'The twentieth century saw a growing crisis about what representations represented. Categories of mimesis and reference became problematic. But photography and film video still retained the idea of the index. Now even that seems to vanish because artists increasingly use what I call intermediate objects which stand-in as pseudo-index. These intermediate objects refer to objects which refer to objects in reality or which refer to other images instead of referring directly to something which might appear as reality or the index. This creates a different relation between art and its object and opens up a different relation between artists and their predecessors. This series addresses both issues as they emerge within art and photographic practice.' Parveen Adams is director of the Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Studies Programme at Brunel University and is also on the teaching faculty of the London Consortium. She is the co-editor of The Woman in Question and author of The Emptiness of the Image.
intro by Dr Simon Baker, Curator of Photography and International Art at Tate