Until Proven Otherwise_ The First Photos June 2018

1 Until Proven Otherwise on the Evidence of the First Photos

Inves'ga'on about the first photos, their history and their aesthe'c content. The collec'on of all the first photos it’s an utopical research, an impossible project with an archaeological and encyclopedic approach.

Project

1. Summary

by Aby Warburgh and the way we find images on Internet. “Un1l Proven Otherwise / On the Evidence of the First Photos”, winning

The inves1ga1on of the “first photos”, their history and their

the Paul Hill Exposure FORMAT15 Award in 2015, has been par1al-

aesthe1c content, is a curatorial and utopian research project that

ly showed as urban interven1on in Italy (2015, 2016) and in Poland

began four years ago aiming to provoke a reflexion on the photo-

2016, obtained interest from media (BBC and Italian public TV).

graphic discoveries and “first seen visions” from the origins of photography to present day. Currently, the abundance and the abuse

2. Problem Statement

of photography in our everyday life is undermining the surviving of a single photo, the concept of the “first 1me” is a performing ap-

How much our contemporary society is influenced by photography

proach to photography, to restore the authen1c aura of the first

and how much the photographic technic is influenced by the socie-

1me, as an archaeological discovery, and the epiphany of a photo-

ty? Photography is the daughter of Psyche and Techne, of the hu-

graphic and social archetype. With a methodical research in digital

man necessity to communicate and to create a new device for “im-

and ins1tu1onal archives, interviewing curators, directors of mu-

proving communica1on”. If photography was not used in social eve-

seums, researchers and inventors, I have collected approximately

ryday life, and as primary media, it would be relocated to a speciali-

200 first photos, un1l proven otherwise, and in most cases eviden-

zed lab, as a microscope. This is why during this research I have

ce of their authen1city. Far from expec1ng to re-write the history

created a list of defini1ons of the word photography . As photo

of photography, even with total respect of its official version, the

book and exhibi1on curator working with contemporary photo-

project intends to give a different approach to historical photos,

graphers, teacher of photography to students from 16 to 30 years

with a more contemporary visual language for the photographic

old, por`olio reviewer at interna1onal fes1vals and ex-coordinator

community and accessibility to the general public. The first photos

of the archival and curatorial researcher at Fabrica (Beneaon

are juxtaposed in sequence with a visual methodology influenced

Group), I’ve realized that the general culture of the history of pho2

Started as digital research and developed thanks to the open data archives, I then sought to compare the sources and their authors by expanding my research to books in order to prove their authen1city. Nonetheless, I have also been able to collect new research from academic archives, upda1ng my manuals of the history of photography. Moreover, to acquire proof and to ask for help in re-

tography, specially its origins, is low. The current abundant use of photography shaped a genera1on whose syntax language is based on images, but I feel they don’t interrogate themselves enough about the historical references of the language.

3. Project Purpose Everything started with a simple ques1on that occurred to me doing a research in Google images “Which is the first photo uploaded on the Internet?” I started to chase many First Photos following four tracks: photographic inven1ons, tests of scien1fic and technological discoveries, social and historical landmarks, and first seen visions. I was fascinated and obsessed by the revealing of many unseen photos, and was astonished not only by the aesthe1cs of these images, but I could also imagine how amazing they must have seemed to the people of their 1me, like the first photo of China, the first printed in a newspaper, and the first photo of the Earth seen by a Satellite. Since then I have collected (from 1826 up un1l today) about 200 First Photos, as the first photo taken in Italy, and

gard to certain areas of research, I contacted many inventors s1ll

the first viewed in Italy, the first selfie, the first instant photo, of a birthday party, the first published photo of a concentra1on camp, the first taken and shared with a camera phone, the first of the an1maaer, the first of a snowflake etc…

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alive (the inventor of the web; the inventor of “cut, copy and paste” for the first screenshot; the inventor of Photoshop 1.0 …) and curators and researcher from interna1onal ins1tu1ons: V&A, Na1onal Media Museum, Ins1tute Lumière, La Société Française de la Photographie, The Talbot Museum, The Geay Ins1tute, The George Eastman Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Russian Archive, the Archive of Modern Conflict, The Franklin Ins1tute, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum etc.

Every first photo hides an intriguing story ac1ng like the 1p of an iceberg. The first photo is not a simple archival criteria, but a real obsession and a ques1on that come into the mind of the researcher, the visitor and reader, it’s a research to provoke reflexion on the photographic media and its origins. The concept of the “first 1me” is a performing approach to the origin of photography, intended to render the authen1c aura of the first 1me, when the surviving of a single image is in crisis because of the abundance of produc1on. Every first is a test and has, first and foremost, the epiphanous ability of being unique and of recording a first experience in history; it is a milestone of the cultural revolu1on of our contemporary society. Test images, like those in our family photo albums, lack a “glamour” filter for a more authen1c beauty: they have a rela1onship with their 1me. The chase for the first is an obsession and a pleasure to really see for the first 1me a “phenomenon”, a discovery, and is also aaempt to free them from the heaviness text of the books just for the specialist, bringing public domain photos to a more general public aaen1on, giving new life to old photos with the total respect of the history.

The research submiaed is part of an on going curatorial project

Recently, in July 2015, the so called First Photo Ever Made has been debunked

by Larry Schaaf. some historians suppose it could have been made by Hércules Florence a French Brazilian photographer, others byThomas Wedgwood who, in 1790, wrote that had an image on a paper, the very First Photo Ever Made is sPll to be discovered.

“Un1l Proven Otherwise / On the Evidence of the First Photos” winning the Paul Hill Exposure FORMAT15 Award in 2015 at Format Fes1val. Later the exhibi1on became an Open Air Museum and an Urban Interven1on incorpora1ng large prints of historical photographs into the urban environment, firstly in Bari in 2015, invited

by Planar and than in 2016 by Gazebook Fes1val. With a new installa1on, in November 2016, the project was requested at the Wroclaw Museum to celebrate the European Capital of Culture.

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Correspondences

One of the correspondence with Larry Schaaf, director of the Talbot Museum

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Da: Oggetto: Data: A:

Roy Flukinger fluke@utexas.edu Re: ³Until Proven Otherwise / On the Evidences of The First Photos².

05 febbraio 2015 19:20 Francesca francesca.seravalle@gmail.com

Dear%Ms.%Seravalle%— Thank%you%for%your%recent%e7mail.

Congratula<ons%upon%your%award%and%thank%you%for%your%informa<on%and%imagery%regarding%the%current% status%of%your%“Un<l%Proven%Otherwise”%project.

I%would%suggest%that%you%begin%your%study%of%the%Niépce%heliograph%by%reading%everything%that%Helmut%and% Alison%Gernsheim%have%wriMen%about%it%—%both%in%their%different%edi<ons%of%their%histories%and%in%various,% more%specific%ar<cles%from%its%re7discovery%in%1952%through%to%the%1977%summary%in%the%History(of( Photography(quarterly.%%Although%these%are%somewhat%dated%now%they%will%give%you%the%most%accurate% sense%of%their%interpreta<ons,%ra<onaliza<ons%and%defense%of%Niépce%and%his%pioneering%work.

