Surrealism is destructive…the same can be said about photography when the image interrogates the limitations of one’s taken-for-granted’s, one’s closely held beliefs that are formed without interrogation through the exteriority of constant exposure. One of the tasks of the photographer, it seems to me, is to wrestle with those iconic notions that have free access to our trace memories without serious challenge. The photograph is a vehicle to challenge one’s deeply held notions about life, values, culture, family, society, and so on. Because the photographic image purports to represent something that is real, even though that is, in itself, a deception, it is in a perfect position to quietly ask visual questions that attack, assault, assail, condemn and savage the iconic message contained on the surface of the two dimensional reduction of the three dimensional.
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The ethics of hospitality, according to Levinas, requires one to respond to the welcome of the other; a welcome that may or may not be offered. The readiness to respond to the welcome of the other requires an aThe ethics of hospitality, according to Levinas, requires one to respond to the welcome of the other; a welcome that may or may not be offered. The readiness to respond to the welcome of the other requires an openness that removes the interiority of the I, thereby opening one to the infinite exteriority of the other. Levinas interrogates the notion of welcome and hospitality through, in part, the overriding ethical imperative to be response-able (my take on the responsibility for the other that Levinas speaks of so often). Being response-able means that one must be able to respond to the welcome of the other, respond even when the welcome is silent, when the welcome is unspoken, when the welcome is impossible. openness that removes the interiority of the I, thereby opening one to the infinite exteriority of the other. Levinas interrogates the notion of welcome and hospitality through, in part, the overriding ethical imperative to be response-able (my take on the responsibility for the other that Levinas speaks of so often). Being response-able means that one must be able to respond to the welcome of the other, respond even when the welcome is silent, when the welcome is unspoken, when the welcome is impossible. Photographing in Pompeii is something of a paradox, a conundrum. If, as I have argued, photography captures an instant in time then walking through this dead, destroyed, restored Roman city captures an instant of time quite after the historical fact; nothing more than the bleached bones of an ancient metropolis. Is an image of Pompeii, then, a nostalgic exploration of a time long past, or is it a visual record of that which exists at the moment of shutter release…or, perhaps, both or neither. The ruins at Pompeii are at once an historical site, an artifact of a time always already gone, and a living monument to the present as a source of historical data and archeological evidence of the life once lived and presently lived under the active volcano Mt. Vesuvius. The ruins are also a testament to the resources of human beings put to use in the desire to recover that which is lost, a preservation of a trace. Berenice Abbott is nearly half correct. The photographic image re-presents an always already disappeared present, one that was captured in a fraction of a second only milliseconds after the photographer made the decision to release the shutter (there is a brief lag between the brain issuing instructions and the movement of the finger that releases the shutter). In this sense, the photograph captures only a simulacrum of the always already gone present, an already removed instant from the infinitely brief moment the photographer intended to capture. What is always already gone can not be captured except as a shadow, a trace somehow left behind. When interrogating an image, as one constructs meaning from the contents of the four corners of that image inward, one must not forget to look at the margins and to infer what is outside of the margins that were deliberately excluded. It is, it seems to me, only when one looks beyond what is obvious can one see that which contributes to understanding. Considering the margins opens one to the unexpected, to the unseen, the unsaid. The margins and beyond contribute as much, if not more, to the overall interpretation of an image. Photography is an art that captures an instant of temporality on the pretense that one is capturing what is real, what is there when, in fact, what the photographic image re-presents as a finished image is the photographer’s impression of what was present at the moment of shutter release (rather at the moment the photographer decides to release the shutter as there is a delay of, perhaps, a millisecond from the moment of decision to the pushing of the finger) and nothing more. What is apparent in the photograph is never the reality of the existential moment. Photographic images contribute in two ways to the making sense of the world. Both are highly contextual fully dependent on embedded experience. For the photographer, making sense of the world is accomplished as the image is created both at the moment of creation and, sometime later, during the post-exposure processing that contributes to the making of the final image. The construction of a photographic image is largely dependent upon the photographer’s vision, the ability to gaze at the world ready to act in a split second to capture that which is exterior to the photographer. No two photographers share the same vision making the creation of a photographic image a unique act subject only to the limits and horizon of the photographer. The difference between Buber’s “I” and “thou” is, according to both Derrida and Levinas, much the same as the difference between the ego and the other existing in what might be called a transcendental symmetry. To me you are the other while I remain me yet to you I am the other while you remain you. This symmetry is a symmetry of difference without the ability to reduce the relationship to the same. Transcendental symmetry requires that there be a gap between two individuals that is filled with opportunities to negotiate mis-understandings, mis-representations, mis-takes and so on. It is through the mis- that one positively negotiates relationships, shuns binary oppositions as solutions, reaches out to be response-able for the other. An illusion of reality? Arnold Newman is on the right track. Another way to look at this idea is that the photograph is a supplement for the origins it is attempting to capture. If the natural world exists, an ontic question bordering on the metaphysical, it is always already not present. When witnessed by a human being what remains is a trace, neither the world itself nor the complete remembrance of that world. When a photograph is made a brief flash of time is captured, freezing an instant, 1/500th of a second for example, thereby creating an artifact of that encounter with the existential moment. The photographic image acts as a supplement for the trace being neither the moment itself nor the trace but acting to link the two in a tangible and interpretative manner. How does one encounter a photographic image? After all, the image is visual, contains no words, no sentences, no paragraphs, no linguistic structure, yet, the only way one can engage with the image is through the underlying text created as one interrogates the image itself. Language, the metaphor that enriches our visual experience, is the connection between the visual and the construction of meaning that emerges from that interrogation. Language bridges the difference between the image and the understanding. One interrogates through language, deconstructing the visual text contained within the four corners of the image itself. |
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