Thoughtographic Transformation A (2012) 35mm projection, external lenses.

​

Thoughtographic Transformations is a triptych of projection based images influenced by claims made by twentieth century psychic mediums such as Madge Donahoe and Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu that a form of camera-less mind controlled photography was possible.



It was claimed that images could be telepathically penetrated onto photographic plates in a process categorised as “thoughtography” or “skotography”. In general the results obtained by spiritual mediums working in this field were abstract in nature and therefore widely open to subjective interpretation. However, the idea that invisible, penetrative, mind controlled rays could affect a photographic plate began to arise at a similar time to the discovery of x-rays and development of x-ray photography in the eighteen-nineties: “The simple fact that photography had been proven to detect Rontgen's rays was enough to bolster the “discovery” that photographic plates detected other equally invisible rays” such as radium, polonium or uranium.  X-Ray photography added a  new concept to the public arena. The idea that photography possessed “penetrative” vision, “singling out a moment of time usually too small for human perception to register” (over seconds, minutes, hours, days).  Theories such as these tied paranormal and the occult to modern or state-of-the-art scientific technologies.
​