The Concept of Non-Photography

Urbanomic/Sequence Press

by François Laruelle, Robin Mackay (Translator)

Myriads of negatives tell of the world, speaking among themselves, constituting a vast conversation, filling a photosphere that is located nowhere. But one single photo is enough to express the real that all photographers aspire one day to capture, without ever quite succeeding in doing so. Nevertheless, this real cohabits intimately with negatives, with clichés as embedded in our lives as they are imperceptible. Photographs are the thousand flat facets of an ungraspable identity that only shines - and sometimes very faintly - through something else. What more is there to a photo than a curious and prurient glance? And yet it is also a fascinating secret.

The Concept of Non-Photography develops a rigorous new thinking of the photograph in its relation to science, philosophy and art, and introduces the reader to all of the key concepts of Laruelle's 'non-philosophy'.

Genres: Philosophy, Art, Photography, Theory, Science

304 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2011

About the author

François Laruelle was a French philosopher, of the Collège international de philosophie and the University of Paris X: Nanterre. Laruelle began publishing in the early 1970s and had around twenty book-length titles to his name. Alumnus of the École normale supérieure, Laruelle was notable for developing a science of philosophy that he calls non-philosophy. Until his death, he directed an international organisation dedicated to furthering the cause of non-philosophy, the Organisation Non-Philosophique Internationale.

Reviews

[Marc]

A good little Laruelle, between Philosophy 4 and the most recent developments. Subject matter is photography. Laruelle endeavors to extract it from its traditional philosophical/phenomenological interprétations, in order to free it from limiting representational conceptions. Non-photography iis therefore not a new way of doing photography or of thinking _about_ photography, but a way to let us think with photography autonomously from its blending with philosophy (such a blend is usually practiced by philosophy itself, for which photography, or any object, is also a way to reproduce philosophy itself, far from its allegedly searched searched identities or criteria of the real.

Interestingly bilingual, this small volume is perhaps not the best introduction to his work - but "Principles of non-philosophy" is currently being translated - and the adaptation of the monstrously complex "Non-standard philosophy" is still a hord job to be done.

[Eduardo Goye]

Horrible prose, filled to the brim with obscure pseudointellectualism trying to conceal a complete lack of interesting ideas. It's just obvious content phrased in complicated ways. Unbearable. It took me months to stomach it, when it should have taken no more than a few days.

[Jeremy Blank]

This book confirms much of what has happened to photography in the shift from film based, to digital photography. There are some sensitive details on the act of deciding to take a photograph, that are extended and dissected. It’s not an easy book but it’s quite rewarding if you are interested in philosophical questions about creativity.

[Derek Fenner]

My head is still spinning. I read three times the first time.

[homoness]

good intro to NP.

[Max Li]

Need to re-read it.