Jouer contre les appareils

What is experimental photography? Marc Lenot presents the work of a hundred or so experimental photographers and, in order to characterize them, draws in particular on the theses of the Brazilian philosopher Vilém Flusser. Some photographers play against the cameras, do not respect the rules and disturb the proper functioning of the photographic apparatus by modifying the established parameters. Thus, some artists break the rules of image production by playing with time, with light, with the chemistry of development or with the print, or by reinventing the camera. Others distance themselves from the device by deconstructing the camera, by not using a lens (camera obscura), sometimes no camera at all (photogram), or by diverting the photographic material. Others, finally, displace the author-photographer, by erasing him or her or by including their own body in the photographic gesture. Contemporary experimental photography is not strictly speaking a school or a movement, but simply a current, a moment between the decline of traditional documentary analog photography and the advent of digital photography at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.