Scannography

In my quest to satisfy my insatiable urge to explore alternative photography processes I came across a group of artists focusing on a technique, termed scannography, of using a scanner instead of a camera in order to create images. http://scannography.org/

However, my assumption that this form of art would be considered alternative photography is purely my own. In fact, Christian Staebler, the webmaster of the site and also a scannography artist, asserts that “it’s not photography, but it reproduces the reality with extraordinary precision.” I’m sure most of the artists practicing scannography do not share his philosophy, but it does bring about an interesting question about what is and is not photography. Is photography only photography when a camera is used? When a scanner is used to make art images should it then be considered a camera? This also forces me to ask myself whether the art forms I have been practicing, cyanotype and van dyke printing, should be considered photography? Without the use of a camera does it make the technique closer to that of printmaking?

Questions aside, I find scannography to be an extremely seductive art form. The clarity and detail that is possible with the use of a scanner is amazing, like with the work of Joann Urban and Dale Hoopingarner (two artists found on the website). However, for other scannography artists, like Sian Aldridge and Rebecca Wild, the scanner gives the artist a new medium to create beautiful abstractions. One artist, Thomas McDonnell, I find most intriguing because he took his scanner outside in order to capture images of people and places, thereby directly turning the scanner into his camera. The scanner seems to capture images with a sense of unreality and at the same time a stark reality.

While I was looking on the scannography site there was one artist I did not find, who I initially set out to find, Katrina Jebb. Jebb used industrial scanners, or rather photocopy machines to create images of Tori Amos for her album From the Choirgirl Hotel. The best examples I could find of this particular work was on a Tori Amos website. http://www.hereinmyhead.com/artimp/katerina/index.html Tori had an interesting thought about being photographed, stating that “it’s photocopying your thoughts”. This is something I don’t think many have said about a camera.