide range of writers but focused in particular on Karen Barad, author of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and The Entanglement Of Matter and Meaning (2007). 

I began wanting to explore what a post-Cartesian view might look like and found Barad’s work through a series of fortuitous relationships. Getting to grips with Barad’s ideas was and continues to be challenging. I do not come from a scientific background. I found it all very difficult indeed to research and understand.  However, in doing so, my own view has developed and my way of working too. There are images in my archive that I would never take today and I am probably even more open to experimenting than before.

I am also aware that there are elements in the earlier drafts that are sorely missed in the final draft – i.e. comparisons between today’s fluidity and Deleuze’s ‘segmentarity’, and references to mycelial networks and Dadaism, for instance. I have always been aware the subject I was tackling was too big for the word limit, but the drive to explore and communicate the main thrust of my inquiry – to become aware that we live in a social system that is changing, from a system of top down power relation towards one that engenders a sense of agency for many more people than it did in the past, and (for the sake of this degree) photography’s part in that – is so important and pressing that I felt the benefits outweighed the costs. Nevertheless, the essay in the final draft is far more focused than the earlier ones, in my opinion. Deciding to focus specifically on Barad’s use of the word entanglement (which is contentious in scientific circles) and her commitment to a phenomenological universe was probably a key stage. Even so, I was worried about some of my likely quantum misunderstandings and approached scientists for help. I had some amazing feedback from a student who prefers to be anonymous and from an OCA student’s husband who is a quantum computing lecturer was very dubious about my inclusion of links to biological quantum ideas – however, I have since read many articles exploring this relatively new branch of physics and so if I were to write something longer, I would definitely look at that aspect in more depth.

Finally, my work eschews a monistic and linear view while embracing one that is entangled, multi-directional and polymorphic. It asks what image-making is, was, and is becoming, and although the photograph is definitely a protagonist, it must share the stage with other forms of exteriorisation. In doing so, the collection of expressions and traces on pages and screens are an investigation into the decoding and recoding of reality – and perhaps prompts us to believe we have the wherewithal to make critical and much needed revisions as we (re)discover more about our place within the universe.

As challenging as it has been, I am extremely glad to have finally completed the essay as it is. I could not have done it without help from the following people:

• Thanks to the many proof-readers (OCA and non OCA) and my highly educated friend Mariana for checking the citation style.
• Thanks to the three scientists who read through earlier drafts, Professor Peter Doel – University College London, Professor Alan Woodward – University of Surrey, and a quantum mechanics student who prefers to remain anonymous.
• Thanks to artist Rowan Lear, who is far more knowledgeable about Karen Barad and agential realism than I am, for reading through excerpts I was unsure about and clarifying for me.

Barad, K. M. (2007) Meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.

Rubinstein, D. and Fisher. A. (ed.) (2013) On the verge of photography: imaging beyond representation. [PDF] Birmingham: Article Press. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/25121246/On_the_Verge_of_Photography_Non-representational_Imaging (Accessed 14/06/2020)

Zuboff, S. (2019) The age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. (First edition) New York: PublicAffairs.