The%item%you%spoke%of%—%“The%Hunt%for%the%First%Photo”%—%really%should%not%be%called%an%ar<cle%at%all.%%It%is% a%poor%transcrip<on%of%an%audio%excerpt%that%I%gave%too%many%years%ago%about%the%Niépce%heliograph%and%it% really%needs%to%be%removed%from%the%media%pages%of%the%Center’s%website.%%My%most%recent%(and%scholarly% and%more%readable)%publica<on%about%the%item%—%and%really%my%final%statement%about%it%—%would%be%an% essay%en<tled%“Helmut%Gernsheim’s%Great%Obsession”%which%was%published%in%The(Photohistorian:(Journal( of(the(Historical(Group(of(the(Royal(Photographic(Society,%No.%165%(2012/2013).%%It%is%essen<ally%the%text%of% the%paper%I%delivered%at%the%Na<onal%Media%Museum’s%conference%“Niépce%in%Britain”%in%2012.%%I%hope%that% it%will%answer%some%of%your%ques<ons.

As%to%our%ins<tu<on’s%present%and%future%posi<on%on%this%heliograph%let%me%suggest%the%very%recent%essay% by%our%current%department%head,%Dr.%Jessica%McDonald,%which%you%will%find%in%the%new%compila<on,% Photography(and(Its(Origins.%%It%is%an%excellent%statement%about%where%we%consider%the%Gernsheim%and% photo%historical%studies%to%stand%at%this%<me,%and%I%think%it%will%give%you%much%more%to%consider.

As%to%my%single%defini<on%of%the%term%“photography”%—%there%is%not%one.%%Indeed,%there%never%has%been.%% The%field/process/art%form/media/medium%—%or%whatever%classifica<on%you%care%to%give%it%—%has%always% been%and%con<nues%to%be%too%rich%and%diverse.%%Change%and%transi<on%have%always%been%its%true%and%only% constants%—%and%that%is%what%con<nues%to%fascinate%me%about%photography.% As%for%the%terminology%concerning%the%Niépce%heliograph,%the%only%phrase%that%I%have%considered%to%be%at% all%accurate%—%and%even%that%is%not%en<rely%so%—%was%“earliest%known%permanent%photograph%from%nature.”%% That%is%a%mouthful%of%qualifiers,%I%know,%but%it%must%always%be%so%regarding%any%and%all%“firsts”%that%you%will% try%to%consider%across%the%panoply%of%human%history.%%All%the%other%terms%which%the%plate%has%gathered%over% the%decades%—%from%“First%Photo”%to%“Number%One”%—%have%evolved%through%popular%reference,%bad% repor<ng,%sloppy%scholarship,%rapid%colloquializa<ons,%or%just%informal%discussions%—%and%all%of%us%have% been%guilty%of%some%of%these%at%one%<me%or%another.

One of the correspondence with Roy Flukinger, Senior Research Curator of the Harry R a n s o m C e n t e r Once assistant of Gernshaim

Let%me%add%one%other%thing:%%Too%many%years%ago,%when%I%decided%that%other%compe<tors%for%the%<tle%of% “First%Photo”%would%keep%coming%along%con<nually%to%challenge%the%Niépce%heliograph,%I%drew%up%a%list%of% four%criteria%which%I%would%use%to%examine%each%challenger%and,%if%necessary,%“defend”%Gernsheim’s% discovery.%%Although%I%never%felt%the%need%to%publish%them,%these%points%have%always%proven%to%be%very% helpful%in%considera<on%of%other%candidates%over%the%years: % 1.)%It%must%be%an%extant,%physical%object%with%some%s<ll%observable,%original%and%permanent%imagery% upon%or%within%it.%%Any%copy%prints%or%reproduc<ons,%regardless%of%their%vintage,%are%not%acceptable. % 2.)%It%must%have%a%firm,%valid%and%provable%provenance%regarding%its%creator,%its%process,%its%date%of% origin%and%its%history%up%to%the%present%day. % 3.)%The%image%should%be%made%with%a%camera,%as%opposed%to%any%non7op<cal%renderings%such%as%

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OK, if you want the history… Now on the Internet there were already pictures, and sounds, used with other programs. As for the Web, it was created with pictures already inside it, apart from the millions that were already present on the Internet.

This is why nobody, not even Tim, knows which is the first picture, because simply there isn’t one.

The story originated by chinese whispers, probably stemming from an early version of the CerneEes website, where its webmaster, who was one of my students, posted the picture as “the first photo on the web” instead of “the first photo of a band on the web”, probably as a joke, to tease the band. It was a joke, comical, theatrical band, so… anything was allowed!

Well anyway, you have my blessing to “debunk a fake myth”, and if Sir Tim has a minute, he will confirm.

Best, Silvano

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4. Methodology of the work I) To create a list of first photographs, from 1826 un1l now, following 4 tracks:

c) Email / Interview with curators, collectors, dealers, researcher, archivists and inventors from - V&A

a) History of photography (by technic, by genre)

- Harry Ransom Centre Photography Collec1on

b) Tests of scien1fic and technological discoveries

- The Talbot Museum

c) Social and historical landmarks

- Harvard University Directory of Photographs

d) First seen visions / First photos of

- Ins1tute Lumière

II) Researching, collec1ng and cataloguing digital images and informa1on, books, ar1cles, updated essays of “first photos” and their proof of authen1city specially in

- The Geay Ins1tute

a) Ins1tu1ons / Archives and Library - Na1onal Media Museum - Victoria and Albert Museum - Bri1sh Library - Société Française de la Photographie

b) Open source collec1ons - Smithsonian Ins1tu1on Archives - Berkeley University Digital Library - Yale University Online Digital Collec1ons - The George Eastman House - Metropolitan Museum’s Open Access (OASC) - Library of Congress - The Royal Photography Society - Geay Research Ins1tute Open Content Images - George Eastman House: Photography Collec1ons Online - NASA Archive - Museum of Modern Art Archives - Bri1sh Library - Bibliothèque Na1onale de France - Internet Archives - Wellcome Images - Alinari archives - Luminous Lint

- Cern (European Organiza1on for Nuclear Research) - the Russian Archive - the Archive of Modern Conflict - The Franklin Ins1tute - The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum etc.

III) Classifica1on of first photos, comparing the informa1on and upda1ng the list with new “first photos”, in categories and subcategories IV) Giving a new visual order to “the first photos collec1on”, composing a number of atlas of “first photos” by metonymic and iconological rela1ons. In this way history of photography is arranged by a visual order rather than textual and chronological one, a dynamic method of historical inquiry that allow the research to focus on some topics, and fragments and to enter gradually in the history of photography. Images, when juxtaposed and then placed in the atlas, could foster immediate, synop1c insights and strives to make the ineffable process of historical change and recurrence immanent and comprehensible. Reconciling in atlas, the first photos of early photography to the present digital age, I try to animate the viewer’s memory and imagina1on sugges1ng an aware use of the photographic media. The Warburghian atlas, at the base of this “encyclopaedic research by images”, is updated by a most contemporary visual approach influenced by the digital research on Google images.

6. Samples of Atlas with sample of research process and results METAPHORICAL WINDOWS: Tribute to the window with four of the most famous first photos.

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE: Atlas of first photos with the circle, from the cells and cosmography, to the camera’s lens.

THE FAMILIAR TEST: Atlas of test shots of a photographic device documen1ng the inventor’s everyday life THE SCIENTIST NETWORK: Atlas of first photos of leaves and correspondence between interna1onal scien1sts

- Google patent etc.

