Scanography

Scanography is the making of digital images with a flatbed scanner, usually by placing objects directly on or just above the glass so they can be recorded by the scanner's moving light and CCD array. It is also called scannography, scanner photography, scanner art, scan-art, or scannergrams, and the spelling itself is sometimes disputed. The practice is historically related to photocopy art and Xerox art, which explored office imaging machines as artistic tools rather than instruments of reproduction. Its wider adoption in photography is closely tied to the spread of affordable consumer flatbed scanners in the 1990s, which allowed artists to work independently, outside studio-based camera setups and without specialized technical support.

In practice, scanography produces pictures marked by extreme surface detail, strong color saturation, and a characteristically shallow zone of sharp focus. Objects touching the glass appear crisp, while elements raised even slightly above it often dissolve into haze, giving the image a gradual recession without conventional lens-based perspective. Because the light source is built into the machine and travels beneath the platen, scanography tends to create a planar, flattened space that differs from ordinary camera vision. Artists often exploit this structure through still-life arrangements, fabrics, flowers, shells, body parts, and paper artifacts, and may also move objects during scanning to create stretched, slit-scan-like distortions. Glitches, electronic interference, and other artifacts are often used deliberately to foreground the medium's material and technical conditions.

Scanography is often compared with the photogram because both depend on direct contact, yet scanography differs in producing a reproducible digital image that can function as a digital negative for further editing and printmaking. More broadly, the scanner is sometimes understood as a haptic imaging device, registering subjects as if by touch rather than by a distant optical gaze.