Jaro Tom Habiger

Digital cameras are black-boxes during use: "you press the button, we do the rest." In this media archaeology project, I open this black box by disassembling an off-the-shelf DSLR camera as a case study. I extract the image sensor, reverse engineer its interface, and build a new camera apparatus around it. This lays technical groundwork for artists, hobbyists, and researchers building custom digital imagers for greater control over photographic image formation. The technical findings gained by the dis/assembly process also permit for an empirically grounded discussion of the material basis of digital photoography. I critically examine the sociotechnical systems that enable and constrain cameras and bring Susan Sontag’s critique of photography into conversation with Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory in order to discuss the question of agency of the photographer. By crossing the disciplinary boundary between engineering and media theory, this thesis offers a unique perspective onto the foundations of digital photography.