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Media
Part of The Old Question of Anthropology and Photography
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The Old Question of Anthropology and Photography:
Redefining the Photographic Act and Record
The notion that a photograph shows us 'what we would have seen
ourselves' has to be qualified to the point of absurdity.
had we been
there
Snyder and Allen, 1975
1
Exhibitionary Discourse
The production of photography in the Andaman
Islands in the
nineteenth century took place at a time when vision played a major role in
the emerging science of anthropology. The idea that empirical methods of
observation and experiment, based on visual inspections, are of great
importance to the development of science, remained influential in the
development of scientific photographic techniques in the late nineteenth
century. The mechanics of conducting anthropological investigations heavily
relied on the delivery of such visual data from the field. The emergent belief
in the capability of the photographic medium to render objective transcription
of scientific
data
resulted
in the development
of the application
of
photography for anthropological studies. The intensified interest in the
Andamanese was, in effect, manifested by the various
techniques
applied
in collecting
ethnographic
photographic
data from the
islands.
Significantly, the Andamans witnessed the application of all the developed
1
photographic
techniques
of
the
time.
First,
the
usefulness
of
the
photographic medium for craniological racial studies was offered by F.
Galton in his presentation of the composite photography of eight male
Andamanese skulls at the meeting of the BAAS in 1881. The early
photographs, obtained by the Andaman Committee during the survey of the
islands prior to their second colonisation, 'visually confirmed' the racial
affinity
of the
indigenous
people.
Subsequent
photographic
practices
undertaken by E.H. Man delivered very systematic visual records of the
people. The images produced by Man 'recorded' not only the physical
characteristics of the indigenous people but also various aspects of their
existence, their daily activities, tools, artefacts and architecture. Finally, the
photographic medium, as applied by M.V. Portman, attempted to, on a grand
scale, visually transcribe ethnographic information from the field. The
procedure aimed at delivering readily extractable scientific facts which could
be utilised by anthropologists pursuing studies of these 'most primitive'
people.
The advancement of early anthropology, its research methods, and
the
development
and
application
of
the
photographic
medium
anthropology, was mirrored in the 'scientific' activities of the
in
colonial
apparatus on the Andaman Islands. This is reflected in the information that
came back from the islands. The vast and various collections of photographs
from the Andaman Islands well illustrate the advancement of the medium for
anthropological purposes.
2
As we know, the photographs produced in the Andamans were
created for specific reasons and destined for a small group of specialists. But
once produced, they were donated to learned societies and museums. This
was a decisive factor in their future reception. They came to operate within
the public domain of museums and societies. As much as they operated
within these boundaries in the nineteenth century they function today within
the sphere of public viewing. The photographers' decision to donate them to
the public had significant consequences marked by the development of the
exhibitionary discourse. The nineteenth century saw the development of an
exhibitionary complex which brought together disciplines and techniques of
display
and
translated
them
into
'exhibitionary
forms,
which
in
simultaneously ordering objects for public inspection and ordering the public
that inspected, were to have a profound and lasting influence on the
subsequent
development
of museums,
art galleries, expositions,
and
department stores' (Bennett 2006: 61). When discussing the exhibitionary
complex, T. Bennett observes that its peculiarity lies in the incorporation of
principles of the Panopticon and those of the panorama. These served to
regulate the crowd by rendering it visible to itself to the point at which the
crowd becomes the ultimate spectacle. What is important is that the viewing
of objects, artefacts, or photographs in this case, was transferred from the
earlier settings of limited and privileged access to open and public viewing,
as emphasised by Bennett:
3
The formation of the exhibitionary complex involved a break with both [private
ownership and restricted access] in effecting the transfer of significant quantities of
cultural and scientific property from private into public ownership where they were
housed within institutions administered by the state for the benefit of an extended
general public.
Bennett 2006: 73
It is also worth
mentioning that the exhibitionary
complex
was
characterised by the emergence of a historicised framework for the display
of human artefacts. The evolutionary approach to displaying human and
animal specimens was widely adopted in the nineteenth century. Again,
Bennett argues that:
Yet, in the context of late-nineteenth-century imperialism, it was arguably the
employment of anthropology within the exhibitionary complex which proved most
central to its ideological functioning. For it played the crucial role of connecting the
histories of Western nations and civilizations to those of other peoples, but only by
separating the two in providing for an interrupted continuity in the order of peoples
and races - one in which 'primitive peoples' dropped out of history altogether in
order to occupy a twilight zone between nature and culture.
