ABSTRACT
Being largely concerned with the future event of death, philosophy and psychoanalysis excise the prior event of birth from ontological consideration. Analyses of the ontology of the photograph mimic this tendency, situating the photographic medium within a signifying framework of finitude. Psychoanalytic theorist and artist Bracha L. Ettinger argues that pre-cognitive subjectivisation processes commence during the late stages of pregnancy. This chapter places Ettinger’s insights in conversation with the photography of Francesca Woodman to explore a copoietic aesthetics of the pre-birth scene that is offered as a contribution to our understanding of the ontology of the subject and of photography.
