2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this pagePhotography and Time Travel; Practice and Ethics.
Edward Bateman
Friday, October 18 - 3:30PM to 4:30PM
Kimball Arts 143
Only twenty years after Eadweard Muybridge completed his experiments in capturing
time, Albert Einstein published his revolutionary theory of special relativity uniting the
previously separate dimensions of space and time into one inseparable property called
spacetime, which privileges the frame of reference of the observer. In relativity, light is a
constant. There is something almost uncanny in how relativity parallels photography's
abstraction of a unified space and time, with light being the constant.
Time has always been a defining aspect of photography. Travel to and documentation of
so called "exotic locations" has been a debated part of photography's history, but there
has been little discussion about the use of photography combined with time travel. The
orthodoxy advocates a take nothing, change nothing approach. Others, often derisively
referred to as looters, advocate what might be more optimistically described as
dumpster-diving historiography as a way to retrieve lost images. Still others take a
more active involvement they define as a branch of rescue archaeology to recover and
save photographs that have been lost to time.
Besides sharing practical information such as camera choice and why no photographs
of dinosaurs are likely to exist, Bateman will present rarely seen images and address
divisive issues that arise from time travel combined with photography. It may come as a
surprise, but history is as malleable as any material that artists use.
speaker
Edward Bateman
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