Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Mapping the Cultural Landscape: A Rephotographic Survey of W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project

Conboy, Matthew L.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1427825071

Abstract Details

2015, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts).
In this dissertation, I will apply the scholarly, creative, and descriptive traits of rephotography to document the city of Pittsburgh’s cultural landscape. Starting with images of W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh Project as my exemplar, I will conduct my own rephotographic survey and identify changes in the cultural landscape of Pittsburgh between 1955 and 2014. I will also continue and contribute to the transdisciplinary nature of rephotography by viewing Smith’s project and my rephotography through the lenses of tourism, palimpsest, and performance. Used individually, these three lenses provide a better understanding of rephotography—used together in concert; they create a conceptual framework for the uses and study of rephotography in the future. My receptiveness to the relationship between these three topics to photography and rephotography will promote approaches to the study of photography that expand surveys pertaining to the photo-mechanical nature, subject matter, or formalist properties of the medium. The Pittsburgh scenes including birds-eye views of the city, individual buildings, and even street signs provide a broad overview of the city on both a macro and a micro-scale. Through more than twenty examples, I suggest that photography as utilized by Smith, exposes Pittsburgh as seen by an outsider, while rephotography reveals Pittsburgh as insiders have transformed it. The themes of tourism, palimpsest, and performance organize my study of rephotography and situate my rephotographic survey in terms of Smith’s Pittsburgh Project. They are the threads that connect the photographer Smith, rephotography as methodology and subject, and my own survey of Pittsburgh’s cultural landscape together.
Marina Peterson (Committee Chair)
Jennie Klein (Committee Co-Chair)
Condee William (Committee Member)
Tim Anderson (Committee Member)
241 p.
Art History; Fine Arts; Geography
Rephotography; Photography; W Eugene Smith; Pittsburgh; Cultural Landscape; Tourism Studies; Geography

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Conboy, M. L. (2015). Mapping the Cultural Landscape: A Rephotographic Survey of W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1427825071

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Conboy, Matthew. Mapping the Cultural Landscape: A Rephotographic Survey of W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project. 2015. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1427825071.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Conboy, Matthew. "Mapping the Cultural Landscape: A Rephotographic Survey of W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1427825071

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1427825071
842
© 2015, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.