Bennett 2006: 77
4
We know that the Andamanese and the photographs that were taken of
them served such purposes. Their human remains and photographs were
displayed within an evolutionary series to represent and illustrate the
progress of Western societies. The Andamanese stage of development was
therein shown as a stage in history long surpassed by Western peoples.
Importantly, Andamanese photography, once included within the
museums'
boundaries,
lost
its original
purpose.
Photographs
of
the
Andamanese began to operate within the exhibitionary complex and their
uses were shaped by the changing exhibitionary discourse. Today, they
remain positioned within specific zones of access, viewing and consumption.
They form series of artefacts, photographs that can be judged by their
current appearance. If we do not have immediate access to the context of
their production, then what we are left with? Are we left with disturbing
images that form a residue of practices we cannot fully apprehend without
conducting a thorough historical investigation? What does it mean for us to
look at the images today?
As a result of the exhibitionary complex, we are
increasingly
confronted with photographic images such as the Andamanese photographs,
created over one hundred years ago, which as such could be defined as
historical
photographs.
The
explosion
of
research
and
activities
concentrating on colonial photography is evident. The dissemination of
historical photography is additionally facilitated by the development of digital
technologies and their application in the display and transmission of such
5
images by institutions ready to capitalise on the process. Anthropological
colonial photography, which can be defined as yet another capitalistic
product of the British Empire, continues to influence the existing markets of
science and art. The various historical photographic collections, scattered in
different
museums,
institutions
and
private
collections,
attract
funds
designed for their 'enhancement'. In effect, the postcolonial critique and
discourse of nineteenth century photography successfully managed to
reassess itself and semantically revaluate the historical images. It seems
that any discussion on colonial photography today should reflect the
changes which took place in our understanding of the visual in general. Such
changes occurred in relation to the deeper and more radical processes
concerning vision in particular, which emerged in the last decades of the
twentieth century in the context of the development of the media and new
visual techniques. In this process, of great significance are the shifts taking
place on the ontological plane of photography and the conversion of
photographs, previously understood as commodities burdened with the
physicality of their existence, into virtual, elusive goods, easily accessible
and deprived of their physicality, materiality, historicity and ontological
anchorage in time with all its consequences. Symptomatic here is the decline
of the spatiotemporal aspects of the visual inspection of the original images
and the accompanying loss of control over the very act of viewing. Although
such remarks may aim at explaining current processes of understanding the
photographic medium, they do not offer an explanation for the fundamental
6
question of the nature of the photographic record. To address such
elementary
questions
we
need to examine
the very
nature
of
the
photographic act itself, in general and abstract terms, and in the context of
historicism. To understand the attractiveness of the photographic medium for
early anthropology we need to examine selected aspects related to the
issues of photographic depiction and realism, the transparency of the
photographic image and the problem of the ontology and epistemology of the
photographic record. This will enable us to logically establish and define the
act of photographing, and reassess the question of objectivity of the
photographic record.
I will
present some selected
investigations
into the nature
of
photographic images in order to establish what it is that we see when we
look at a photograph at present. Our current understanding of historical,
anthropological photographs, that is our current experience of them, does
not always come together with our prior knowledge of their anthropological
context. This we achieve through the study of images and their historical
production. We do not see the anthropological knowledge embedded in
photographs, nor can we spot the ethnographic details they are supposed to
convey. That is why, first, we need to look at the photographs as images. It
is the placing of the photographs within a particular discourse, within the
mode of their production, that enables us to uncover their context within
nineteenth century anthropology. So far, the proper establishment of the
photographic records, as defined by their discursive contexts within scientific
7
positivism and nineteenth century anthropology, allow us not only to
understand the nature of anthropological photography but also to explain
that such photography was perceived to be relevant for the science of
anthropology in conveying visual information from the field. Furthermore, we
need to understand our correct recognition of the actual and current status of
historical photographs and how they function in the present. As noted earlier,
historical photographs are first and foremost photographic images. Our
initial, first and current contact with such images is not burdened with the
context of their production nor it is self-evident for what purposes such
images were produced. This is why we ought to aim at analysing the
photographic medium in a particular way that would allow us to contrast our
current understanding of such photographs with the notion of photography
presented in the photographic practices within anthropology during the
nineteenth century - to contrast current and historical receptions, although
as we know, the photographic medium is entirely contingent. I do not need
now to discuss the way anthropological photographs were constructed and
subject
to
the
conventions
of
the
discourse
of
nineteenth
century
anthropology and scientific positivism as much as they were to factors
relating to process, style and technical procedures and limitations and
indeed, the etiquette of nineteenth century photography. What we need now
is to look at the 'surface' of the images, that is, analyse them in the context
of their contemporary reception by invoking matters of aesthetics and
affectivity, and essentially asking why they still appeal to us today as
8
photographs. We ought to remember that such a position is as constructed
within exhibitionary discourses as much as reception in the nineteenth
century was determined by scientific and anthropological discourses.
