Playing Dead: Eadweard Muybridge’s Residential Photo Albums and Spiritualist Aesthetics

Abstract Eadweard Muybridge, whose studies of animals in motion precipitated the first motion pictures, has been associated with positivism, modernism, and masculinity. Late nineteenth-century spiritualism has been associated with mysticism, Victorianism, and femininity. These associations make the Kate and Robert Johnson Residential Photo Album, photographed by Muybridge, a compelling artifact. The album is an anomaly in both Muybridge’s career and within spiritualism. Along with preserving images of the Johnsons’ domestic space, it also features astonishing images that are the only known examples of spirit photography by Muybridge. Because the couple was alive and took turns posing as the spirits, these photographs are an anomaly within spiritualism as well since spirit photographs generally constituted proof of contact with the netherworld. As such, the artifact helps us reevaluate the relationship between nineteenth-century positivism and spiritualism and consider the aesthetic influence of the sitter Kate Johnson on the album’s production. This article also places the album in the context of other visual culture phenomena, such as scrapbooking and album practices, as well as museum aesthetics. Finally, it considers narratives of gender, sexuality, and the nuclear family, within and beyond the album itself and the discourses surrounding spiritualism.