Of Water and Fire (Cliché-verre and Watergrams)

“Experimental photography is also, and above all, a poetics of traces and margins. Yet it closely resembles fundamental research.”

(Poivert, M. (2017). Les Photographies Célibataires. In M. Lenot, Jouer contre les appareils: De la photographie expérimentale (pp. 9-14). Éditions Photosynthèses)

From fire (though not only from fire) come cliché-verre prints: the soot of a flame creates, on a sheet of glass, a layer that is sensitive not to light but to mechanical and chemical manipulation, allowing drawings or textures, more or less sharp or figurative, to be photographically printed later. The process emerged, peaked and declined during a short, fertile period of collaboration between painters, among whom Corot (1796–1875) stands out, and photographers such as Adalbert Cuvelier (1812-1871). Like many other processes, it was taken up again in the twentieth century as one more creative possibility for investigating little-explored potentials of photographic printing.

The watergram (or aquagram), in turn, is a sophisticated contemporary process that captures, in an infinitesimal instant, the multiplicity of textures that form on the surface of water. The technique has been explored, both in the studio and in nature, by artists such as Adam Fuss (b. 1961) and Susan Derges (b. 1955).

Sensography 3

Imagerie > Workshops > Sensography 2

November 22th and 29th

Workshop outline

Session 1:

Introduction to the watergram: viewing examples and approaches
Introduction to the technical process of capturing watergrams
Introduction to how photographic paper and processing chemicals work
Exploring variations in creating visual textures in water
Analysing the results

Session 2:

Historical introduction to the cliché-verre process and its many variations
Viewing examples from the nineteenth century to the present day
Preparing glass plates using a variety of techniques
Producing images (drawings, patterns, textures, etc.) on the prepared glass
Printing the images onto photographic paper
Analysing the results

Learning objectives

Recognise the value of cameraless photography as creative research and as an alternative to traditional modes of photographic representation.
Experiment with the cliché-verre technique, exploring the creation of layers using soot and other materials, and their mechanical and chemical manipulation.
Explore the contemporary watergram process and understand its technical specifics.
Place the processes in their historical and artistic context, linking the nineteenth-century origins of cliché-verre with the contemporary practice of watergrams.
Critically analyse the results, encouraging collective reflection on the expressive, creative and experimental potential of the dialogue between water, fire and light.

Requirements

Participants are invited to bring objects of various shapes, textures, transparencies, etc. to the second session (cliché-verre). There will always be materials available for participants to use.