Clay Howard-Smith Essay #1 Geoffrey Batchen, Desiring Production Itself: Notes on the Invention of Photography.

Batchens analysis of where photographys origins lie boils down to the simple question of whether or not we associate it with the process or with the cultural forces that caused its development. He concerns himself with at what moment in history the desire to photograph became a demonstrably widespread" (15) pursuit. In order to address this concern and to ultimately define photographys identity Batchen reexamines photographys origins. Through this examination, Batchen follows two distinctive thought processes. Is the history of photography defined by the chemist and scientist that are responsible for discovering the technological foundations of photography? Or was the history sparked from a necessity for photography, a more conceptual pursuit. While Batchen defines these two categories of thought separately he also indicates their inter-dependence. Batchens research focuses on proto-photographers. This research is conducted through the examination of the ideas of roughly twenty proto-photographers. His conclusion from these examinations reveals a cultural need for photography. He illustrates his research subjects frustrations with the in-ability to rapidly and mechanically capture an image. However, even with photographys emergence, facilitated by individuals like Daguerre and Nipce its identity remained unclear. Batchen clearly believes that origins of photography should be located amongst the proto-photographers as a mixed evolution that did not occur at a singular moment. Batchens final paragraph highlights the danger of following the historical path of photographys origins to closely. He warns that the photographs creation is not merely a singular moment in time, but is instead a general desire for production. Photographys origins are entangled with the technological developments, which cant be ignored. However, it is seemingly more important to examine the modern mechanisms that conceptually fueled photographys development. Photographys development, culturally was a natural evolution. It wasnt an invention that was to far from already existent technologies. The jump necessary to achieve a fixed image was merely putting already existent chemical processes together in order to achieve results. The conceptual concerns that accompanied these decisions is in my opinion a more rich territory. Batchen identifies through the examination of the proto-photographers the shifting

Howard-Smith 2 definitions of nature vs. culture and original vs copy in the context of photography. That is to say did photography record nature or did nature record herself? (26)