From the moment of its invention, photography provoked countless
discussions on the nature of the photographic process and record, its status,
its relation to the arts, its uses and application, and the consequences of
adopting the new method for production of images. When addressing the
Royal Society in London on 31 January 1839, W.H. Fox Talbot, in his paper
'Photogenic Drawing', suggested possible applications of the photographic
1
medium. Significantly, they included the scientific application of the medium,
alongside the recording of landscapes, plants, buildings, sculptures and so
on. He explained the accuracy of the new process in imitating the real
objects although he called such produced images representations. Fox
Talbot developed the 'preserving process' for images produced by light and
thus solved the problem of their permanence. Perhaps the most striking
application of the medium suggested by him was the 'art of fixing a shadow':
The most transitory of things, a shadow, the proverbial emblem of all that is fleeting
and momentary, may be fettered by the spells of our 'natural magic', and may be
fixed for ever in the position which it seemed only destined for a single instant to
occupy. (...) Such is the fact, that we may receive on paper the fleeting shadow,
arrest it there and in the space of a single minute fix it there so firmly as to be no
more capable of change, even if thrown back into the sunbeam from which it
derived its origin.
Fox Talbot (cited in Harrison et al 1998: 252)
9
The idea of 'arresting the shadow' seems to well illustrate the
capabilities of the medium as understood at the time, the fact that
photography offered the means of recording or rather fixing subtle, minute
appearances. Two opposing, contrasting qualities, the elusive shadow and
the fixed image, both produced by light: the first understood as a
manifestation of nature, the second as the effect and proof of the value of
inductive methods of science. One could almost assume that as the shadow
is confirmation of the existence of the real physical object then the
photograph confirms the real existence of the physical reality 'reflected' in
the image.
It may be argued that, from its beginnings, the ability of photography
to record with minute precision the external appearances of objects
contributed to the development of photographic imagery based on the
principles of traditional vision defined by perspective. Pierre Bourdieu traces
the development of photography based on the logic of ordinary vision to the
social uses that were assigned to the medium at the time of its invention:
(...) because the social use of photography makes a selection, from the field of the
possible uses of photography, structured according to the categories that organize
the ordinary vision of the world, the photographic image can be seen as the precise
and objective reproduction of reality.
Bourdieu 1999: 163-164
The problem of the photographic depiction of the world in alignment
with the laws of perspective, on the one hand, led to photography being
10
conceived of as a medium capable of producing realistic and objective
records. On the other hand, it initiated the consideration of photography as
yet another means of producing pictorial representations, alongside other
branches of art. The ability of the camera to automate the process of
recording
likenesses
influenced
the
development
of various
painting
techniques and stimulated discussions on the status of the new technique
and its relation to the art of drawing and painting. In effect, such discussions
concentrated on the aesthetics of the photographic medium and its status as
a representational art. The dominant theoretical approach to photography
and painting tended to underline the dissimilarities in creating pictures by the
two techniques, which resulted in their significant differences. Thus paintings
and photographs required different methods of interpretation. The prevalent
notion explained that photography, by its mechanical and chemical nature,
confirmed the connection of photographic images with real objects whichhad
to exist in order to be depicted. If painters could depict whatever they
wanted, photographers had to record what already existed. Snyder and
Allen,
in their
article
published
in
1975
in
Critical
Inquiry
entitled
'Photography, Vision, and Representation', note that despite the fact that
modern critics believe the photographic process should be the starting point
for criticism, they 'have had very little to say about what the process is, how
it works, and what it does and doesn't guarantee' (Snyder & Allen 1975:
148). They also explain that aside from the process of mechanism, two
models of how photography works have been postulated. The first, which
11
they call the 'visual' model, stresses the supposed similarity between the
camera and the eye as optical systems, and explains that a photograph
shows us what we would have seen if we had been there ourselves. The
second they call the 'mechanical' model. This model stresses the necessary
and mechanical connection between what we see in a photograph and what
was in front of the camera. According to this model, a photograph may not
show us a scene as we ourselves would have seen it, but it is a reliable
index of what was (Snyder & Allen 1975: 149). Snyder and Allen analysed
the photographic process and showed that the notion that physical objects
themselves print their image by means of the optical and chemical action of
light is entirely wrong.
explained
that
incommensurate.
the
2
They rejected the camera-eye
processes
Snyder
and
of
seeing
Allen
and
successfully
analogy,
and
photography
are
demonstrated
what
of
photography, in relation to the processes of seeing, really is, and how we
should treat the photographic record. They also established the possibility of
analysis of photographs based on the representations embodied in them.
