ABSTRACT
This chapter begins to trace the dual genealogies of representation as a philosophical concept on the one hand and as a technological process of reproduction on the other. Representational thinking works by establishing analogies and parallels between particular entities and by situating the human subject as the judge of resemblances. Representational thinking is grounded in the Cartesian plane, which attributes to every person an independent existence as a self-contained subject and an individual ego. Heidegger’s analysis of technology makes an important contribution to the way photography can be understood. The ability to be re-produced sets photography apart from other forms of visuality and places it within the realm of repetition as the aesthetic form of the recurrence of the fragment.
