Art and science playing on the margins. On the discovery of photography in the 19th century Brazil.

Abstract

This paper examines photography as a particular case of a multiple discovery in science and technology. It concerns an original photographic process developed during the 19th century Brazil simultaneously and independently from other processes developed with the same aim elsewhere. A detailed reconstruction of this process created by the Frenchman Hercule Florence is performed by directly investigating his manuscripts and other original documents of the period. Combining elements from the Mertonian Social Theory of Discovery to the Science and Technology Studies approach my aim is to find out the factors that shaped this process and made it possible inside (and despite) the local peripheral circumstances. I argue that the latter is embodied in the final form of Florence’s process.