Size does not matter (until it does); philosophic and psychoanalytic perspectives on a photographic scale

The central argument of this lecture is that questions of scale are less to do with measurement and more with psychology. Generally speaking, the gigantic and the minuscule was the subject of hallucinations and phantasies long before it became a topic of interest in photography studies. Hallucinations and dreams of this kind are often accompanied by feelings of anxiety and fear. Small creatures appear in swarms, enter the body through various orifices in terrifying hordes. Large, enormous monsters threaten to swallow us whole and chase us across infinite planes in our nightmares.