Vorlesungsreihe: Haunted Images. Toxic Ecologies of Photography

Tuesday Oct 13th

14:30–16:00, 2. OG Schloss C-206
Lecture 1 — Haunted Images: Beyond Representation
This session introduces photography as a hauntological medium, where images are not stable records
but temporal disturbances.
Key ideas:

• Photography as persistence rather than documentation
• Spectrality and non-linear temporality
• The instability of the image as object

The lecture builds on the idea that photography is »not something to be read, but something to be
undergone«, opening a space for thinking images as processes rather than representations.

Wednesday Oct 14th

14:30–16:00, 2. OG Schloss, C-206
Lecture 2 — Toxic Materialities: Chemistry, Decay, and Life
This lecture focuses on the material dimension of photography, emphasizing its chemical and
ecological conditions.
Topics include:

• Photographic processes as chemical transformations
• Toxicity as both material and conceptual condition
• Image decomposition as a form of vitality

The session engages with cases where images mutate over time, becoming »complex ecologies that
challenge the idea of conservation«.

Thursday Oct 15th

10–11:30, 2. OG, Schloss, C-206
Lecture 3 — Extractivism and the Geological Image
This session situates photography within global extractive systems.
Key themes:

• Silver mining and colonial infrastructures
• Photography as an extractive practice
• The geological dimension of media

The lecture draws on the idea that photography is fundamentally »a geological and political
composition«, linking image production to environmental and labor exploitation.

Friday Oct 16th

10–11:30, 2. OG, Schloss C-206
Lecture 4 — Posthuman Agency and Distributed Authorship
This final session explores the collapse of authorship in contemporary image practices.
Topics:

• Material agency and co-creation
• Multi-agent authorship (matter, algorithms, biological processes)
• Crisis of copyright in posthuman art

The discussion builds on the concept of a distributed authorship beyond the human, where the image
becomes a field of interacting forces rather than an authored object.