A review of the "ontology" of photography

Abstract

This study is the culmination of a speculative attempt to understand and restate the enigma of photography. It aims to supplement the thought of photography with a host of concepts that seem to have escaped the scope of the theoretical critique of photography and photographs. In doing so, it follows the lead of the ‘logic’ of the grapheme and of the event of history to review the position of photography in relation to the language of the logic of being, and investigates whether the time of photography can be held in opposition to ‘real time.’ Consequently, the contexts in which contemporary thought on photography restrict the identity of photography are problematized, and the peculiarities involved in the interaction between photographs and viewers are emphasized in this study.