Part 3 - Coursework

 

Reading the chapter "Toward a hyperphotography" stimulated me. On this chapter of the book "After Photography" I wrote some reflections in this post.

I have reserved for this exercise the analysis of the paragraph "Unmasking Photo Opportunities, Cubistically".

"The contradictory "double image" is cubist; 

reality has no single truth."

(Fred Ritchin, AfterPhotography, W.W. Norton, Page 147)

Ritchin defines "contradictory double images, cubist" those images which, taking advantage of the features allowed by hyperphotography, can exhibit a different meaning. As an example, following the movement (roll over) of the cursor on the image itself, we can access, through an embedded link, information or other material that can confirm, modify or distort the meaning of the starting image.

I browsed around the Pixelpress site (http://pixelpress.org/index.html) in the contents area and deepened the observation of some contents (http://pixelpress.org/contents/content_fs.html).

I believe that even images whose meaning is simply but precisely defined by the popping up of a caption can be defined as cubist.

In the case of the work "Nuclear Nightmares" (http://pixelpress.org/chernobyl/index.html) in fact, the images of those who have been involved in the "nuclear nightmare" take on a different meaning when the caption briefly describes their personal story and the event that influenced their life. 

The caption gives us another, not necessarily controversial, point of view and, as in the case of the two sisters suffering from a brain tumor, it almost makes us enter their head and stimulates us to create another image that in our mind, we will place alongside that that we are observing at that moment.

Another example of cubist content can be, on the site "AkaKurdistan", the part that explores the story of Leyla Zana (https://www.akakurdistan.com/kurds/stories/index.html).

I remember how, following the advent of the internet and the world wide web for everyone, the development of so-called "hypertexts" substantially changed the way of reading books.

The book had become a set of "entry points", from which to start to "navigate" in hyperspace and leave the two dimensions of the printed text. 

Hyperphotography is, as well, one of the thousand medial dimensions of hyperspace, and, for this reason, it has forever changed the way of enjoying the image, no longer printed but displayed. 

This scenario led to opportunities but also constraints/problems for the professional photographer. 

I will elaborate on this topic in Assignment 3.

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, 20 July 1969, Musée de l'Élysée, Lausanne, © NASA, Washington, D. R.

For this exercise, I chose, among others, an absolutely analogue photograph, taken in 1969 with the Hasselblad cameras and Zeiss lenses supplied to the Apollo 11 mission.

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon in front of millions of spectators, connected via TV from all over the world. 

Today there are still those who dispute the veracity of this event. According to some, it is the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick who filmed man's first steps on the moon in his studios. 

Craig Tipley, an American director, in 2001 produced the documentary, "Conspiracy Theory: Have We Been to the Moon?". 

".... if there hadn't been the images, there wouldn't have been the event either ..." 

(William Karel, director of "Operation Moon", 2004). 

In this case, the dispute is based on the presence or absence of an image, not so much on its interpretation. The controversy over whether this was a mock-up image has never ended.

Anonimous, Josif Stalin with Voroshilov, Molotov e Iejov, Moscow, 1930

The retouched photo

In 1936 Nikolai Lejov becomes People's Commissar for Internal Affairs and takes over the leadership of the NKVD, the secret police. 

In December 1938, he is removed from the duties and arrested. 

He will be shot in February 1940 after being tortured. 

This is an example of retouched photography for purposes of empowerment. 

The original photograph shows Stalin with Lejov. In the retouched photo, Leiov has been removed, in what today could be a perfect exercise in digital erasing and creating a fake background. 

This practice has always been used in totalitarian regimes of every age and geographical/political location. They have shown particular techniques and the ability to modify texts, music, and artworks. 

Faced with these manipulations, it is difficult to argue in favour of analog photography as an unchangeable testimony of reality, and this statement is also confirmed by the work of authors such as Henry Peach Robinson. 

In this case, retouched photography is a message which, paradoxically, instead of modifying reality, confirms it in all its terrifying rawness: just as an uncomfortable person can be made to disappear from an image, it can be made to disappear in reality.

Oliviero Toscani, Virginal Love / Illibato love 1992, Musée de l’Élysée, Lausanne, © Oliviero Toscani

Oliviero Toscani, from 1982 to 2000, is the author of provocative and controversial advertising images. 

