eGrove - Women of Photography: A 24-Hour Conference-a-thon Celebrating International Women’s Day 2025: Silver, Light, and A.I.: Conducting Practice-led Research on Elizabeth Fulhame, the Hidden Woman of Pre-photography, through Early and Post-Photographic Materiality
 

Silver, Light, and A.I.: Conducting Practice-led Research on Elizabeth Fulhame, the Hidden Woman of Pre-photography, through Early and Post-Photographic Materiality

Presentation Type

Presentation

Start Date

8-3-2025 1:00 AM

Description

Dr. Yvette Hamilton, University of Sydney, Australia

Silver, Light, and A.I.: Conducting Practice-led Research on Elizabeth Fulhame, the Hidden Woman of Pre-photography, through Early and Post-Photographic Materiality

Histories of the origin of photography in the nineteenth-century are dominated by men, but the lesser-known contributions of women, such as Elizabeth Fulhame, to the medium were fundamental to its success. Photographic pioneer John Herschel described Fulhame as one of the most “the most mysterious and interesting people in the early history of photography”.⁠ This “mystery” could perhaps be better described as erasure, and results in Fulhame being literally invisible, with no images of her person, nor even knowledge of the dates of her birth and death. This paper charts my practice-led research that aims to address this absence by creating speculative images of Fulhame via generative-A.I. software. Drawing upon my own interest in historic photographic process and materiality, this series depicts Fulhame at work as she created chemical reactions between silver and light. Whilst commencing with A.I. imaging prompts, the works are then materialised into photographic prints via early nineteenth-century photographic techniques using silver, salt and light, akin to that which Fulhame was using at the time.

The resulting recently exhibited series, Things I Can’t See from Places I Can’t Be (Elizabeth Fulhame at Work), aims to redress Fulhame’s invisibility through the possibilities of A.I. – the latest extension of the photographic medium that she herself helped to bring into being. By anchoring the algorithmic image in nineteenth-century techniques, I united my own making to that of Fulhame’s and created cross-temporal opportunities for embodied understanding.

Yvette Hamilton is an Australian interdisciplinary artist of Mauritian descent. She is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art at Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney, Australia, and has been a practicing artist for more than fifteen years. She recently completed her practice-led PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, where she explored the ontology of photography through the metaphor of a black hole. Her research and expanded practice probes at the limits and expectations of representation within photography and aims to explore the ontological paradoxes inherent within the medium. This inquiry is underpinned by strong ties to material experimentation within the photographic medium from its past to present, and potential futures. Her work often focuses on the quest to use the photographic medium to see the unseen, to broach distance, explore the unknown, and to materialise the invisible. Her creative work has been exhibited in Australia and internationally over the past fifteen years.

Relational Format

Conference proceeding

Comments

All times listed are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Use timeanddate.com to convert to your local time zone.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
Mar 8th, 1:00 AM

Silver, Light, and A.I.: Conducting Practice-led Research on Elizabeth Fulhame, the Hidden Woman of Pre-photography, through Early and Post-Photographic Materiality

Dr. Yvette Hamilton, University of Sydney, Australia

Silver, Light, and A.I.: Conducting Practice-led Research on Elizabeth Fulhame, the Hidden Woman of Pre-photography, through Early and Post-Photographic Materiality

Histories of the origin of photography in the nineteenth-century are dominated by men, but the lesser-known contributions of women, such as Elizabeth Fulhame, to the medium were fundamental to its success. Photographic pioneer John Herschel described Fulhame as one of the most “the most mysterious and interesting people in the early history of photography”.⁠ This “mystery” could perhaps be better described as erasure, and results in Fulhame being literally invisible, with no images of her person, nor even knowledge of the dates of her birth and death. This paper charts my practice-led research that aims to address this absence by creating speculative images of Fulhame via generative-A.I. software. Drawing upon my own interest in historic photographic process and materiality, this series depicts Fulhame at work as she created chemical reactions between silver and light. Whilst commencing with A.I. imaging prompts, the works are then materialised into photographic prints via early nineteenth-century photographic techniques using silver, salt and light, akin to that which Fulhame was using at the time.

The resulting recently exhibited series, Things I Can’t See from Places I Can’t Be (Elizabeth Fulhame at Work), aims to redress Fulhame’s invisibility through the possibilities of A.I. – the latest extension of the photographic medium that she herself helped to bring into being. By anchoring the algorithmic image in nineteenth-century techniques, I united my own making to that of Fulhame’s and created cross-temporal opportunities for embodied understanding.

Yvette Hamilton is an Australian interdisciplinary artist of Mauritian descent. She is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art at Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney, Australia, and has been a practicing artist for more than fifteen years. She recently completed her practice-led PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, where she explored the ontology of photography through the metaphor of a black hole. Her research and expanded practice probes at the limits and expectations of representation within photography and aims to explore the ontological paradoxes inherent within the medium. This inquiry is underpinned by strong ties to material experimentation within the photographic medium from its past to present, and potential futures. Her work often focuses on the quest to use the photographic medium to see the unseen, to broach distance, explore the unknown, and to materialise the invisible. Her creative work has been exhibited in Australia and internationally over the past fifteen years.