American staged art photography is the focus of this unique, in-depth study. Offering a new methodological strategy for viewing photographs, this fascinating account analyzes the work of four of the leading names in this new genre - Les Krims, Duane Michals, Arthur Tress, and Lucas Samaras - and applies new perspectives to 1970s art photography. As it sheds fresh light on the four artists' critiques of purist ideals, it also looks closely at their efforts to transcend the limitations of the purely visual effect of photography. Not only does this book tell the history of American staged photography in broad terms by drawing on theories and methods new to the field, but it also presents the latest approaches to photography history and theory.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1. Introduction
  • Impure vision in a photo-historical perspective
  • Purpose and research objectives
  • The literature
  • Theoretical points of departure
    • Embodied mind—the phenomenological turn
    • Optics and haptics
  • Approaching American staged art photography—materials and method
  • The photographers—short biographies and works, 1970–80
  • Disposition
• 2. Dethroning optical vision
  • Epistemological redefinitions and investigations
  • Redefining photographic vision—an anti-Adams wave
  • The estranging effects of optical vision
  • Uncanny revelations
    • The uncanny at a motif level—the unhomely homes of Krims and Tress
    • The disembodying illusions of Michals and Samaras
  • Theatre and narration—resurrecting the hybrid
  • Samaras and Tress—directors of Verfremdungseffekt
  • Photograph and text—narrative hybrids in the work of Krims and Michals
  • Conclusion
• 3. Communicating inner life
  • Thoughts, emotions, and disrupted communication
  • Focusing on the metaphor—the equivalents of Minor White
  • The empty appearance of emotion
  • Technology and mind
    • Camera as extra cognitive organ
  • Real dreams—Michals and Tress stretch the concept of reality
  • Conclusion
• 4. Haptic vision
  • Vision and touch—a separation and a reunification
  • The disembodied twin
  • The haptics of the Polaroid—immediacy, presence, and skin
  • Punctum and indexicality
    • Vision, touch, and punctum
    • Indexicality
    • Magic principles
    • The contagious magic of photography
    • Photography as voodoo and place for violent acts
  • Conclusion
• 5. Summary and concluding comment
• Notes
• Bibliography
• List of images
• Thanks