The longstanding discussion regarding the status of photography was
controversially overtaken by R. Scruton with the publication of his paper
'Photography and Representation'. Scruton claims that photography is not
representational because it cannot be intentional. He bases his arguments
on an analysis of the 'ideal painting' and 'ideal photograph', two logical ideal
fictions. The first analysed quality of such abstract forms was their relation to
the subject. The painting represents the subject although this does not
12
require nor guarantee that the subject exists, and if it exists, it does not
mean that the painting represents it as it is. Such ideal painting stands in
intentional relation to the subject in effect of the representational act of the
artist. The ideal photograph is a photograph of a subject which exists, and
the image shows the subject as it is. The relation between the photograph
and the subject is then causal and not intentional. The process of
representation is defined by Scruton as the process of expressing a thought
about the subject, so that 'x represents y is true only if x expresses a thought
about y. This means that the causal relation, present in photographs, cannot
be sufficient for representation. The understanding of representational
painting involves the understanding of thoughts communicated by the
painting. It is our understanding of the painting and not the independent
properties of the subject that determines what we see. According to Scruton:
'It is precisely when we have the communication of thoughts about a subject
that the concept of representation becomes applicable' (Scruton 1981: 581).
Representational art can only exist when there is an aesthetic interest which
has representation as its object. Such an aesthetic interest in painting is an
interest in it for its own sake; it is the painting that is the object of attention
and not the picture as a surrogate for its subject. The photograph stands in
causal relation to its subject and reproduces its appearance. The photograph
then is the production of a copy of the subject's appearance, and for the
viewer, 'from studying a photograph, he may come to know how something
13
looked in the same w a y he might know it if he had actually seen it' (Scruton
1 9 8 1 : 588).
Scruton defines looking at photographs as a substitute for looking at
the things themselves. T h e c o n s e q u e n c e of the causal relation between the
photograph a n d its subject is the requirement that the subject of the ideal
photograph must exist. It follows that the subject must appear roughly as it
appears in the photograph, and that its appearance in the photograph is its
a p p e a r a n c e at a particular moment of its existence. According to Scruton:
In looking at an ideal photograph, we know that we are seeing something which
actually occurred and seeing it as it appeared. Typically, therefore, our attitude
toward photography will be one of curiosity, not curiosity about the photograph but
rather about its subject. The photograph addresses itself to our desire for
knowledge of the world, knowledge of how things look or seem. The photograph is
a means to the end of seeing its subject; in painting, on the other hand, the subject
is the means to the end of its own representation. The photograph is transparent to
its subject, and if it holds our interest it does so because it acts as a surrogate for
the represented thing. Thus if one finds a photograph beautiful, it is because one
finds something beautiful in its subject. A painting may be beautiful, on the other
hand, even when it represents an ugly thing.
Scruton 1981: 590
Ideal
photography,
according
to
Scruton,
does
not
allow
the
photographer to exercise control over the image as in other representational
arts, say painting. If this occurs then the photographer becomes a painter
and 'the photograph has been reduced to a kind of frame around which he
paints' (Scruton 1981: 594). Scruton defines the history of the art of
photography as an attempt to turn a mere simulacrum into the expression of
a representational thought. He rejects the possibility of producing, through
14
the means of photography, narrative scenes with representational meanings,
as any such processes of representation must have been effected before
taking the photographs: the resulting images are merely photographs of
representations.
Such an understanding of photography must then lead directly to the
rejection of any aesthetic interest in the photograph itself; such qualities
derive not from the image but from its subject and are based on the causal
relation between the two. J. Friday, discussing documentary photography
and commenting on Scruton's observations, asks if photographs represent
the real world by providing visual simulacra of the appearance of real
objects, then are we not in some sense seeing real horror and suffering
when we look at documentary photographs? If this is the case then 'surely
aesthetic interest and attention directed to such photography would be
impossible; or if possible, morally corrupt; at the very least inappropriate'
(Friday 2000: 367). This problem of aesthetic interest has significant
consequences for our understanding of photography. If early anthropological
photographs could be defined as visual simulacra of the real objects then
they would fulfil the requirements of science in delivering facts and allowing
us to view the external reality as it existed. If sustained, the alleged
transparency of such photographic images would, in effect, have ensured
the delivery of cognitive ethnographic data by the photographic process and
explained its application in anthropology.
