Finding found photobooks

Abstract

Photobook-making provides one way to address how meaning is typically made from photographs. As both an action and a thing, the picture can mean more than it is generally designed for. As disconnected from traditional owner and authorship, found photographs, in particular, aid reflection on the processes that birth images, their meanings, and their value. As an artistic installation, "Finding Found Photobooks" utilizes iterative events for re-contextualizing photographs to induce an organic, processual-reflective reading of their content. Using a research through design approach to photobook design and artistic installation, this work foregrounds reoccurring compositional techniques, image content, and imaging technology as aesthetic concerns available to the viewing public. Therefore, viewers may recognize their personal biases for meaning-making while observing the act of observation presented in the books. Doing so affords the experience of "Finding Found Photobooks."