Albert Londe, l'image multiple

The work of Albert Londe (1858-1917) brings to light for the
first time the relationship between photography and
chronophotography. At the Salpêtrière hospital, where Londe
worked as a photographer, studies carried out on hysteria put
the photographic image into question. In order to overcome the
constraints involved, Londe invented several chronophotographic
machines and a new approach towards the representation of time
and space. Based not on equal intervals but on the notion of
rhythm, his version of chronophotography refuses any
cinematographic transformations and deliberately remains on the
side of photography, that is, the fixed image. Outside its
medical context, an examination of his private research reveals
the development of an autonomous experimentation with the
multiple image. The analysis of movement, which is the initial
objective of chronophotography gives way to more aesthetic
preoccupations. Without actually purporting to be art, the work
of Londe approachess photography in a new way and poses the
question of its own particular place in modernity. (amended
published abstract, well illustrated, French)