Sarah Edmands Martin

DESIGNER

Associate Professor
University of Chicago

Designer, artist, and scholar working at the intersection of visual communication design, critical fabulation, and media aesthetics. 


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2026 Graphis award winner  
talk at Cornell
2025 UCDA Design Awards juror





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Cameraless Photography

Photography2012
A small selection of camera-less photographic work exploring the line between a forensic and an otherworldly aesthetic.















Concept


Camera-less photography using a scanner, often referred to as “scanography,” is a process in which objects are placed directly onto a flatbed scanner to create high-resolution, photographic images without the use of a traditional camera or lens. The scanner acts as both light source and image receptor, slowly moving across the object to capture fine surface details with remarkable sharpness and clarity.



photography
flatbed scanner








Unlike a camera, which freezes a single instant from a fixed perspective, a scanner “sees” sequentially, line by line, producing an image that often contains subtle distortions or elongations depending on movement or dimensionality. Translucent, textured, or layered materials yield especially striking results as the scanner’s light penetrates and interacts with them.

These works explore materiality, time, and tactility, embracing both the scanner’s forensic detail and its ghostly artifacts: dust trails, slight motions, and digital noise (which together contribute to its otherworldly aesthetic).