Research

The FAMU Department of Photography is also an international research center for critical photography studies. We approach photography and technical images at large through their links to art, science, visual culture and critical theory with a strong emphasis on artistic practices. We investigate both historical and contemporary conditions of existence of photographic images, devices and practices in relation to their broader cultural, social and political contexts. We organise annual international conferences as well as seminars, workshops and guest lectures, typically related to our research projects.

research projects: 

Operational Images and Visual Culture: Media Archaeological Investigations (GAČR EXPRO, 2019 – 2023)

Scientific Photography: Technical Images and the Problem of Visibility (AMU DKR, 2021 – 23)

Scale, Measure and Proportion in Contemporary Visual Cultures (AMU DKR, 2020 – 21)

Construction of Social Space and Collective Memory: A Case Study of Vietnamese Ethnic Enclaves in Prague (AMU SGS2020)

Archive of the Department of Photography FAMU 1975 – 2020, 2019 – 2020 (AMU DKR)

Artificial Intelligence in Contemporary Arts (AMU DKR, 2019 – 2020)

Visual Documentation of Local Houses of Culture and their Post-1989 Architectural and Socio-cultural Transformation (AMU SGS2019)

Reinventing Photography: Techniques of Remediation from the Perspective of Media Archaeology (AMU DKR, 2018 – 19)

Aesthetics of Astrophotography (AMU SGS2018)

Cameraless Photography in the Work of Běla Kolářová (AMU SGS2018)

On Photography at the Edge of Photography (AMU DKR2017)

Photography and Anamorphosis (AMU SGS2017)

Photography and Sculpture (AMU SGS2017)

Cultural Techniques of Visualisation: Photography and Diagram (AMU DKR, 2016 – 18)

books:

Tomáš Dvořák (ed.), Paratexty fotografie. Praha: NAMU 2023

Jussi Parikka, Operational Images: From the Visual to the Invisual. Minneapolis – London: University of Minnesota Press 2023

Tomáš Dvořák – Martin Charvát (eds.), Operátoři (nových) médií. Praha: NAMU 2022

Tomáš Dvořák – Jussi Parikka (eds.), Photography Off the Scale: Technologies and Theories of the Mass Image. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2021

Geoffrey Batchen, Apparitions: Photography and Dissemination. Prague: NAMU – Sydney: Power Publications 2019

Tomáš Dvořák (ed.), Epistemologie (nových) médií. Praha: NAMU 2018

Nadar, Když jsem byl fotografem. Praha: NAMU 2018

Tomáš Dvořák (ed.), Fotografie, socha, objekt. Praha: NAMU 2017

Tomáš Dvořák (ed.), Temporalita (nových) médií. Praha: NAMU 2016

Geoffrey Batchen, Obraz a diseminace: Za novou historii pro fotografii. Praha: NAMU 2016

conferences

Scoping: Images between Inscriptions and Views (4 November 2022)

Reconsidering Cameraless Photography (19 November 2021)

Images Beyond Control (6 November 2020)

Expert-Readable Images (29 November 2019)

Photography Off the Scale (910 November 2018)

Reframing Media: Objects, Sites, Histories (21 May 2018)

Photography and Its Paratexts (3 November 2017)

Photography and Sculpture (11 November 2016)