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HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHIC INVENTIONS - The first photo until proven otherwise - The first colour photo by direct contact - The first photo by a camera - The first daguerreotype - The first photogenic drawing - The first calotype - The first photomontage - The first negative fixed - The first colour hillotype - The first photo using three colours halftone process - The first photo with pixel / digital photo - The first photo by a digital camera - The first ccd camera photo - The first png photo - The first photo in black and white - The first photo with a flash light - The first colour projected photo - The first film colour photo (gum bichromate) - The first autochrome - The first printed colour photo - The first photo printed in RGB - The first slide - The first photocopy - The first instant camera photo - The first photo made in Italy - The first photo arrived in Italy - The first daguerreotype made in Italy - The first mammoth-plate photo - The first 3d photo / The first anaglyph - The first 3d printed photo - The first camera phone photo - The first photo sent by telegraph - The first photo sent by fax - The first 3d digital photo - The first jpeg photo - The first photoshopped photo - The first gif photo - The first 6 bit grayscale - The first underwater photo - The first colour underwater photo - The first hologram - The first photomaton / photobooth PHOTOGRAPHIC GENRE - The first still life photo - The first self-portrait - The first selfie by a teenager - The first hoax photo - The first 360° degree self-portrait photo - The first multiple exposure photo - The first spinning camera photo - The first panoramic photo - The first photo in stereography

- The first photobooming - The first blow up of a photo - The first fashion photo - The first card de visit photo - The first aerial photo (balloon) - The first landscape photo - The first wedding photo - The first family album - The first street photography - The first photo used for advertising - The first photo of a rendering image - The first social documentary photo - The first photocomposition - The first stock photo - The first abstract photo - The first photo of a victim of war - The first staged photo of war - The first pornographic photo - The first foot fetish photo - The first amateur photo by Kodak n.1 - The first commercial photo - The first medical photo - The first forensic photo - The first photo used to find a missing person - The first wanted photo - The first mugshot photo - The first photo used for Identity Card - The first photo of a kidnap - The first photo of an arrest - The first photo of an amputation - The first photo of a photography exhibition in museum - The first photography of an exhibition - The first photo acquired by a museum - The first photo with human presence - The first photo sold at auction - The first time the word photography was written - The first meeting of photography - The first non photo - The first photographic organization - The first photographic printing firm - The first photo in motion - The first rayography - The first photo of a woman with open eyes - The first photo Pulitzer winner - The first World Press Photo winner SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES - The first photo of a security camera - The first photo by a webcam - The first screenshot - The first polygraph photo - The first ultraviolet photo - The first wire photo - The first xerographic image

- The first photo on LP cover - The first photo of an ATM - The first photo of a man with a walkie talkie - The first photo of a man with a mobile phone - The first photo of a television demonstration M E D I C A L D I S C O V E R I E S - The first photo of a neuron - The first photo of an echography - The first photo of an extrasolar planet - The first photo by fluorescent light bulb - The first photo by phosphorescent light - The first autovelox photo - The first photo of an operation with ether for anaesthesia HISTORICAL & SOCIAL LANDMARKS - The first photo of black immigrant in America - The first photo of liberated slaves - The first photo of the Russian revolution - The first photo of a man flying on a airplane - The first photo of a nuclear bomb test - The first photo of an American lynching PUBLICATION - The first photo published of a death person - The first photo published about a concentration camp - The first photo used to proof holocaust - The first photobook - The first photographic interview - The first travel guide with photo - The first photo novel - The first portfolio of photography - The first fac-simile photo published on a newspaper - The first photobook commercially published - The first halftone of a photo - The first colour photo cover of a magazine - The first Photo of an Execution by Electric Chair - The first wildlife photographs published on a magazine - The first photo published on a magazine with pubic hair SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR - The first photo of a smile - The first photo of a birthday’s party - The first photo of people playing chess - The first photo of people drinking beer - The first photo of a chemist - The first photo of opium smoker - The first photo of a football team

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- The first photo flown to the moon to document the human existence - The first photo of a comet - The first photo of the Cygnus Constellation - The first photo of Mars - The first photo of the man in Space - The first photo of a total eclipse

NATURAL EVENTS - The first photo of the clouds - The first photo of a big flood - The first photo of a lightning - The first photo of a pineapple - The first photo of the sea - The first photo of a snowflake - The first photo of a volcanic eruption - The first photograph of a tornado - The first photo of a Bengal’s tiger

- The first photo of a surfer - The first photo of belly dancer - The first photo of a funeral - The first photo of a body builder - The first photo of Siames twist - The first photo of a snowman - The first photo of a band on the web - The first photo of a pic-nic - The first photo of fireworks - The first photo of a solar panel - The first photo used for physiognomic theories - The first photo of a horse riding - The first photo used for a painting - The first photo on Facebook - The first photo on ebay - The first photo on Instagram - The first photo of the kkk FIRST SEEN IN NATURE FIRST PHOTO OF ANTHROPOLOGY - The first photo of Indian aborigine - The first photo of an Australian aborigine - The first photo of a pacific islander ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES - The first archaeological photo - The first photo of the Sphinx - The first photo in catacombs, the first use of flash light - The first photo in Tutankhamen tomb - The first photo showing Troy’s treasures - The first photo of Maya’s treasures - The first photo of Stonehenge - The first photo of a mounted dinosaur skeleton ASTRONOMY - The first astrophoto - The first non photo from the space - The first photo of the Sun - The first photo of the Earth by a Satellite - The first photo of the full Earth - The first portrait of the solar system - The first photo of the far side of the Moon - The first fiction photo of the Moon - The first photo from the Moon - The first photo of the Moon - The first image of a woman transported on the moon - The first photo of the man on the Moon

- The first photo of Niagara falls and of Canada - The first white man crossing Siberia on foot - The first photo of the Himalaya ascent - The first photo made by a Japanese photographer - The first photo of a Japanese delegation in US

SCIENCE / MEDICINE - The first photo of a Hydrogen Atom's Orbital Structure - The first photo used to confirm the Big Bang theory - The first photomicrograph of an ovulation - The first photo of an hermaphrodite - The first thermodynamic photo - The first photo in motion of a kiss - The first photo of a kiss test by thermodynamic image - The first Sound wave-fronts photo - The first infrared photo - The first photo of the dna - The first photo of the antimatter - The first photo by a microscope - The first photomicrograph of crystals

SCIENCE FICTION - The first photo of Nessie - The first photo evidence of Yeti’s existence - The first photo of a mermaid TRAVEL - The first photo of Beijing - The first photo of Cambodia - The first photo of the Chine - The first photo of India - The first photo by K2 peak - The first photo of Jerusalem - The first photo of Paris - The first photo of Pompeii - The first photo of Siam - The first photo of Venice - The first photo of Naples - The first photo of New York

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UnPl Proven Otherwise - EXHIBITION AND TALK STORY • 2018 May – Talk at ACTIVATING THE ARCHIVE Bristol - University of West England, Bristol.

• 2017 August – Talk at Photography Fes1val FotoPub, Slovenia • 2017 February – Talk at Photography Fes1val Bangladesh • 2017 January – Talk at Officine Fotografiche – Milan • 2016 November – 2017 April - Collec1ve exhibi1on “Photography never dies” Wroclaw European City of the Culture • 2016 November - presenta1on at Paris Photos • 2016 September – Fes1val Gazebook talk and exhibi1on • 2016 August – Publica1on on the centrefold of Pagina 99, Na1onal Magazine • 2016 June - IMAGING THE PAST/ COLLECTING THE FUTURE LUCCA, JUNE 22-25, 2016 First Interna1onal LYNX “Center for the Interdisciplinary Analysis of Images” Conference ARCHIVE, PHOTOGRAPHY, CINEMA, MUSEUM • 2016 July – Rencontres d’Arles talk at Cosmos • 2015 September – Publica1on on La Stampa, Na1onal Italian Newspaper • 2015 September - Bari Street interven1on • 2015 March – Online Publica1on on BBC, Telegraph • 2015 March - Award winning First prize Photography Format Fes1val UK 11

ExibiPons

"Photography never dies" commissioned by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in the European Capital of Culture WROCLAW 2016.

