{"id":11098,"date":"2019-04-24T14:31:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T14:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artjournalstg.wpenginepowered.com\/?page_id=11098"},"modified":"2019-07-24T13:51:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T13:51:00","slug":"photochemical-alchemy-in-lapland","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?page_id=11098","title":{"rendered":"Photochemical Alchemy in Sub-Arctic Finland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Sam Nightingale<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n<!--noteaser-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Experimenting with the image-making capacity of plants\u2014photography without light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Among&nbsp;all&nbsp;the&nbsp;arts,&nbsp;it&nbsp;is&nbsp;the&nbsp;art&nbsp;of&nbsp;alchemy&nbsp;which&nbsp;most&nbsp;closely&nbsp;imitates&nbsp;nature<\/em>.<br>\u2014Albertus Magnus (teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas), ca. 1250 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I found myself on the banks of Lake Kilpisj\u00e4rvi in sub-Arctic Finland last autumn. I was there with a group of other artists, media researchers and biohackers for the Bioart Society\u2019s Field_Notes conference. Our agenda was to explore the ancient art of augury (divination), examining how we might divine or sense signs from the organic and inorganic worlds that we are a part of but that also operate beyond rational human knowledge. We approached this from the perspective that sense and sensing are forms of divination foretelling the actions we should take as we go about life. Each day we set ourselves the task of finding tools for divination in the ecology, places, and materials around Kilpisj\u00e4rvi. With experience in photographic alchemy, I proposed we devise a practice that used the inherent photochemical abilities of plants to produce images, thereby combining natural elements, such as salt and botanical matter in photographic processes. This approach to augury and divination offers a path into the unknown energies and forces contained in the ecology around Kilpisj\u00e4rvi, and draws on the primal poetics of matter. Taking an alchemical approach, employing experimentation, a little scientific knowledge, a lot of uncertainty and chance, <em>Para-photo-mancy<\/em>, as I called the practice and resulting images, combined local natural elements\u2014berries, moss, mushrooms, etc.\u2014into a photographic image-making process.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-11098-1' id='fnref-11098-1' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(11098)'>1<\/a><\/sup> In so doing, we could consider how <em>Para-photo-mancy<\/em> might enable a different order of visuality, one that privileges a nonhuman aesthetic and makes it perceptible to sensory experience as a form of divination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/005_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x800.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"800\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/005_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"11117\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=11117\" class=\"wp-image-11117\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/005_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x800.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/005_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-200x160.jpg 200w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/005_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-500x400.jpg 500w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/005_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-720x576.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/005_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-560x448.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/005_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/004_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x800.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"800\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/004_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"11116\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=11116\" class=\"wp-image-11116\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/004_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x800.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/004_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-200x160.jpg 200w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/004_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-500x400.jpg 500w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/004_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-720x576.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/004_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-560x448.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/004_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/003_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x800.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"800\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/003_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"11115\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=11115\" class=\"wp-image-11115\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/003_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x800.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/003_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-200x160.jpg 200w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/003_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-500x400.jpg 500w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/003_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-720x576.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/003_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-560x448.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/003_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><sup>Sam Nightingale, <em>Para-photo-mancy<\/em>, 2018. Made in collaboration with the plants and lake water at Kilpisj\u00e4rvi Biological Station and members of &#8220;Augury: machines which look at birds.&#8221;<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The use of alchemic processes and botanical matter appears throughout the history of photography. Even before the conception of photography, the chemicals that went on to define the medium for more than 150 years (from its \u201cofficial\u201d invention in 1839 until digital imaging became prevalent) were known and used by the alchemists of antiquity. In its most straightforward definition, alchemy, the medieval forerunner of chemistry, is concerned with the transformation and chemical change that occurs between metals or substances. Before the Enlightenment, this was broadly understood to take place as a result of hidden or mysterious forces contained within organic and inorganic matter; alchemists believed these forces could be harnessed and used to transmute imperfect substances into noble and precious forms, such as turning mercury into gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/007_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x750.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/007_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x750.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11119\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/007_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x750.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/007_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-200x150.jpg 200w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/007_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-500x375.jpg 500w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/007_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-720x540.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/007_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-560x420.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/007_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Setting up the daylight makeshift &#8220;photo lab&#8221; by the banks of Lake Kilpisj\u00e4rvi. Photograph by Sam Nightingale.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alchemy has an enduring relationship with photography.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-11098-2' id='fnref-11098-2' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(11098)'>2<\/a><\/sup> Many of the chemicals ubiquitous to analog photography, such as silver nitrate, silver chloride, nitric acid and salt, which facilitated the \u201clittle bit of magic\u201d that Henry Fox Talbot announced with his invention of the photo-negative process he called \u201ccalotypes,\u201d are said to have been used by alchemists as far back as the eighth century.