Virginal Love is a perfect example of a controversial image because it contrasts the carnal kiss with the solemn promises made by those who take the vows, in a predominantly Catholic Western social context. 

The reactions are violent and, for a certain period, the publication of this photo is prohibited in Italy and France, as well as the other work by Toscani which depicts Jesus suffering from AIDS.

However, in the UK this photo wins the Eurobest Award. 

In my opinion, this photograph does not need the features allowed by hyperphotography to denote all its meanings, even very uncomfortable ones. 

The viewer is literally overwhelmed with messages and meanings and is led to imagine beyond the boundaries of the image, in time and space. 

A wonderful example of a visual provocation, certainly not an end in itself.

Before any consideration, I feel the emotional involvement in reading about such a dramatic and tragic event. 

Personally, I lived for a period in Milan (in the 80s), when suicides on the subway were frequent. I remember experiencing one: up close, while I was sitting and reading on a bench, about 15 meters from a person, who would have committed suicide a few minutes later. 

I remember that psychosis was created so great that no passenger was ever waiting for the subway towards the left side of the platform (the one where the car arrives, blind to the driver): everyone was crowding towards the right side. 

The news in the New York Post describes what appeared to be a murder committed by a thug, which would later turn out to be (years later) an accident involving a drunk man. 

The dynamics, the causes, and the alleged culprit of the death of this man immediately took second place compared to the photo that was published by the same Post: in it, the victim is framed a few seconds before he is hit by the subway car. 

The theme that emerges, not so much from the event as from the way it was reported and depicted, concerns the contrast between human piety ("pietas" in Latin) and the sense of opportunity. It is what Cartier Bresson called "the decisive moment", the product of the photographer's ability and skill that must necessarily go to the detriment of "pietas"? 

The event I am analyzing is certainly an extreme case, which leads us to be wary of the photographer's thesis (he declared that he tried to avoid the tragic accident by repeatedly firing flashes at the subway driver) and to take sides without compromise. 

It is also an event that leads me to reflect on the role that I, personally, take on in the world, when I have a camera in my hands. 

Should it be ethically right that the photographic medium "separates" me from the world to the extent that, whether I am an "insider" or an "outsider", I decide independently what my duties are or rather, the way to interpret their observance?

Does the photojournalist have the only mission/duty/power to document or is he expected to intervene in the reality he photographs? 

These questions have become more and more frequent and from the moment in which we moved from the old "late photography" to more technologically advanced photography, where it is possible to depict the event at the very moment in which it occurs, and dissect it into micro-moments, which can then be disseminated a few minutes later.

Peggy Phelan, in "Atrocity and Action: The Performative Force of the Abu Ghraib Photographs", states:

"....More than other genres of photography, atrocity photographs ask us to consider: what do photographs do? What actions do they prompt? What actions do they prohibit? To other words, atrocity photographs provoke questions about reception; to an unusual degree, the significance and meaning of an atrocity photograph depend on what viewers understand, feel, and do upon encountering atrocity photographs pose questions about action in two directions. First, they ask the viewer about the actions depicted in the image: What has been done? What is still being done? And then they pose questions about the viewer's potential action: what can I do to fix this? How can I do to limit this atrocity?...".

The scenario Phelan refers to is not focused on an accident but on atrocities committed by the human being on the human being. 

However, if we keep in mind that, in the period in which the controversy about the photograph published by the Post developed, it was believed that the death of the human being was caused by another human being, we can take a cue from Phelan's text to question ourselves. 

Questions posed by Phelan to the viewer can be asked to the photographer. The roles therefore change and journalistic photography passes from the function of information and denunciation, capable of stirring the conscience of the public, to an uncomfortable role as an inappropriate product of the equally inappropriate act of a photographer accused of cynicism. 

It is no longer the role of photography in question, but of the photographer and, to paraphrase the title of Phelan's essay, of the "performative force of the photographer". As a private citizen with civic duties and the casual availability of a camera.

I believe that, when photography loses its role as a "performative force" in the face of an atrocity, the good photographer must always question himself about his personal "performative force" and react accordingly.