PHOTOGRAPHY NEVER DIES THE STORY OF THE MEDIUM The Photography Never Dies exhibi1on itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about the photographic, from the birth of photography to its evolu1ons. The project took the shape of a metaphoric illustra1on of the 177 years of photography history. Neither the exhibi1on nor the book accompanying it is an encyclopedic or historical analysis, but rather a reďŹ&#x201A;ec1on on the role photography plays in our lives. The exhibi1on is divided into eight parts, where we can see the icons of world photography next to contemporary art projects, prints from private archives and pictures from Internet portals.

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Photography is’ stele 200 x 112,5 cm I couldn’t find a unique defini1on able to include the evolu1on of the history of photography from the photogenic drawing to the digital era, passing by the unreproducible daguerreotype to the instant photo, by the inven1on to the aboli1on of the nega1ve, by the metallic support to the ccd, from the permanent image to the disappearing of snapchat, from light to the algorithmic crea1on. My reply is a incomplete list with many suspensions points.

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.

1. The First Photo of The Sun. By Leon Foucault and Louis Fizeau, 1845. Public Domain. EncouraTHE CIRCLE OF LIFE

ged by Fran.ois Arago, Fizeau ini1ally made an improvement on the daguerreotype process. Fizeau subs1tuted the iodine used by Daguerre by bromine, which produced shaper images. His friendship with the physicist and astronomer L.on Foucault, famous for his pendulum, and a fellow enthusiast of daguerreotyping, allowed them to collaborate to produce the first authen1c photograph of the sun on April 2, 1845.

2. The First Photo of the AnPmaaer. An an'-electron (positron) observed in a cloud chamber. By Carl Anderson, 1932. © Lawrence Berkeley / Na'onal Laboratory. Anderson was studying showers of cosmic par1cles in a cloud chamber and saw a track lez by “something posi1vely charged, and with the same mass as an electron.” Azer nearly a year of effort and observa1on, he decided the tracks were actually an1electrons, each produced alongside an electron from the impact of cosmic rays in the cloud chamber. He called the an1electron a “positron,” for its posi1ve charge. For discovering the positron, Anderson shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in physics with Victor Hess.

3. The First FicPon Photo of the Moon. Lunar Copernicus crater by Sir John Herschel, 1842. Courtesy of GeYy Museum Open Content program. Herschel, in addi1on to being one of the fathers of photography was the reference chemical for Talbot, Daguerre and many others, but also botanist, mathema1cian, inventor of cyanotype and un1l a few years ago was considered the inventor of the word “photography” (recently aaributed to the French naturalized in Brazil, H.rcules Florence) who invented the term “nega1ve,” “posi1ve” and the photographic fixing and also astronomer, which ran in the family, for his father invented the largest telescope of his 1me, discovered the Uranus and various satellites. This image is a fake, a joke, a fic1on: it shows the Copernicus crater on the moon with an accuracy that no photography in 1842 could have achieved with the telescopes of the 1me, even that of his father’s. It is indeed a calotype run on a paper mach. model, as is 14

declared by the Geay Museum. While the joke of Herschel, which

saic fragments for crea1ng images, Russel Kirsch (the inventor of

preceded the history of doub`ul photographs about the moon, is

the pixel) proposed the concept of using variable shaped pixels. By

fascina1ng, on the other hand it may have been a tribute to the

using variable shaped pixel blocks, an image can be represented

astronomical discoveries of his family, recrea1ng for the first 1me

more accuratelythan by squares.

face Moon as it has be seen by his father’s telescope.

9. The First Digital Photo of an Exoplanet (Extrasolar Planet) Infra4. The First Photo of Dna. Photograph 51. By Raymond Gosling

red image of the brown dwarf 2M1207 (bluish) and companion pla-

1952. Public Domain. Photograph 51 is the nickname given to an X-

net - the first exoplanet - 2M1207b (reddish), taken by VLT. Cour-

ray diffrac1on image of DNA taken by Raymond Gosling in May

tesy of European Southern Observatory (ESO) / José Francisco. The

1952, working as a PhD student under the supervision of Rosalind

Photo with the biggest subject (panorama) ever taken.

Franklin at King’s College London. It was cri1cal evidence in iden1fying the structure of DNA showing x-ray diffrac1on paaern of DNA determined the helical nature of the double helix strands.

5. The First Photo of Trinity, the first Nuclear Bomb Test. 16 mi liseconds a^er detona'on. Mexico - July 16, 1945. Courtesy of Library of Congress. Trinity was the code name (inspired by the poetry of John Donne) of the first detona1on of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 am on July 16, 194. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of New Mexico.

6. First Photo of a Total Eclipse. By Berkowski, on July 28, 1851.

Public Domain. The first correctly exposed photograph of the solar

10. The First Photo of Earth From the Moon. Taken on August 23,

corona was made during the total phase of the solar eclipse of 28

1966. (NASA) On Aug. 23, 1966, the world received its first view of

July 1851, at the Royal Observatory in K.nigsberg, Prussia (now Kali-

Earth taken by a spacecra^ from the vicinity of the Moon. The pho-

ningrad, Russia) by by a local daguerreotypist named Berkowski. A

to was transmiaed to Earth by the Lunar Orbiter I and received at

small 6 cm refrac1ng telescope was aaached to the 15.8 cm Fraun-

the NASA tracking sta1on at Robledo De Chavela near Madrid,

hofer heliometer, and Berkowski took an 84-second exposure

Spain. The image was taken during the spacecraz’s 16th orbit.

shortly azer the beginning of totality. Earlier aaempts at photographing eclipses are also documented. The very first photograph

11. The First Photo by Phosphorescent Light. Nikola Tesla, the in-

was a daguerreotype made by G.A. Majocchi of Milan of the eclip-

ventor, with his phosphorescent bulb, January 1894. Public Domain.

se of 8 July 1842; it has not survived.

The photo could have been taken by the writer Mark Twain, who assisted at the experiment. Fizeen-feet-long Ligh1ng-like flashes of

7. The First Photo of a Hydrogen Atom’s Orbital Structure. The

light were an every-day occurrence at Tesla’s, and his tubes of elec-

macro photo ever taken. Photo made by quantum microscope.24

tric light were used to take photographs of his numerous friends,

May 2013. Courtesy of American Physical Society / Alan Stonebra-

as souvenir of their visits. The 1me of exposure was eight minutes.

ker (photographer) and Aneta Sylwia Stodolna (researcher). In this way we are able to determine the posi1ons of the electrons of an atom, and with that, the proper1es of the atom. This image shows for the first 1me to know what you thought about the wave func1on of the hydrogen atoms, is the most direct and convincing proof of the principle of the wave func1on of an atom.

8a. The First Photomicrograph of Three Crystals. Study of polarized light, Calotype nega've, by Henry Fox Talbot 1840. Public Domain. William Henry Fox Talbot’s experiments with photomicrography were among the earliest.

