The dissertation starts from the artist author’s reflection of the context of photographic practice to explore the historical development in Taiwan’s photography concerning the movers in the transitional space of cities. Meanwhile, by observing the subject’s multiple perspectives, plural features of the urban object, and the plural image materials, the three perspectives can be extended to the “plural vision” photographic perspective as the observational perspective in an attempt to embark on the photographic genealogical examination of Taiwan’s urban transitional space. The artist author explores how the photographic aesthetics of “process as method” is portrayed in the context of different historical space-time and the development of photographic art. As such, the discussion will be examined around the two threads: first, taking the “plural vision” as the genealogy, this dissertation explores the multi-dimensional relationship between photographic practice and urban transitional space from 1930s to 1950s, from 1960s to 1980s, and from 1990 to 2000. By examining the three periods of plural vision genealogy, the dissertation discusses how photographers create their production methods, use methods and organization methods in the process of the practice of plural vision photography. By so doing, the photographers are able to exhibit the documentary nature of photography, the transition of photography, and the working production as the becoming of photographic aesthetics of photographic method.
Moreover, by employing the concept of “process as method” served as the classification basis, the artist author made the typological distinction according to the transition situation, transition path, practice site and the working process as method among Taiwan’s contemporary photographers of urban transitional space. The dissertation attempts to analyze the photographic practice of urban transitional space in the historical development from the vertical axis and then, from the horizontal axis, divide the process aesthetics of the movers of Taiwan’s contemporary photography into the following categories: (1) toward the edge of documentary, (2) the embodied wandering, (3) the assembled walk, (4) the mechanic monitor, (5) the drawing cartography, (6) the searchable almanac, and (7) the rolling archival photographic types. By employing the two key methodologies (i.e., the genealogy of plural vision and the process as method) as the framework of the dissertation, the artist author discusses how, in the image epoch of rapid technical change and innovation, the plural vision photography can serve as a contemporary observing perspective and aesthetics. In addition, through the Taiwanese photography development and the elucidation of the photographic process, the dissertation forges the assertion that how the process as method can become a kind of contemporary photography consciousness. Also, artists can use all sorts of media to create contemporary photography as an aesthetic basis.