Body. Projection. Picture | A cultural history of shadow pictures Shadow pictures radically changed the modern understanding of pictorial concepts. Tim Otto Roth’s broadly based cultural history traces the consequences of this revolution of methods of vision and image production in the sciences and the arts. By means of abundant image and text sources he develops a picture theory based on physics and projective geometry. This definitive book provides a generally understandable and vivid insight in the history of shadowgraphs from the 19th century until the present age. A crucial role play scientific processes as the X-ray technique, but also the artistic examination of space and body. [German]
Roth, Tim Otto: Körper. Projektion. Bild – eine Kulturgeschichte der Schattenbilder, Paderborn (Fink) 2015. 528 pages, 96 b/w, 60 colour pictures, hardcover.
Colour beyond the sky The essay written together with the astrophysicist Bob Fosbury shows how, since the invention of the telescope, the sky has appeared not only closer but also more colourful. The contribution highlights the triggering of a chromatic revolution wrought by the spectroscope, a revolutionary instrument that transformed astronomy into astrophysics. We ask why it was that colour was only introduced into astronomical pictures as late as the second half of the 20th century. Above all, the essay addresses the history of art and ideas and poses the question of whether 'true colours' are really represented by any kind of picture. [English]
in: M. Blassnigg (ed.): Light Image Imagination, Amsterdam University Press 2013, pp. 242-268.
Bild und Anblick. Versuch über atmosphärisches Sehen This interview with Peter Sloterdijk has appeared in a collection of interviews with the German philosopher from 1993-2012. The interview from 2005 discusses the relation of philosophy and images. The German philosopher goes back to Plato as the "originator of principle of a picture". Today he observes a "major offensive against the concealment" driven by artists and scientists. He states "that we live in a kind of pit mining new visibilities." The interview can be read also online in the imachination interview series. [Deutsch]
in: Solterdijk, Peter: Ausgewählte Übertreibungen - Gespräche und Interviews 1993-2012, Berlin (Suhrkamp) 2013, pp. 238-254.
Universal synthesizer and window - cellular automata as a new kind of cybernetic images This essay written with bio mathematician Andreas Deutsch discusses the development of cellular automata since the 1950's in the context of image studies. Here we show how important the visual representation was to develop und explore this discrete mathematical model. Above all we show that cellular automata as a network of iterative pixels constitute a new kind of image – a cybernetic picture.[English]
in: Grau, Oliver; Veigl, Thomas (Ed.): Imagery in the 21st Century, Cambridge, MA (MIT Press) 2011, pp. 269-288.
Lebende Bilder – zu Paul Lindners Naturgeschichte der Schattenbilder In 1920 the book "Kameralose Photographie" (cameraless photography) appeared in Germany which was the first publication of its kind. The article looks back how the Berlin based brewing biologist Paul Lindner [1861-1944] developed in 1912 his direct method exposing mold cultures directly on photo paper. He continuously optimized his process for instance by the use of parallel light which finally resulted in records with a microscopic resolution. His book from 1920 is far more than just a manual how to make a shadowgraph. Above all Lindner looks for technical correspondences as to the nature print and relates the process to a natural history of light, shadow and bioluminescence. [Deutsch]
in: Kultur & Technik: Zeitschrift des Deutschen Museums München 32 (2008) 3, pp. 42-46.
This is not a photograph - some remarks on the photogram as a picture This is not a photograph – the title of an exhibition series in the United States - was the initial trigger for this essay to reflect the photogram respectively the shadowgraph in the context of image studies. So the attention is directed to the aspect how a picture is not recorded but how it is structured. Here it turns out that a projected shadow cast structures the image plain in a very different way as a lens based photography does. Consequently a shadowgraph can't be considered as a photographic image. The essay goes back on a presentation in occasion of the 1st Congress of Photography in Vienna at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in occasion of the 30 years jubilee of the European Society.[English]
in: Auer, Anna; Schögl, Uwe (Ed.): Jubilee 30 years ESHPh – Congress of Photography in Vienna, Salzburg (Fotohof) 2008, pp. 464-469.