8b. Detail of an Ancient Mosaic. Stars on the ceiling mosaic “Garden of Eden”, fi^h century, the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Byzan'ne Art in Ravenna, Italy. Inspired by an ancient idea of using mo-

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T H E F A M I L Y T E S T A test shot of a photographic device focuses generally on something that the inventor has an in1mate rela1onship with. It demonstrates a documenta1on of everyday life: the subjects consist of wives, children and the interior or views from their house or studio, if it even wasn’t themselves or their hand. They have an authen1c rela1onship with their 1me, as our photos in a family album do – without any “glamour” filter.

1. The First Phone Camera Photo. Sophie, daughter of Philippe Kahn, the inventor. Santa Cruz on June 1997 at SuYer Maternity Clinic. Courtesy of Philippe Kahn. Inventor Philippe Kahn had been working on the technology components for an “instant visual communicator.” When his wife Sonia went into labor, Philippe had the idea to share wirelessly the picture of his newborn with his family and friends. He wired together his digital camera, his cellphone, and laptop using the speaker cable found in his car and ran the sozware he had developed. He entered the room right before his baby daughter was born.

2. The First Digital Photo. Or even the first pixelated image. Scanned picture of Russell Kirsch’s son Walden, 1957. Courtesy of Na'onal Ins'tute of Standards and Technology Digital Collec'ons, Gaithersburg, MD 20899. Kirsch, the inventor of the pixel, working on the first computer picture, used two successive binary scans of size 176 x 176 pixels. The first scan made on the SEAC scanner was a picture of his baby son.

3. The First Instant Photo (Polaroid). Test photo of Edwin Herbert Land, inventor, on March 13th 1944. Land conceived the idea of an instant camera on a vaca1on in New Mexico late in 1943 in response to Jennifer, his 3-year-old daughter’s bewilderment at why a camera could not instantly produce pictures.

4. The First Photo LEFT on the Moon to document human existence. The Duke’s Family. The astronaut Charlie Duke lez a copy of his family’s portrait on the Moon during the Apollo 16 Mission, in April 1972. The photograph was taken by Ludy Benjamin, NASA photographer. At that moment the image, if s1ll on the Moon, should be totally white for overexposure effect.

5. The First Self-Portrait. Robert Cornelius, October 1839. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Cornelius took what is today heralded as the first “selfie,” the world’s first photographic self-portrait, posing between 3 and 15 minutes. He took the portrait in the yard behind his family’s lamp and chandelier store, peering uncertainly into the camera. Inscribed on paper backing: “The first light picture ever taken. 1839.” Cornelius was not happy with that daguerreotype as he was not in the centre of the picture. This self-portrait is maybe the first known photographic portrait of a human in America.

6.The First Digital Photo taken with the first CCD camera. Dr Margaret TompseY (wife) by Michael TompseY 1972, the inventor. CCC1.

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T H E B O T A N I C A L R E P U B L I C In the early photography many test images were made by direct contact of freshor dried plants put on light-sensi1ve paper and exposed to sunlight. Many First Photos where taken by professional and a m a te u r b o ta n i st s , a st ro n o m e rs , chemists, physicians, such as Talbot, Herschel, Drawper, Anna Atkins, Hércules Florence, Tassinari. Their network was strong and interna1onal enough to include even Darwin.

1. The first photo taken in italy. Photogenic drawing of a leaf by Sebas'ano Tassinari, from the Bertoloni – Talbot Album, Jun 1839. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art – OASC. The first-ever photographic acquisi1on of the Metropolitan Museum was made by aaempts and failures. Talbot wanted to spread his inven1on and collaborate with Bertoloni (the best expert in botany in Europe), who was then in the middle of his forty- -year-long work of cataloguing plants - Plant Italicae. Bertoloni, helped by Tassinari, failed in his first photo aaempt in 1839, and con1nued to catalogue the herbarium without photographs. Their correspondence contains the first photos seen in Italy.

2. The first photomontage. Face of Christ superimposed on an oak leaf by Johann Carl Enslen, 1839. Public Domain. Johann Carl Enslen (1759-1848) was a German painter who, at 80, through the knowledge of Talbot and probably, Wedgwood (the alleged inventor of the first photograph ever), approached photography experimen1ng with new photographic processes on paper and inven1ng photomontage. In 1839 he sent to Talbot the first photomontage depic1ng a design of the face of Christ onto a contact photograph of an oak leaf. This combina1on of design and photography is one of the first steps for the deliberately manipulated image, forerunner of Photoshop, in which the representa1on of nature and the projec1on of an image drawn by hand are juxtaposed, crea1ng a photograph deliberately ar1s1c as early as in 1839.

3. The first photobook. Page from Photographs of Bri'sh Algae: Cyanotype Impressions by Anna Atkins, 1843. Courtesy of the New York Public Library. Only 17 copies of this book are known to exist nowadays. The photographs in the book aren’t standard photos captured with a camera, but rather cyanotypes. Atkins placed the algae specimens directly onto photographic paper and then exposed the paper to light, crea1ng silhoueae photos of the algae once the paper was developed. She learned the cyanotype process directly from its inventor, Herschel.

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Strip of The First Photo of an Anatomic Study of a Kiss.

Animal Locomo'on, Plate 444. By Edward Muybridge 1872-85.Public Domain.

Muybridge was an English photographer important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of mo1on, and early work in mo1on-picture projec1on. Thanks to his anatomical research we discovered how horses gallop and birds fly. Muybridge applied the same scien1fic approach, he was using for the study of the animal loca1on to the human anatomy, as is the original name of the plate “animal loca1on plate 444”. He asked two ladies models to act as allowed by the Victorian censorship of that 1me, sta1ng that one couldn’t film naked men in the same frame as women.

The picture taken 150 years ago has been torn up twice last year during my exhibi1on in the street of Bari. Last year, during Gazebook Fes1val, the compromising photo printed on pvc and installed in a beach had been reported to the police for obscenity. If the first 1me the picture was disturbing for a potencial lesbian subject, the second 1me it has been disturbed for nudity, the year when burkini appeared in european beach. Just a week later the magazine Internazionale used the same image to promote an exhibi1on opened since May in Milan about Muybridge, the picture was not included in the press kit.

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THE FIRST FOOT FETISH PHOTO The Countess de Cas'glione by Pierre-Louis Pierson, early 1860s.

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art – OASC. Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Cas1glione (1837 – 1899), noble Italian, achieved notoriety as a mistress of Emperor Napoleon III of France.

The Countess was known for her beauty and her flamboyant entrances in elaborate dress at the imperial court. In 1856 she began sit1ng for Mayer and Pierson, photographers favoured by the imperial court. Over the next four decades she directed Pierre-Louis Pierson to help her create 700 different photographs in which she re-created the signature moments of her life for the camera. She spent a large part of her personal fortune and even went into debt to execute this project. A number of photographs depict her in poses risqu. for the era — notably, images that expose her bare legs and feet. As the countess grew older and less beau1ful, she began showing body parts disconnected from the body. She had her legs photographed, swinging free. She had her feet photographed and then she had them cast in terra coaa. By this 1me, she knew she was falling apart.

She sub1tled one indelicate photograph of her foot “Amputa1on of the Gruyere.” In the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collec1on there are 433 of her photographs.

