Abstract:
This thesis provides a new theoretical framework to account for a ‘damp’ aesthetic
trend that has emerged in lens-based landscape art in Aotearoa from the late twentieth
century to the contemporary moment. The aesthetic is as yet under-represented in the
literature, although dominant in lens-based practice. Images of often remote, or
abandoned landscape sites are common in fine arts photography in Aotearoa, which draw
attention to, and provide commentary on the ecological concerns drawing from the impact
of settler colonialism. The damp images are categorised by 1) the choice of site captured:
that is, the landscape might present a body of water, geothermal activity, or meteorological
event; 2) a material dampness, where the moisture of the site manifests physically in the
photographic object; and 3) image surfaces which present an uncanny eeriness whereby
the viewer can locate an unseen agent. It is the material presence of dampness in
combination with photography’s purported veracity that has particular resonance for this
aesthetic.
Taking a primarily material-oriented approach to photographic realism, guided by
foundational film theorists Siegfried Kracauer and André Bazin, this thesis proposes that
the environmental referent of the photograph is an active agent in its portrayal,
manifesting itself materially in the photographic object. Following a causal theory of
manifestation offered by Patrick Maynard and Brigitte Peucker, the thesis advocates for a
new methodology to read the photograph as a vera icon. Kracauer’s four ‘affinities’ in
tandem with Vilém Flusser’s ‘scanning’ assist in driving a close visual analysis of the
analogue photographic practices of two artists, Joyce Campbell and Mark Adams, to
demonstrate how the visual language of the Damp creates a gauze through and on which
the site might express itself. The development of this framework will advance a greater
theoretical focus on the two agents in the photographic process often rendered passive;
that is, the referent and the photographic material. Because the viewer believes in
photographic truth, this aesthetic framework has profound implications for the effective
and empathetic communication of environmental concerns in Aotearoa and worldwide.