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The Paranoiac-Critical Method of Reflectance Transformation Imaging

Behr, Bernd (2019) The Paranoiac-Critical Method of Reflectance Transformation Imaging. In: Transactions: Imaging/Art/Science, 26 April 2019, University of Westminster.

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Type of Research: Conference, Symposium or Workshop Item
Creators: Behr, Bernd
Description:

A performative talk examining Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), an open source computational photographic process that is transforming methodologies in archaeology and heritage conservation for its ability to interactively re-light artefacts within a virtual hemisphere of illumination and extrude a digital topography that is hyper-legible in space-time, from its contemporary application in facial recognition via Bertrand Tavernier's 1980 science fiction film La Mort en Direct and a return of the death mask through digital extrusion, ultimately locating a progenitor of the heightened objectivity promised by RTI paradoxically in Surrealist photography and the fugitive facialities of Salvador Dali's Paranoiac-Critical Method.

As emerging imaging technologies such as RTI are seen to open novel ways of extracting latent data from historical artefacts, reassembling objects of study in a new (virtual) light, collateral opportunities provided by these technologies to re-enter archival still and moving image recordings inadvertently recalibrate their spatio-temporal ground and destabilise their indexical reading through an excessive production of new traces and signs. If methodologies can be seen to play a significant role in constructing their objects of study, then emerging computational imaging operations such as RTI have their own subjectivities to disclose: In performing a media archaeology of this digital process, the talk proposes that we not only narrate the subjects of our study but the very tools of investigation themselves.

Official Website: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/events/transactions-imaging-art-science-image-quality-content-and-aesthetics
Keywords/subjects not otherwise listed: Reflectance Transformation Imaging, Paranoiac-Critical Method, Media Archaeology, Salvador Dalí, Pareidolia
Your affiliations with UAL: Colleges > Camberwell College of Arts
Date: 26 April 2019
Related Websites:
Event Location: University of Westminster
Date Deposited: 13 Jun 2019 13:17
Last Modified: 09 Nov 2023 04:47
Item ID: 14330
URI: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/14330

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