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1. The First Photo with Human Presence. Boulevard du Temple by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, 1838. Public Domain. The earliest reliably dated photograph of people, taken by Daguerre one spring M E T A P H O R I C A L W I N D O W S morning, at 8 a.m, in 1838, from the window of his studio. Though it shows a busy road, a long exposuFour of the most famous first photos depict a re 1me (about ten or twelve minutes) meant that moving traffic cannot be seen; however, a bootblack window, which somePmes could be a technical and his customer at boaom lez remained s1ll long enough to be dis1nctly visible. The building signage soluPon to increase the quanPty of light at the upper lez shows that the image is horizontally (lez-right) reversed, as were most daguerreotynecessary to improve an image. The window, pes. Daguerre presented this daguerreotype together with two others: a s1ll-life and a view from the anyway, is a common, if complex, metaphor. An same window labelled “noon” to King Ludwig I of Bavaria (The Munich Triptych) in order to publicise interior of a room with a window brings to mind his inven1on. An American photohistorian Beaumont Newhall contributed to their rediscovery and a camera with a lens, and the exterior of the made the view famous all over the world. He commissioned a very high-quality photograph of for an room – the reality. Where Niépce and Daguerre exhibi1on at the MoMa and published them for the first 1me in 1949. Daguerre’s pictures survived the both took pictures from their windows, Talbot makes an image of his “philosophical window” bombings of Munich in 1940 but were destroyed by cleaning in 1974, now they are preserved in reproas he wrote in one of his notebooks. So, for duc1on.

Talbot, a picture of the inside of a window is the first photograph one should aaempt, the starPng point of one’s photography, the starPng of any photography.

2. The First Fixed NegaPve. The lamced window at Lacock Abbey, by William Henry Fox Talbot, 20-24 August 1835. Public Domain. Talbot noted that “the lights and shadows are reversed, but if the picture so obtained is first preserved so as to bear sunshine, it may be azerwards itself employed as an object to be copied; and by means of this second process the lights and shadows are brought back to their original disposi1on. I propose to employ this for the purpose more par1cularly of mul1plying at small expense copies of such rare or unique engravings as it would not be worth while to re-engrave, from the limited demand for them.” This was the ‘double method’ outlined in his draz above. The ability to make mul1ple repeatable prints from the as yet unnamed nega1ve would define the central path of analogue photography right down to the present.

3. The First Daguerreotype. The ar'st’s studio, window, by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, 1837. Public Domain. The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839- 1860) in the history of photography. Named azer the inventor, Louis Jacques Mand. Daguerre, each daguerreotype is a unique image on a silvered copper plate. The daguerreotype is accurate, detailed and sharp. It has a mirror-like surface and is very fragile. Daguerreotypes spread rapidly around the world azer their presenta1on to the public in Paris in 1839.

4. The First Photograph Taken with a Camera. View of the Window at Le Gras by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce 1826. Public Domain. Commonly considered the first photo ever made, it has been produced using a pewter plate in a camera obscura, azer eight-hour exposure from a roof window. There are many studies about that photo, especially about its re-discovery by Helmut and Alison Gernsheim in 1952. The image we normally know is far from the original on bitumen of Judea. Helmut Gernsheim draw the latent image on a paper to make it visible and then, on a reproduc1on made in gela1ne silver print, in collabora1on with Kodak Laboratory, he spent two days pain1ng in watercolor small dots, poin1llism style, to enforce the image. Some1mes a copy becomes more known than the original.

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The First Photosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; projecPon, a video made by 200 ďŹ rst photos edited with an iconographic sequence where the history of contemporary humanity is the focus.

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THE FIRST JPEG. Scanned image of Lena Soderberg – Miss November 1972, Playboy’s centrefold. Confirmed.

THE FIRST 6 BIT GRAYSCALE Fax scanned of Teddi Smith – Miss July 1960, Playboy's centrefold. To be confirmed.

THE FIRST IMAGE OF A WOMAN LEFT ON THE MOON During Apollo 12 mission. From Playboy’s calendar 1969. Confirmed.

THE FIRST PHOTO SHOWING TROY’S TREASURE, 1874 Sophia Schliemann wearing the "Jewels of Helen" discovered with her husband, Heinrich Schliemann, in Hisarlik. To be confirmed.

THE FIRST PHOTOSHOPPED PHOTO Correspondence with the creator of Photoshop 1.0

E R O S T A B L E Love, sex and specially pornography are important motors for the progress of technology. Many women have been test images for many inven1on, some1mes wife, girlfriend, children and even playboys inspired the mind of the inventor. Texts from my correspondences to interna1onal archives and inventors

THE FIRST BAND ON THE WEB Correspondence with the creator of Web.Wrongly considered the First Photo uploaded on the Internet. It’s the first non scien1fic photo uploaded, or beaer the first photo of a band on the Web. THE FIRST KISS PHOTO ON RECORD To be confirmed. N.E.A. Archives 1923. + photo of the process.

IMAGE FIRST KISS TEST BY THERMODYNAMIC IMAGE To be confirmed.

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T H Á N A T O S T A B L E

THE FIRST PHOTO OF AN OPERATION WITH ANESTHESIA Reenactment of the first demonstra1on of ether anesthesia at Massachuseas General Hospital, 1846 © Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachuseas

Table with mix materials (books, photos, photocopies, texts) Many First Photos have a dark beauty, the first aaempts ozen were almost totally back, many people portraited seem died because of the long 1me of exposure, at the same 1me medicine was improving and using for the first 1me anesthesia.

THE FIRST HOAX PHOTO When the inven1on of Photography was officially announced in 1839 by Daguerre many person were already working on the same inven1on. In 1840 Hippolyte Bayard, who did a photo exhibi1on in Paris before the announcing, used for the first 1me the photographic medium to announce a fake informa1on: his death.

AnastaPc reprint of the first book about the invenPon of the Daguerreotype process.

THE FIRST ATTEMPT OF PHOTO BY BAYARD THE FIRST PHOTO OF AN EXECUTION BY ELECTRIC CHAIR Ruth Snyder, by Tom Howard, 1928 One of the correspondence about the research of the First Photo evidence of a Concentra1on Camp.

FIRST PHOTOCOMPOSITION “Fading Away” was made joining mul1ple nega1ves or prints to form a single image; by Henry Peach Robinson, 1858. Confirmed.

THE FIRST EXTENSIVE DOCUMENTATION OF AN INTERNATIONAL WAR The Crimean War, The Valley of the Shadow of Death, by Roger Fenton, 1855. Blood and dead person were not allowed to been showed. The official version has staged cannonballs to make the image more drama1c. Confirmed.

THE FIRST PHOTO OF A VOLCANIC ERUPTION Vesuvius, by Giorgio Sommer 3.00 pm of the 26 of April 1872. Sommer was in Pompeii documen1ng the archaeological site. Confirmed.

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THE FIRST NON PHOTOS Many first photos are missing, many historical moments haven’t been photographed even when it was technologically possible. We always saw these images documenPng the facts, while no one of them where really proving anything. Texts from my correspondences to internaPonal archives.

- Yuri Gagarin didn’t shoot anything from the space - Winter Palace assoult is a s1ll from October

THE FIRST COLOUR PHOTOS’S THEORY

TESTING COLOURS Since its origins, the colour test had nature, landscape, fruits as subjects

THE FIRST PRINTED COLOUR PHOTO By Louis Ducos du Hauron, 1872 THE FIRST COLOUR (PROJECTED) PHOTO “The Tartan ribbon” by James Clerk Maxwell, 1861 THE FIRST COLOUR HALFTONE THE FIRST COLOUR PHOTO BY DIRECT CONTACT By Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron 1870 THE FIRST FILM COLOUR PHOTO (GUM BICHROMATE) By Heinrich Kuehn, 1897

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RESEARCHING EVIDENCES: CORRESPONDENCES WITH THE INVENTORS

The First Photoshopped Photo.

