Pleasure Machines: Towards a Philosophy of Scanning

What happens when a flatbed scanner is used for the photographic reproduction of three-dimensional objects? At first this machine seems like inappropriate technology for such a task, but it introduces a complex aesthetic phenomenon that reconsiders screen-based cultures of touch and vision.

In her new book, Chantal Faust defines the flatbed scanner as a new photographic category, and uses case studies of esteemed artists such as Sarah Lucas and Andy Warhol to show how it creates images and simultaneously provides an original trajectory on which to read them. For Faust, the physicality of the scanning process involves an enquiry into the theoretical debates concerned with pleasure and affect, so that the scanner allows for the projection of fantasy and desire. Pleasure Machines then, represents a new generation of theory-practitioners: artists who practise art and theory simultaneously, so that the case studies privilege neither theory nor art, but combine both to reveal the book’s true meaning.

Chantal Faust is an artist, writer and tutor in critical and historical studies and research at the Royal College of Art, UK. Her photographic, painting, video and installation works have been exhibited in the UK, Australia and North America.