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-11098-3' id='fnref-11098-3' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(11098)'>3<\/a><\/sup> For example, the transformation of the metal silver into the compound silver nitrate was first attributed to the alchemist M\u016bs\u0101 J\u0101bir ibn Hayy\u0101n (Latinized as \u201cGeber\u201d) A.D. 721\u2013815.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-11098-4' id='fnref-11098-4' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(11098)'>4<\/a><\/sup> Likewise, mercury, a most prized substance to the alchemists, who were intent on transforming it into gold, was found to be the key ingredient to the daguerreotype photographic method. A chance encounter discovered by Louis Daguerre foretold that mercury\u2019s vapors would materialize a latent image previously exposed on an iodized silver plate.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-11098-5' id='fnref-11098-5' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(11098)'>5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/008_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/008_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x750.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11120\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/008_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x750.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/008_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-200x150.jpg 200w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/008_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-500x375.jpg 500w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/008_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-720x540.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/008_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-560x420.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/008_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Botanical matter local to the area soaking in photographic trays. Photograph by Sam Nightingale.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/009_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x749.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"749\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/009_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x749.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11121\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/009_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x749.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/009_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-200x150.jpg 200w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/009_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-500x375.jpg 500w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/009_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-720x540.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/009_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-560x420.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/009_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Botanical matter laid out on plates of photosensitive film waiting for the &#8220;magic&#8221; to happen. Photograph by Sam Nightingale.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The continuity between alchemy and photography is extended further by considering the historical use of botanical matter to make photosensitive materials and images. As Michael Pollan writes, \u201cPlants are nature\u2019s alchemists, expert at transforming water, soil, and sunlight into an array of precious substances\u201d; photosynthesis, the transmutation of light into energy\u2014crucial to a plant\u2019s life\u2014is dramatic evidence of this.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-11098-6' id='fnref-11098-6' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(11098)'>6<\/a><\/sup> The chemist and inventor John Herschel was well aware of the alchemical transformation offered by plant chemistry (phytochemistry). His scientific notebooks contain numerous traces of the experiments he conducted, testing the viability of botanical matter for photographic use; countless pages are stained by the evidence of what he called \u201cvegetable photography.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-11098-7' id='fnref-11098-7' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(11098)'>7<\/a><\/sup> These are the marks of the various light-sensitive substances he made by extracting juices from flowers and plant roots to examine their sensitivity to the rays of solar light. His experiments went beyond the \u201csalts of silver and gold\u201d that his contemporaries were using to prepare \u201cphotographically impressible\u201d substances. Instead, speculating on the photochemical potential for botanical matter, he claimed that such possibilities \u201cpervade all of nature.\u201d For Herschel, the photographic image is \u201cintimately\u201d connected to nature.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-11098-8' id='fnref-11098-8' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(11098)'>8<\/a><\/sup> The use of botanical matter (<em>nature\u2019s alchemists<\/em>) in light-sensitive substances utilize the plant\u2019s chemistry as an internal force of transformation. It extends both the understanding of what photochemical photography was, is or could be, while having an affinity to alchemic process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/010_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/010_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x750.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11122\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/010_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x750.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/010_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-200x150.jpg 200w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/010_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-500x375.jpg 500w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/010_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-720x540.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/010_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-560x420.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/010_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Members of &#8220;Augury: machines which look at birds&#8221; washing and fixing the plates of film while watching the <em>Para-photo-mancy<\/em> images emerge. Photograph by Sam Nightingale.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back at Lake Kilpisj\u00e4rvi, we prepared for our own \u201clittle bit of magic\u201d\u2014augury using photochemical alchemy. We have gathered together a small sample of botanical matter from our location in the daylight makeshift photo lab we have set up, and we are using a process of random selection to decide which elements will be combined to make the<em> Para-photo-mancy<\/em> images. Like Herschel, we use plants and other organic substances to create photographic forms, however, in his method there remains a reliance on light to produce an image\/impression. In <em>Para-photo-mancy<\/em>, light is not the means by which the image will appear; instead, an alchemical transformation occurs. Botanical matter that has been pre-soaked in an organic solution of ascorbic acid and sodium carbonate is brought into direct contact with the silver compounds contained within the photographic film. This is a formula based on the chemical force of attractions and repulsions: of shifting relationships between acid and alkali. The transformation takes place in either daylight or darkness, as the reaction is not dependant on the presence of light at all. <em>Para-photo-mancy<\/em>, instead, attempts to harnesses the material and creative agency of botanic matter to bring about an image where \u201cnature\u201d writes itself onto a photographic plate. It is an alchemical process that deviates from and hacks recognized modes of photographic image-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"796\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/001_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1-1000x796.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11124\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/001_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1-1000x796.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/001_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1-200x159.jpg 200w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/001_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1-500x398.jpg 500w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/001_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1-720x573.