15
We have arrived at a definition of photography which, in Scruton's
view, equates the photographs with images produced by mirrors. The
relations governing photographs and their subjects are causal and as such
insufficient for the representational status of photography. This in turn
prevents the conceiving of photography as capable of provoking aesthetic
interest. Being the mere visual simulacra of real objects, photographs cannot
represent anything that does not actually exist; they are transparent and
fictionally incompetent. Scruton exercised his arguments on two logical
fictions, ideal photography and ideal painting, and, as observed by N.
Warburton,
Scruton's
critics
have
typically
replied
that
Scruton
has
misrepresented what actual photography is like, as he puts it:
Actual photography involves all kinds of intentional input in terms of choice of
camera, film, shutter speed, aperture and so on; it also involves choices of subject
matter, framing and numerous other aesthetically relevant matters. The result, they
claim, is that although perhaps fictionally incompetent, photography involves so
many aesthetically relevant choices that it is perverse for Scruton to maintain that
photographic representation is impossible and of less aesthetic relevance than
representation in painting.
Warburton 1996: 389
In massing his attack on Scruton's vision of photography, Warburton
characterised the above critical responses as weak and proposed his own
response based on the concept of individual style in photography. In his
opinion, a strong response to Scruton's claims must take into account the
fact that photographic artists create individual style through a number of
techniques,
'predominant
among which
16
is the selection of
particular
photographs as part of their artistic output' (Warburton 1996: 395). This
demonstrates that photography has the capacity to embody important and
aesthetically relevant intentions. He defines individual style as a distinctive
pattern of human intentions communicated through works of art and
revealing an apparent underlying artistic personality. Photographic style is
achieved only in part through the manner of taking photographs. It can be
influenced by a distinctive pattern of choices of subject matter and of image.
To uncover individual style, then, we must look at a series of images by the
same
photographer;
in
painting,
such
style
can
be
achieved
and
demonstrated within an individual work. In discerning individual style in the
photographic art of particular artists we must concentrate on the artists'
conscious selection of images as representative of their distinctive style. It is
the very possibility of individual style in photographic art that enables us to
uncover aesthetically valid intentions in photographs. Thus, as Warburton
puts it, '(Scruton's) focus on photography's alleged lack of representational
potential appears simply beside the point' (Warburton 1996: 396).
Scruton claims that we
look at photographs
in order to gain
knowledge about how real objects appear; we do not seek to encounter
other sensual experiences. Photographs for Scruton possess only qualities
that were possessed by the photographed objects themselves. Equally,
photographs evoke emotions possessed by and evoked by the subjects
recorded in the photographic image. This is because of the lack of any
manner of representation in photography, Scruton argues. The actual
17
reasons for looking at photographs are discussed in another critical account
of Scruton's article. W. King analyses such reasons and observes that the
reason for looking at photographs to gain knowledge about their subjects
can only apply to one reason for looking at photographs made as records.
He calls this a cognitive reason. King distinguishes examples of other
reasons for looking at photographs which do not concern their subjects. This
can be demonstrated by looking at photographs in order to learn about
photographic processes, for example. In his analysis of reasons for looking
at photographs, Scruton excluded the aesthetic reason simply because the
nature of photography and its status as simulacra of real objects meant, for
him, that such an aesthetic interest related to the subject and not the record
of it. King, by analysing several photographs, observes that we can have
aesthetic reasons for looking at photographs, reasons about purely abstract
features of photographs. King also notes that photographs may elicit a non¬
formal interest that would involve an interest in the ways of representing the
subject:
Contrary to Scruton, can one distinguish yet another type consisting of remarks
about the manner of representing the subject? These remarks must be about
observable features of the photograph which are controlled by the photographer,
hence, are caused by the photographer, not by the subject.
King 1992: 261
King analyses several photographs by such artists as Klein, Adams
and
Gibson.