“Jennifer in the Paradise.1f” by John Knoll 1987. Confirmed. Proof: correspondences with the inventor of Photoshop 1.0. John Knoll.

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Shoots of the URBAN INTERVENTION In Bari’s, commissioned by Planar, September 2015.

The street is a context in mo1on where all the contemporary debates merge. When a work enters a museum, it loses its “scuff marks” of contemporaneity. It arrives in an atemporal seal. Besides, in Italy, the street is s1ll unmistakably a mee1ng place and a place of exchange, reflec1ng the contrasts of today’s society. The photo wouldn’t have had the same effect in a museum. The street is a sensi1ve, living and fer1le environment that give a new possibility to an archival image to have a second life. I proposed shutters that could interact with the urban paaern of Bari. I envisioned the exhibi1on as an adjustment to the streets of Bari by means of a proper Urban Interven1on and by crea1ng i1neraries of an open-air museum. This does not entail the mere enlargement of a photo glued at the side of the street but I tried to create a trompe-l'oeil of con1nuity between photography and architecture, images and city landscapes.

I was interested in crea1ng an opera1on in an area that has directly been affected by gentrifica1on, bringing “the history of photography” to the streets and exhibi1ng it in a lively and well-known neighborhood. With the triptychs and diptychs that anima-

27

te the i1nerary through the streets, I sought to reflect the effect that many images had had on me.

During the opera1on of the pos1ng, the immediate connec1on with people was very compelling: liale old men who explained to me how to beaer apply the glue, a liale girl who gave me flowers, a man who offered me his ladder, storekeepers who asked me to include their shuaers, people who thanked me. It was truly a beau1ful human experience. Also, something I have never seen in my life: a photograph (one of Jesus Christ) has received in ex voto two pain1ngs of Madonna. I had never expected that much interac1on with people on the streets. Furthermore, the poster of Muybridge depic1ng the first kiss photographed in sequence has been torn up twice: the first 1me at the hour of the inaugura1on, for which we had done a pas1ng performance during the tour, and the second 1me the day azer that, probably because it portrays two naked women kissing. Nevertheless, that act of tearing up has been an important social reac1on for me and it has shown me a demonstra1on of how strong that image and the context s1ll is.

The most interes1ng aspect is that with this urban opera1on a photograph “comes back to life” azer 150 years. It is given meaning again because in the streets it acquires a different value. “Thanks” to this public interven1on on it, the poster has become a unique piece with a new contemporary meaning.

The urban interven1on created a domino reac1on: the big posters captured the interest of one of the most important na1onal newspaper, La Stampa. Than another first photo “came back to life” and had his five minutes of celebrity: “The First Selfportrait” or “The first Selfie” has been showed on TV on one of the most popular television broadcast. The urban interven1on has been useful to give a popular divulga1on to an archival image, a photo from the history of photography that otherwise would have been died under the dust of the memory.

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Shoots of the URBAN INTERVENTION In Puntasecca’s beach (Sicily), commissioned by Gazebook Festival September 2016.

I envisioned the exhibi1on as an adjustment to the Puntasecca’s

image of her wife Jennifer when they where at Bora Bora Island,

natural environment by means of a proper Urban Interven1on and

few minutes before asking her hand in marriage.

by crea1ng i1neraries of an open-air museum. This does not entail the mere enlargement of a photo glued at the side of the street but I tried to integrate the image to the space create, a trompel'oeil of con1nuity between photography and nature, images and marine landscapes. I believe that integra1ng an image into space, specially when is an archival image, is an exchanging dialogue with the habitat. With this opera1on the project has obtained a different value because of bringing images of public domain to the general public been materialized.

U r b a n I n s t a l l a 'o n J e n n i f e r a t P u n t a s e c c a .

The First Photoshopped photo "Jennifer in the Paradise.1f" by John Knoll 1987. From my correspondence with the inventor of Photoshop 1.0, John Knoll, I knew that he used to test his inven1on the

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Urban Installation The First Underwater Colour Photo. By Longley and Martin, 1926. Until Proven Otherwise. William Harding Longley and Charles Martin took it using a magnesium-powered Xlash in 1926 in the Gulf of Mexico. “Normally, on the web, the Xirst underwater photo is considered the one took by Louis Boutan in 1893, Instead the very Xirst has been taken in 1856 by William Thompson, using a camera mounted on a pole.

Urban Installation The First Photo of the Sun on the Sky. The First Photo of The Sun, by Leon Foucault and Louis Fizeau, 1845. Until Proven Otherwise. Encouraged by Francois Aragot, Fizeau initially made an improvement on the daguerreotype process. Fizeau substituted bromine for the iodine used by Daguerre, which produced shaper images. His friendship with the physicist and astronomer Léon Foucault, famous even for his pendulum, also a fellow enthusiast of daguerreotyping allowed them to collaborate together to produce the Xirst authentic photograph of the sun on April 2, 1845.

“To put the photo of the sun in the sky”

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The First Photo of an anatomic study of a kiss. By Eadweard Muybridge 1872-85. Un1l Proven Otherwise.

As the compromising photo has been torn up twice the year before, during the Bari interven1on I prefered to print on PVC in order to make more difficult another vandalism ac1on. During Gazebook Fes1val, that installa1on with the Muybridge photo, that passed the Victorian censure, had been reported to the police for obscenity. During Victorian age the censure were not allowing in the same s1ll a nude man and woman, while two women or two men where accepted as non pornographic. The word pornography has been included for the first 1me in a dic1onary English dic1onary in 1857. The “inven1on” of the idea of pornography is link to two important facts of that period: The spread of a more affordable cost of images of nudes through photography and the discovery of the ero1c posi1on in Pompeii’s fresco. England's (and the world's) first laws criminalising pornography were enacted with the passage of the Obscene Publica1ons Act of 1857.

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PAUL HILL FORMAT EXPOSURE AWARD - FIRST PRIZE FORMAT15 INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL

As winner of the Format Fes1val I worked on a site specific exhibi1on. The venue was a decaying school, a perfect loca1on to show an old archive of first photos. I printed all the photo in A4 size (the size used by researcher) and I composed and displayed in the room crea1ng some thema1c sequences and some table of research.

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Press release WORDS BY COLIN PANTALL

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Gazebook: a free festival in the sun

For the past two years, a small photobook festival called Gazebook has been charming visitors to the small Sicilian town of Punta Secca. Partly it’s the location: Punta Secca is a beautiful place on the southern coast of the island, the home of Italy’s most famous TV detective, Inspector Montalbano. But what really makes it work is the relaxed atmosphere of a festival which combines talks, workshops, book launches, site-specific exhibitions and portfolio reviews with the warmth of the Mediterranean in early September.

The festival is a model of how energy and enthusiasm can overcome limited budgets to create something very special.

A central principle is the idea that it should be free, presented al fresco with open access to talks, launches and portfolio reviews.

Co-founders Melissa Carnemolla, Teresa Belina and Simone Sapienza secured some local sponsorship and, with a few thousand euros in the bank, the festival was born. Tony Gentile (the Pope’s personal photographer) showed his epic documentation of Sicily’s 1990s mafia wars, and Mark Power talked about his project The Shipping Forecast under Punta Secca’s lighthouse.