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/001_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1-560x446.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/001_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><figcaption>Sam Nightingale, <em>Para-photo-mancy<\/em>, 2018. Made in collaboration with the plants and lake water at Kilpisj\u00e4rvi Biological Station and members of &#8220;Augury: machines which look at birds.&#8221;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the moss, lichen, leaves, berries, and fungi we have gathered are soaking, we leave the woods returning to the warmth of the nearby field station. For an hour or so we learn about the wind, the trees, and their relation to the S\u00e1mi concept of time. My mind drifts to the woods outside and the photographic plates. I think about the energetic forces that are all around us and am reminded of the line from Novalis: \u201cperceptibility is a kind of attentiveness.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-11098-9' id='fnref-11098-9' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(11098)'>9<\/a><\/sup> To perceive (and better understand) the world around us means we must be attentive to that which we can\u2019t normally see. <em>Para-photo-mancy <\/em>is a part of my ongoing creative practice that develops different modes of perception, turning attention towards those elements, rhythms, and forces that exist at the edge of experience; in Anna Tsing\u2019s words, this is the practice of \u201cthe arts of noticing\u201d\u2014perhaps itself another explanation for augury and divination.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-11098-10' id='fnref-11098-10' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(11098)'>10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/011_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/011_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x750.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11123\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/011_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-1000x750.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/011_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-200x150.jpg 200w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/011_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-500x375.jpg 500w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/011_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-720x540.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/011_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA-560x420.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/011_Sam-Nightingale_Para-photo-mancy_CAA.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption><em>Para-photo-mancy<\/em> works displayed outside a hut by Lake Kilpisj\u00e4rvi. Photograph by Sam Nightingale.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back in the woods by the lake as the rain\nstarts falling and the temperature drops, we place the soaked botanical matter\nonto various plates of film I have brought with me, pressing them tight against\nthe film emulsion. The images, impressions, expressions, emanations (call them\nwhat you will) that start to emerge are contingent, dependent on the chemical\nreactions taking place on a molecular level between the phenols in the botanic\nmatter and the silver halide crystals on the sensitized plate. Later, we fix\nand wash the plates of film, one of the few tasks that uses conventional\nphotochemistry. Expressed within the photographic emulsion is a strange <em>para<\/em>-photographic image, created not of\nlight but by alchemical energy drawn from the location itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.samnightingale.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Sam Nightingale (opens in a new tab)\">Sam Nightingale<\/a><\/strong> is a visual artist based in the United Kingdom. His practice investigates what he describes as \u201cspectral ecologies.\u201d Spectral ecologies are haunting presences from another time or place that coalesce into material forms poetically expressed in the ecological conditions of the locations in which he works. Working with photography and experimental photochemical processes, Nightingale explores how spectral ecologies trace human and nonhuman histories and events enmeshed within organic and inorganic life, of salt, soil, and plants, as well as in the built environment. His resulting photographic images attempt to make sensible, the temporalities and spatialities of the world in which we are a part, but that also persist beyond the limits of human experience. His photographic practice draws as much on nature&#8217;s capacity as elemental or primal media, as it does on \u201cmanmade\u201d media technologies, in order to produce a poetics of human\/nonhuman entanglement that recognizes the agency of nonhuman actors. He is undertaking a PhD by practice at Goldsmiths, University of London (The Centre for Research Architecture and Department of Media, Communication &amp; Cultural Studies). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n\n<div class='footnotes' id='footnotes-11098'><div class='footnotedivider'><\/div><ol><li id='fn-11098-1'> The suffix &#8211;<em>mancy<\/em> indicates divination by a specified means, such as <em>geo-mancy<\/em>, which The New English Dictionary defines as &#8220;divination by means of lines, figures or dots on the earth or on paper, or by particles of earth cast on the ground.&#8221; Many thanks to artist and filmmaker Karel Doing for introducing me to the potential for making photochemical images using the internal chemistry of plants. Details concerning Karel&#8217;s method, which he calls &#8220;phytogram,&#8221; can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/phytogram.blog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"here (opens in a new tab)\">here<\/a>. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-11098-1'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-11098-2'> See Laurie Dahlberg, &#8220;The Material Ethereal Photography and the Alchemical Ancestor&#8221; in <em>Art&nbsp;and&nbsp;Alchemy,<\/em> ed. Jacob Wamberg (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2006), 83\u2013100. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-11098-2'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-11098-3'> Douglas R. Nickel, \u201cTalbot\u2019s Natural Magic,\u201d <em>History of Photography <\/em>26, no. 2 (June 2002): 132\u201340. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-11098-3'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-11098-4'> Josef Maria Eder, <em>History of Photography<\/em>, trans. Edward Epstean (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945), 22. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-11098-4'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-11098-5'> Idem., 228. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-11098-5'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-11098-6'> Michael Pollan, <em>The Botany of Desire: A Plant\u2019s-Eye View of the World<\/em> (London: Bloomsbury, 2003), xvii. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-11098-6'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-11098-7'> John F. W. Herschel, \u201cOn the Action of the Rays of the Solar Spectrum on Vegetable Colours, and on Some New Photographic Processes,\u201d <em>Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London <\/em>132 (January 1842): 196. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-11098-7'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-11098-8'> Idem., 201. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-11098-8'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-11098-9'> Walter Benjamin quotes this line from the poet Novalis in his discussion of the aura, the uncanny sense of an object that looks back at its perceiver. Walter Benjamin, <em>Selected Writings, vol. IV: 1928\u20131930<\/em> (Cambridge, MA, 2003), 338. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-11098-9'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-11098-10'> Anna Tsing, <em>The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins<\/em> (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015). <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-11098-10'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sam Nightingale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":11112,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"kia_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11098","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}