3
His
examination
concludes
18
that
'the
photographer
systematically
becomes an additional causal agent of the photograph',
hence, 'the result, while an approximation of visual reality, is not a copy, nor
is it intended to be' (King 1992: 263). It follows then that an attention to
details in a photograph may be attention to the manner of representing the
subject and not attention to the subject itself. King concludes that 'it can be
attention to a quality possessed by the photograph that is not possessed by
the subject' thus 'some photographs can be interesting in one way that
paintings can be, namely, aesthetically interesting by virtue of the manner of
representation' (King 1992: 264).
For the sake of the argument I will consider now the extreme, that is
the aesthetic interest in documentary photography. I do not want however to
confuse anthropological photography with the documentary genre of the
medium. What I aim for at present is to ascertain the very possibility of an
aesthetic interest in photography. J. Friday, discussing the status of
documentary photography, argues that such photography, often depicting
disturbing
scenes,
can
be
understood
as art when
it manages
to
aesthetically transform the human evils it depicts into valuable meaning.
Such photographs achieve this through possessing some aesthetic qualities
drawing attention to that more general meaning. It is the aesthetic qualities
that effect the transfiguration of a particular horrifying event into a more
general moral truth (Friday 2000: 371). Friday concentrates on the question
of whether photographs representing horrific events can, as is the case in
painting, be regarded as images evoking aesthetic interest, thus functioning
19
as works of art. Friday contrasts the two interests that may be present in
looking at images: the aesthetic interest and 'demonic curiosity'. The
aesthetic interest relates to the consciousness directed toward those
qualities of an object in virtue of which it is a work of art. This includes such
properties as representation, expressiveness, form, composition, beauty,
symbolic meaning, style, novelty, and the sublime. As Friday observes,
'when such properties capture and absorb attention, such that the only
reasons for this interest constitute descriptions of those properties, the
attention is distinctively aesthetic' (Friday 200: 366). Contrasted with such
attention is demonic curiosity, essentially a pornographic stare at another
person's suffering. While aesthetic attention is structured by tradition and
understanding, demonic curiosity is structured by pathological impulse.
There are other significant differences, as Friday explains:
Another important difference is that aesthetic attention is directed to works of art for
their own sake, but demonic curiosity is directed toward representational objects
(like photographs and films) as a result of, for the sake of, and as means to the
subject matter. More simply, aesthetic attention concerns itself with, for example,
the representation of some subject matter, demonic curiosity concerns itself with the
subject matter alone. Demonic curiosity, therefore, focuses attention upon the
photograph only as a (perhaps ersatz) means to encountering the subject matter.
Friday 2000: 366
It is clear that if Scruton's definition of photography is to be sustained
then the only attention to photographs depicting disturbing scenes would
need to be attention directed by demonic curiosity. Photography, in order to
evoke the aesthetic interest, would need to transfigure the scenes it depicts.
20
Friday, by analysing photographs by Robert Capa depicting war scenes,
notes that photography is capable of exhibiting representational meaning not
possessed by the real events represented in a photograph, and provides the
source for an aesthetic interest that is not reducible to the interest in those
events. Therefore, photography can capture 'an interest that is distinct from
an interest in the subject matter' (Friday 2000: 367). This is sufficient to
counter Scruton's conclusion that an aesthetic interest in a documentary
photograph is as difficult and inappropriate as such interest in real events of
suffering and horror. Discussing the matter of indifference to the reality of the
objects and events represented as the requirement for an aesthetic interest
in representation, Friday notes that in fact it is not an essential element of an
aesthetic attention, although 'only those photographs that do in fact "say
more" than "this is what happened" are appropriately attended to for their
own sake. For without something over and above the depicted horror to
direct attention toward, the attempt to contemplate such pictures as aesthetic
objects will collapse into something at least akin to demonic curiosity' (Friday
2000: 369).
In demonstrating how disturbing photographs can evoke an aesthetic
interest Friday analyses several eminent documentary photographs: Nick
Ut's Accidental Napalm Attack (1972), Don McCullin's Shell-shocked
Soldier
(1968) and Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother (1936). He notes that Ut's
photograph must have some important aesthetic properties which allow it to
have meaning beyond being merely a visual index of the horrifying event it
21
depicts.
These
aesthetic
qualities
effect
then
the
transfiguration
of
a
horrifying particular event into a more general moral truth (Friday 2000: 371).
S u c h disturbing photographs may provide valid moral insights. A s Friday
explains:
(...) when a documentary photographer creates pictures possessing aesthetic
qualities that draw attention away from the particularity of the suffering represented,
directing it instead toward a meaning distinct from what is documented, we can
begin to discern an art of documentary photography. As spectators, we attend to
these qualities and thereby effect an imaginative transfiguration of particular evil
into moral truth and insight. The art of documentary photography, therefore,
requires an artist who can transfigure human suffering and a spectator who can
redeem this suffering, and their own attention to it, by grasping important moral
insights.
