I took no chances with the next presentation. I showed up about a half hour early and staked out a front-row seat for Andrew Hershberger’s “Daguerre’s Diorama: A Bit of Photography’s Pluralistic Future in Its Prehistory?” It’s rare to meet someone genuinely interested in the arcane side of the media technologies that fed into the overall “image economy” that was in place at the time of photography’s invention. The presentation was fascinating, and Andrew was generous with his time. We discussed nineteenth century photography and panoramas both before and after the main presentation, and he generously shared the catalogue for an Tim O’Sullivan and William Bell exhibition. I’m sure we’ll stay in touch.

The presentation that I watched after this made me wish for a slightly different “arc” in my present career. “El Llano Estacado: A Cultural and Geographic Island in the Sky” was a panel presentation by Andrew John Liccardo, Rick Dingus, and Miguel Gandert. It detailed a cross-diciplinary project to document a region (spread between Texas and New Mexico) involving geographers, photographers, writers, and historians. What is unique about this project is that it is “never-ending”—the participants are continuing to solicit and acquire documentary materials. It would have been nice if I had discovered some way to pursue documentary, rather than just documentary theory. I can only look at these things from a distance, jealously (for now). The name of the place (which translates as “the staked plain”) was poetic in itself; the marks upon the barren landscape reminded me of my past in the San Joaquin Valley.

After this, I made my way back to the CCCC. The blog sig was well managed by Mike and Clancy, and I got the chance to attach faces and voices to some people I’ve read for a long time but never met, like Collin and Derek. I met some new people, too many to remember amid the whirl of other input in my tiny brain (apologies). I was pretty fried by then.

Saturday was a big rush. Krista and I hadn’t done much besides the blog sig together, so we escaped to view One/Many at the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago. Along the way, we also stopped at the DuSable Museum. But we had to split up again—Krista went on the the IP Caucus at CCCC, and I went to SPE to see Barbara Stafford’s lecture, “Beyond the Atomistic Aperture: The Spiritual History of Apparatus.” It was pretty remarkable, and I don’t really have the time to go into much detail. Simply put, Stafford argues that early optical devices were performative in nature, intended to provide a more than realistic view. It was a rich presentation which I’m sure left most of the crowd behind. The SPE is mostly composed of practitioners rather than theorists, and Stafford moved far and wide across a deeply theoretical base. I enjoyed it immensely. Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to write about it with greater depth later.

The basic score seems respectable. I presented in a half day workshop, attended two panels and two sigs at CCCC. I attended two panels and attended one keynote at SPE. That seems like a pretty rich trip, especially with the museum visits and all the chances to photograph thrown into the mix.