Trajectory of a Taxidermic Image: Akeley in the Elephant Skull

As a process distinct from its poured cousin, sprayed concrete involves compressed air shooting cement with various chemical admixtures at a surface. Used in tunnelling for rock surface stabilisation, and above ground for securing slopes and fabricating fake rockeries, its chimeric character ranges from the polished landscapes of skateparks and swimming pools to mimicking cast concrete in structural repair work. The origins of this industrial process lie with taxidermist Carl E. Akeley (1864-1926), who invented it during his pioneering work in the proto-photographic field of natural habitat dioramas at the Chicago Field Museum in 1907. Further cementing André Bazin's notion of photography as embalmment, Akeley also invented a unique 35mm cine camera during his time at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. The presentation explores this intersection between photography, taxidermy and architecture, and its wider implications for thinking around photography's material contingency by proposing sprayed concrete as a form of photographic emulsion.

The symposium 'Shadow without Object' considers emerging photographic technologies against a wider historical context of overlooked and marginalised practices, exploring in particular one of the medium's long-held and contentious theoretical tenets which describes the physical relationship between a photograph and its subject – the index.

Bringing together new research from across the visual arts, particle physics and conservation studies, the symposium addresses renewed interest in photographic indexicality, reconsidering ideas around materiality, subjectivity and realism in light of emerging imaging processes and their historical contexts. Challenging linear histories of photography, the contributions at this event promise to open up photography's technical and conceptual operations beyond narrow dichotomies of past/future, analogue/digital and light/matter.

Speakers include: Peter Geimer, Michael Doser, Daniel Rubinstein, Jananne Al-Ani, Sam Burford, Giacomo Raffaelli, Louisa Minkin, Betty Sacher, Duncan Wooldridge and Bernd Behr.

Presented by the Photography Department, Camberwell College of Arts, in collaboration with CCW Graduate School, University of the Arts London.