The seeds for this book were planted with the inaugural professorial lecture on nonhuman photography that I gave at Goldsmiths, University of London, in March 2014. I am grateful to my Goldsmiths colleagues and students for ongoing support and inspiration, in particular Lisa Blackman, Sean Cubitt, Natalie Fenton, Julian Henriques, and Sarah Kember. Many other institutions and organizations have generously invited me to present material from this project as it unfolded: Aalto University, Centre Culturel International de Cerisy, Coventry University, the Center for 21st Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Courtauld Institute of Art, European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA), the International Media Art Biennale WRO 2015, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), King’s College London, Lincoln University, Lund University, New York University Abu Dhabi, Onassis Cultural Centre, Polish Academy of Sciences, Princeton University, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, the Universities of Bergen, Copenhagen, Greenwich, Kent, Minnesota, Oregon, Westminster, and the West of England, and the Winchester School of Art. I received invaluable feedback at all of those places, which helped me improve the manuscript immensely.
I am truly grateful to many individuals who have inspired me and helped me develop the ideas contained in this book. I would especially like to thank Clare Birchall, Dave Boothroyd, Ting Ting Cheng, Theodoros Chiotos, Gabriela Méndez Cota, Alberto López Cuenca, David Cunningham, Ewa Domańska, Mika Elo, Richard Grusin, Kamila Kuc, Max Liljefors, Nina Sellars, Doug Sery, Jonathan Shaw, Stelarc, Frederik Truyen, Ross Varney, Michael Wamposzyc, Bernadette Wegenstein, and Paul Wombell. I am also very grateful for the generosity of many artists whose work has long served as inspiration for me, and who have kindly allowed me to reproduce their images in this book: Bonamy Devas, Véronique Ducharme, Juliet Ferguson, Alexa Horochowski, Pieter Hugo, Tong Lam, Lindsay Seers, and Richard Whitlock. As always, a special thank-you goes to Gary Hall.