John Tagg.
Photography — Analysis.
“Photographs are used as documents, evidence, and records every day in courtrooms, hospitals, and police work, on passports, permits, and licenses. But how did such usages come to be established and accepted, and when? What kinds of photographs were seen as purely instrumental and able to function in this way? […] Drawing on semiotics, on debates in cultural theory, and on the work of Foucault and Althusser, John Tagg rejects the idea of photography as a record of reality and the notion of a documentary tradition, and traces a previously unexamined history that has profound implications not only for the history and theory of photography but also for understanding the role new means and modes of representation were to play in processes of modern social regulation. In response, these essays argue for a rigorous historical and institutional analysis of the meaning, status, and effects of photographs, rooted in a historical grasp of the growth and dispersal of the modern state.”
Paperback, 256 pages — University of Minnesota Press — 2021 — $35.00. Available at University of Minnesota Press.