- Roth, Tim Otto; Ketelsen, Thomas (Ed.): Schatten im Blick? (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum) 2018.
- Roth, Tim Otto: Ni Coup de Dés Ni Hasard. Auf der Suche nach dem verlorenen Zufall, in: Stallschus, Stefanie; Ternes, Bernd (Hrsg.): Bild, Kunst, Medien. Resonanzen auf das Denken von Hans Ulrich Reck, Köln (Herbert von Halem)2018, pp. 135-140.
-Roth, Tim Otto: Fact or Fake – A Conversation on Physics, the Imagination and Magical Images, in: EIKON #102, pp. 57-67.
- Roth, Tim Otto: Almost Bursting – Between Shadow and Lens Images, in: David Fried – Far From Equilibrium (Kerber) 2018, pp. 156–159.
- Roth, Tim Otto; Scheurmann, Konrad: Spektrale Revisionen – ein Gespräch, in: GesprächsStoff Farbe (Böhlau) 2017, pp. 214–223.
- Roth, Tim Otto: The Art of Disappearance, in: Jean Baudrillard – The Disappearance of Culture (Edinburgh University Press) 2017.
- Roth, Tim Otto: Körper. Projektion. Bild – eine Kulturgeschichte der Schattenbilder, Paderborn (Fink) 2015.
- Roth, Tim Otto; Hook, Richard; Doane, Alison: Das Mißtrauen gegenüber der Farbe im Bild - zur späten Ankunft der Farbenfotografie in der Astronomie, in: Rundbrief Fotografie 20 (December 2013) 4, S. 3-4.
- Roth, Tim Otto; Fosbury, Robert F.: Colour beyond the sky – the chromatic revolution in astronomy, in: Blassnig, Martha (Ed.): Light, Image, Imagination – The Spectrum beyond Reality and Illusion, Amsterdam (Amsterdam University Press) 2013, pp. 242-268.
-Sloterdijk, Peter; Roth, Tim Otto: Bild und Anblick. Versuch über atmosphärisches Sehen, in: Solterdijk, Peter: Ausgewählte Übertreibungen – Gespräche und Interviews 1993-2012, Berlin (Suhrkamp) 2013, pp. 238-254. [reprint from: online publication 2005]
- facing science – die Berliner Wissenschaftslandschaft als Geflecht mit vielen Gesichtern, in: Reder, Christian: Kartographisches Denken, Wien (Springer) 2012, pp. 379-385.
- The Pigmented Shadows of Chronos – Sabine Große's Gumprints, in: Roth, Tim O. (Ed.): POSITION IV, Oppenau/Köln 2011.
- Roth, Tim Otto; Deutsch, Andreas: Universal synthesizer and window - cellular automata as a new kind of cybernetic images, in: Grau, Oliver; Veigl, Thomas (Ed.): Imagery in the 21st Century, Cambridge, MA (MIT Press) 2011, pp. 269-288.
- Das Zimmer als intimes Höhlenszenario – Schatten und Berührung in Fabio Sandris „Stanze“, in: Bildwelten des Wissens. Kunsthistorisches Jahrbuch für Bildkritik, Vol. 8.1: Kontaktbilder (2010), pp. 59-63.
- The Room as an Intimate Cave Scenario – Shadow and Contact in Fabio Sandri’s “Stanze“, in: Sandri, Fabio: Produzione di immagini, Vicenza 2010, pp. 6-9.
- Lichtstück, in: Fiedler, Elisabeth; Weibel, Peter (Ed.): Michael Schuster - For Your Information, Köln 2010, pp. 243-259.
- This is not a photograph - some remarks on the photogram as a picture, in: Auer, Anna; Schögl, Uwe (Ed.): Congress of Photography in Vienna, Salzburg (Fotohof) 2008, pp. 464-469.
- Lebende Bilder - Zu Paul Lindners Naturgeschichte der Schattenbilder, in: Kultur & Technik, 32 (2008) 3, pp. 42-46.
- Ars Photoelectronica - Astronomie als Königsdisziplin der Farbe, in: Scheurmann, Konrad (Ed.): rot.grün.blau. -Experiment in Farbe & Licht, Ilmenau 2008, pp. 90-93.
- Roth, Tim Otto: Shooting the Intruder with Light - Achim Mohné’s Dust Shadowgraphs, in: Roth, Tim O. (Ed.): POSITION III, Oppenau/Köln, Frühjahr 2008.
- Roth, Tim Otto: Imprint, impression, expression - Peter Gerwin Hoffmann's Traces in the historical context of the whole-body photogramme,,in: Holler-Schuster, Günther (Ed.): Peter Gerwin Hoffmann [Neue Galerie Graz], Köln 2007, pp. 252-258.
- Roth, Tim Otto: Das Echo der Dinge im Zelluloid – Vom Höhlenkino zum Photogrammfilm, in: Museum der Moderne (Hrsg.): Kamera los, Salzburg 2006, S.57-61.
- Roth, Tim Otto: A Walk on the Retinas of the Extreme Sciences, A Minimalist Concept for an Internet-Based Light Art Art Façade in Munich, Leonardo Volume 39, Issue 1 / February 2006 (MIT Press).
- Roth, Tim Otto: Die Kunst des Verschwindens/ The art of disappearance, interview with Jean Baudrillard, in: EIKON 46 (2004). [parallel online publication in German]

reviews
- Roth, Tim Otto: What are the lessons of documenta 12 ? – Reflections from the viewpoint of a postmodern artist/ Was lehrt uns die Documenta 12 – Überlegungen aus der Perspektive eines postmodernen Künstlers/ 12 تيم أوتو روتدروس من الدوكومنتا, in: Fikrun Wa Fann N°86 (2007).

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11 September 2019
Astroparticle Immersive Synthesizer³ or how cosmic "ghost particles" inspire a novel concept of spatialisation of sound, plenary lecture together with Prof. Dr. Christopher Wiebusch at International Congress on Acoustics, ICA, Aachen

publication list

list of talks

What is imaging today - imachination interview series

Tim Otto Roth is one of the few leading specialists for the science and art historical research in shadow pictures.