U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: "ultimate alt process"

Re: "ultimate alt process"



On Sun, 29 Jul 2007, Trevor Cunningham wrote:

like any good story, true or false, our wish to believe or be skeptical is purely driven by emotion...if it was a true experiment, it was science back then...today, in this forum's context, said work challenges the line between ethics and art...true or false, the concept is fantastic and serves as a powerfully expressive vehicle
But it's not a "good story," it's a terrible story. The concept is hardly "fantastic," other than as an elaboration on the familiar "final sight found on the iris" notion, though even less convincing. It sounds more like a latter-day spoof than "history" -- unless it comes with *some* documentation, or references, which, at least as reported on the cited site are lacking.

"Ethics" is hardly the issue. (If you read some of the things doctors used to do to grown women, you'd faint... though on second thought bunny rabits may have been treated better.)

So I looked up Willy Kuhne in Josef Maria Eder's History of Photography -- no entry. Eder is the most excessive namedropper in the field I could think of, but maybe someone has another reference work more likely ?

Which is to say, here's a guy supposedly did some dramatic research in 1878, whether or not it "worked" or was "ethical," and the tale suddenly surfaces in 2007 de novo... WITHOUT ANY CITATIONS FROM THE PERIOD (or from this period either) at least as presented, and we're supposed to believe it? (Oh, I almost forgot to mention, I have a beautiful little bridge for sale, at a bargain price, all the way to Brooklyn, you know?)

Folks may enjoy discussing theoretical ethics: if so and so happened, would you do so and so or thus and such. But this isn't remotely of that order.... Discussing the matter "seriously," lacking any paper trail, citations, or evidence, let alone "science," seems to enter the world of a not very funny joke. As for "ethics" -- ethics of what? Lying? Fake history? Vivisection of bunnies?

J.

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