Enthusiasm for the first edition from initially sceptical locals led to increased funding and a widening of the second edition, held in September 2016. The navy-owned garden of the town’s lighthouse was made available for less formal talks and book launches. Speakers included Olivia Arthur, Martin Parr, Klaus Pichler and Adam Broomberg, while curator Francesca Seravalle showed Until Proven Otherwise – On the Evidence of First Pictures in site-specific locations around the town.

“The mood of Gazebook completely tears down the barrier between guests and the public.

The festival was created to offer a free exchange of ideas between amateurs, professionals, students and locals,” says Carnemolla. Talks take place at night in an open square, chairs in front of the screen, cushions to the side, booksellers behind. And the fact that nothing is essential, nothing is must-see, nothing is hyped, adds to the relaxed atmosphere. There’s food, there’s drink, there’s the Sicilian breakfast of brioche and granita, and the daytime is left for relaxing on the beach and talking about photography, life and what you are going to have for lunch. It’s a recipe based on pleasure.

And it works.

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Installations from Until Proven Otherwise, curated by Francesca Seravalle, exhibited around Punta Secca.

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Blade Diary by Pietro Firrincieli.

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Martin Parr in conversation in the lighthouse garden.

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Susie Parr on the beach with one of her husband’s towels.

Images © Giulio Bellomia and Colin Pantall.

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The British Journal of Photography Jannuary 2017.

By Colin Pantall

gazebook.it

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1

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Centrefold of Pagina 99 lightbox.

August 2016.

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Follow urbanautica

Urbanautica February 2016.

NDENT R OF Y WITH A OWING

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URBANAUTICA COLLECTIONS FRANCESCA SERAVALLE. FIRST PHOTOS 'Landscape Materials' (Http://Www.Urbanautica.Com/Post/139162616144/Francescaby Edaordo Hahn Seravalle-First-Photos) 2015

BY FRANCESCA ORSI

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Size 20.5 x 26.5 cm 104 pages – Four-colour printing Softcover package Published in English / Italian Edition of 500

H ct.tumblr.com/naturae2014)

ercover)

t)

ebook) (/flickr)(/linkedin) twitter (/twitter)

(http://www.lartiere.com/en/shop/urbanautica2-en/landscape-materials)

The First Photo of the Sun by Leon Foucault and Louis Fizeau, 1845.

'Minor Collisions'

by David Wilson 2015 Size of the book: 21 x 28 cm 64 pages – Four-colour printing Hardcover package Published in English Edition of 500

To be confirmed. © From ‘Until Proven Otherwise’ series by Francesca Seravalle ‘Until Proven Otherwise/ On the Evidence of the First Photos’ is an exhibition of a research that has allowed you to interact with archives, curators and institutions. How did the idea occur to you to do a project on “First Photos”?

Francesca Seravalle (FS): Everything started with a simple question that occurred to me while I was looking up pictures for different researches on Google image: “What was the first photo uploaded on the internet?”. Hence I started my research of First Photos (from 1820 up until today) focusing on 4 trails: photographic inventions, scientific and technological discoveries, historic happenings and first sights of nature. I was excited by the unveiling of a lot of unknown photography that has been ignored by books on the history of photography. Their esthetic amazed me: I imagined what kind of effect they must have had on the people who saw them for the first time. Since then I have found a lot of First Photos. I noticed that research on the internet has its limits and that it is not entirely reliable. I therefore sought to compare the sources and their authors by expanding my research to books in order to prove their authenticity.

(http://www.lartiere.com/en/shop/urbanautica2-en/minor-collisions) 'Feed a Different Imagination' by various artists 2015 Size of the book: 20 x 26 cm 104 pages – Four-colour printing Hardcover package Published in English / Italian Edition of 1.000

Nonetheless, I’ve also been able to identify mistakes in traditional manuals of the history of photography. These are a result of historians basing their research on that of others and thus not being able to personally verify the sources. For example, there is still an inaccurate attribution of the invention of the word photography: it isn’t the Englishman Herschel but Hercules Florence, a Frenchman who was settled in Brazil.

(http://www.lartiere.com/en/shop/urbanautica2-en/feed-a-different-imagination/)

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La Stampa.

October 2015.

Irene Opezzo.

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BBC - UK BBC - Brazil March 2015.

The Telegraph March 2015.

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Talks

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Communication On national TV - Crozza

The Telegraph

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FRANCESCA SERAVALLE Vene1an, award-winning independent curator majored with a first class degree in Cri1c of Contemporary Art, she has studied in both Venice and Paris winning a University fellowship at Magnum Photos Paris’ archives. Over the past ten years she has worked as a producer for both exhibi1ons and books, suppor1ng over sixty photographers including Koudelka and D’Agata. Francesca’s work is linked to the produc1on of a number of projects for Magnum Photos, both in Paris and Milan at Camilla Invernizzi’s studio. Her recent works as a curator, writer and researcher include Shining in absence book (AMC - Kessels); Mother Nature (RVB - Kessels); Dalston Anatomy by Lorenzo Viauri book (SPBH) and shows in Europe (Foam Museum in Amsterdam, CNA Luxembourg, The Photographers’ Gallery in London, in Yossi Milo Gallery in New York and at IMA Gallery Tokyo); Alex & Me by James Pfaff (Montanari), Alex & Me – Coda by James Pfaff (Montanari) 2018. Francesca teaches ar1st development in Milan at Officine Fotografiche; she supports photographers in discovering their own iden1ty and in building the concept and the layout of their book and exhibi1on. Her texts and curatorial works are published interna1onally by RVB, AMC, SPBH, Trolleybooks, Silvana Editrice, Montanari and Wiay Kiwi.

In 2015 with the “Un1l Proven Otherwise / On the Evidence of the First Photos”, exhibited at Format Fes1val, she won the Paul Hill Exposure FORMAT15 Award. The project is a body of “archaeological research” aiming to prove the authen1city of commonly accepted First Photos. The exhibi1on became an Open Air Museum and an Urban Interven1on. Large prints historical photographs were woven into the urban environment, firstly in Bari in 2015, invited by Planar and than at Puntasecca in 2016 for Gazebook Fes1val. In November 2016 the project was exhibited with a new installa1on at the Wroclaw Museum to celebrate the European Capital of Culture. The obsession of the First Time con1nues in her curatorial prac1ce with the project Everything has its First Time where Francesca digs up many archetypes of our contemporary society and transforms archival materials into conceptual art. Her new works include the exhibi1on Quantum Pixel at Brighton Fes1val of Art in 2016, the video Secret Communica1on at London Photo Fair 2016, Venice Film Fes1val 2016, Photo Saint Germain, Paris 2017, Fabrica x Aquagranda at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa Gallery, Venice 2016 the video Ca’ Pesaro’s women commissioned and presented at Ca’ Pesaro, Museum of Modern Art of Venice, 2017. In September 2017 she was invited to do an audio performance for the collec1ve POIUYT at UNSEEN Fes1val. She curated and designed Alex & Me solo show by James Pfaff at the Street Level Photoworks Gallery during the Fes1val Glasgow Interna1onal 2018 and the new book Alex & Me - Coda. She currently lives between London and Venice where she has been leading a group of curators and archival researchers at Fabrica. w w w . f r a n c e s c a s e r a v a l l e . c o m w w w . t h e fi r s t p h o t o s . c o m youtube: everything has its first 1me www.itsfirs1me.tumblr.com

CONTACTS francesca.seravalle@gmail.com mob uk +44 7449 173 112 mob it +39 320 2980 293 skype: francesca.seravalle

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