Techniques of the Observer

This excellent essay is adapted from a forthcoming book (MIT
Press) on the formation of the observer in the 19th century, in
which the author discusses the paradigm of the camera obscura at
length, arguing that the camera obscura must be understood as
part of a larger organization of representation, cognition, and
subjectivity in the 17th and 18th centuries, which is
fundamentally discontinuous with a 19th century observer. The
camera obscura and photography, as historical objects, are thus
rather dissimilar. The history of sensory perception and
experimental psychology are examined, centering on Goethe's
'Color Theory' in which 'subjectivity' and 'duration' in regard
to visual phenomena are contrasted to the earlier paradigm of
'the certainty of sense perception'. ""On the one hand there is
a new abstraction and mobility of images, on the other is an
inverse disciplining of the observer in terms of rigidly fixed
relations to image and apparatus, particularly with the
stereoscope, the kaleidoscope, the phenakistiscope, and even the
diorama''.


Citaten:
Crary, J.