Friday 2000: 375
It is clear then that Scruton's definition of photography cannot be
sustained. His critics demonstrate that photographic representation is not
only possible but can be the intrinsic quality of the medium. W h e n w e look at
photographs w e do not simply see the subject d e p i c t e d , but also observe
other properties. This will b e c o m e much clearer w h e n I analyse some other
aspects of photographic depiction.
2
Transparency Redefined
T h e causal relation of photographs and their mechanical connections
to the objects they depict, or the 'mechanical model', as defined by Snyder
22
and Allen, provide yet more grounds for the development of the transparency
thesis proposed by Kendall Walton. According to Walton, 'the invention of
the camera gave us not just a new method of making pictures and not just
pictures of a new kind: it gave us a new way of seeing' (Walton 1984: 251).
Walton describes photography as a 'supremely realistic medium', and claims
that photography is an especially versatile aid to vision:
With the assistance of the camera, we can see not only around corners and what is
distant or small; we can also see into the past. We see long deceased ancestors
when we look at dusty snapshots of them. (...) Photographs are transparent. We
see the world through them.
Walton 1984: 251
Walton's concept of seeing underlined the mechanical aspects of the
process. To see an object is to have visual experiences which are caused by
it in a mechanical manner, hence, his statement that 'objects cause their
photographs and the visual experiences of viewers mechanically; so we see
the objects through the photographs' (Walton 1984: 261). In short, Walton
believes that there are similarities between the way visual experiences are
provided by photographs and real objects. Photographic images are factually
dependent on the scenes they depict, and this dependence is not mediated
by the intentional states of any intermediary agents.
Such claims of photographic transparency have been aired before, as
expressed by R. Barthes and A. Bazin for example, and have a long
tradition. The transparency thesis is of great interest and significance to
23
aestheticians
and
their
explorations
of
the
aesthetic
properties
of
photography. As we recall, an aesthetic interest in an object is an interest for
its own sake, therefore, such an aesthetic interest in a photograph, for
example, would need to be directed to the photograph itself. It cannot be
directed beyond the image itself and cannot concern the subject of the
photograph. If Walton's claims were to be sustained and photographs were
transparent, so we can see objects through them, then our interest in
photographs could not be described as an aesthetic interest in the pictures
themselves. We have seen that such claims of photographic transparency
provided for Scruton the basis for his claim that photography is not a
representational art.
Walton's
4
transparency
thesis
provoked
numerous
responses.
Warburton criticises it by emphasising distinctions between ordinary seeing
and seeing objects through photographs. Friday, however, does not think
this critique adequate as a refutation of Walton' claims. Instead, he suggests
his own criticism based on the analysis of two types of causal theory,
representationalist and realist. In Friday's view, 'the intuition that we can
quite literally see through photographs is the result of confusing an attitude
towards what is seen with a 'new way of seeing". To say that a photogr aph is
transparent is to characterize the attitude we have to the causally produced
picture we see' (Friday 1996: 40). Scott Walden in his article 'Objectivity in
Photography'
defends
Walton's
idea
that
the
lack
of
mental-state
involvement in the formation of photographic images is a quality that sets
24
them apart from handmade images. Walden argues that the viewers'
knowledge of the objective character of the photographic process provides
them with a special warrant for the acceptance of first-order perceptual
5
beliefs formed as a result of viewing photographic images. Walden does not
qualify the photographers' involvement during the photographic process as
primary mental-state involvements, thus, as he explains:
(...) a viewer of a typical photograph forms first-order perceptual beliefs about
various features of the original scene, and at the same time possesses a secondorder belief that those perceptual beliefs were formed on the basis of an image that
was formed without primary mental-state involvement.
