In my PhD research I problematize the concept of photographic materiality in contemporary art, which can be seen to be evolving in two distinct directions. On the one hand there has recently been a new interest in very tactile methods of photographic image-making as photography is being used in collage, sculpture and installations. On the other hand, digitality is taking photography towards a direction where the materiality of the single photographic image seems to become increasingly irrelevant. Photography in contemporary art is thus at the same time both extremely tactile and material, but also becoming almost immaterial, a non-object.

Through case studies of an international selection of artworks I investigate this materially twofold status of contemporary photographic art. All the artworks I discuss question the ontological and conceptual limits of photography. The aim of my research is to find new ways of thinking about the material aspects of photography, focusing on how materiality itself works as an agent in the creative process as well as in the interpretation of the artworks.