ABSTRACT
There are two themes present throughout the whole book. The first is linked to the idea that photography is a hybrid and consequently reflexive, even ‘philosophical’ practice, and for this reason is singularly suited for engaging with the complexities of the present of which it is a product. This hybridity has become more complex since digitalisation. The second theme reflects a conflict at the heart of both the medium and of contemporary culture in general: that between an obsession with the present and the simultaneous flight from it. The still image is fixed and fleeting all at once. The contemporary photograph remains a stable representation, yet endlessly deleted, streamed, rearranged and mixed with other practices. The chapter offers a series of reflections on the meaning of Presence and the Present, on the related questions of the Moment, the Augenblick, temporality, truth and authenticity and on how photography not only engages with these conditions and experiences but embodies them in its essence. It considers the view that photography is one of the means by which the Present and Presence are constructed. It argues that photography has survived—is present—by combining its claim to optical realism with its fiction-making effects and, while remaining committed to its referential power, is producing complex representations that more than ever before demand critical interpretation rather than simple recognition.