Walden 2005: 271
Walton's transparency thesis did not convince many, and its critique,
provided by J. Cohen and A. Meskin, is yet another voice on the subject. We
recall that Walton claimed that photographs are like other transparent visual
prostheses, such as mirrors, telescopes or microscopes. To reject his claims
would require the presenting of differences between photography and such
visual prostheses. Cohen and Meskin aim then at rejecting Walton's
transparency thesis by explaining the difference between seeing objects in
6
photographs and seeing objects in mirrors or through other visual aids. As
the authors note, the usual line of rejecting the transparency thesis involves
defining the seeing of an object in such a way that it includes the
representation of information about a spatial relation between the one who
sees and the seen object, 'a necessary requirement for x's seeing y is that x
25
represents information about the spatial relations between x and y' (Cohen &
Meskin 2004: 198). This requirement in the process of seeing in particular
7
has been proposed by Carroll and Currie. Cohen and Meskin propose the
dropping of this requirement, as it does not lead to a convincing rejection of
Walton's transparency thesis. Instead, retaining Currie's and
Carroll's
insights that spatial information is the key to resisting transparency, they
propose the development of a model of egocentric spatial information that
does not place doxastic requirements (requirements about what the agent
believes or knows) on seeing. Thus, they propose:
(...) that neither belief nor knowledge about the egocentric spatial location of an
object is a necessary condition for seeing it, but instead that what is essential is that
the relevant visual experience is produced by a process that carries egocentric
spatial information about the object. That is, x sees y through a visual process z
only if z carries information about the egocentric location of y with respect to x.
Cohen and Meskin 2004: 2 0 1
By defining the process of seeing in such a way, they state that
mirrors are transparent in Walton's sense because they carry egocentric
spatial information about the objects perceived (information about the spatial
and temporal relations between the object seen and ourselves); photographs
are not transparent 'insofar as the visual process of looking at photographs
fails to carry egocentric spatial information about their depicta' (Cohen and
Meskin 2004: 201). In other words, neither knowledge nor belief about the
location of the object is necessary for ordinary seeing; what is essential to
seeing is that the relevant visual experience is produced by a process that
26
carries information about the egocentric spatial information of the perceived
object.
Cohen and Meskin also address the question of the epistemic value
of photographs; why are photographs epistemically special in a way that
other sorts of depictive representations are not? In answering the question,
they define photographs as spatially agnostic informants, that is photographs
convey
information
about
the
visually
accessible
properties
of
the
representational object without conveying information about the egocentric
location of the representational object:
Photographs are epistemically valuable because they constitute a relatively
undemanding source of information about the visually accessible properties of
objects - one that works even when we lack information about egocentric location.
Cohen and Meskin 2004: 204
Cohen and Meskin then developed a definition of seeing whereby an
object is seen only if our contact with that object comes through a process
that is a reliable source of egocentric spatial information. It is because
photographs never provide such information that we do not see through
them.
So far, I have been discussing matters related to photographic
transparency and the ability of photographs to evoke aesthetic attention the aesthetic context now is not what it was in the nineteenth century. This, I
assumed, would help us understand the photographic medium and ascertain
the nature of the photographic image. I have been trying to present a view
27
according to which I have, if only partially, been able to revoke the notion
that photographs are transparent and fictionally incompetent. But this is a
complicated task and the weight of the presented arguments can be
disputed. That is why I propose to adopt a view developed and expressed by
Dominic McIver Lopes, which is a compromise between the two opposite
positions. In short, Lopes accepts that when looking at photographs we
literally see the objects they are of, and that seeing photographs as
photographs engages aesthetic interests that are not engaged by seeing the
8
objects they are of. Although at first Lopes' thesis may seem incompatible,
when correctly understood it provides a plausible solution to our problem,
and allows us to move forward to analysing the photographic process, or
simply
photography,
as consisting
of the
photographic
act and
the
photographic record. Moreover, Lopes' analysis discusses the claims of both
Scruton and Walton, thus providing a comprehensive response on the
subject.
Defending
transparency
Walton's
is sometimes
transparency
thesis,
Lopes
notes
that
confused with
illusion. Seeing through
a
photograph happens simultaneously with seeing the photographic surface
itself and, as emphasised by Lopes, 'is consistent with the belief that what is
before
one's
eyes
is
a
photograph,
not
the
photographed
object.
Photographic transparency is not photographic invisibility' (Lopes 2003:
440). Another misunderstanding is caused by confusing transparency with
photographic accuracy. According to Lopes, photographs, in one sense, are
28
accurate because they carry information by means of the causal process.
But they may also be inaccurate since they may cause one to have false
beliefs about the photographed objects. He also highlights the mistake of
thinking that transparency rules out the photographer's interventions or the
role of photographic conventions in the photographic process. Lopes
develops his thesis by showing that seeing an object through a photograph
is not
identical
to seeing the object face-to-face,
and this
has
its
consequences:
The transparency claim shows only that the interest one may properly take in
seeing a photograph as a photograph is necessarily identical to the interest one
may properly take in seeing the photographed object through the photograph. It
does not show that interest to be necessarily identical to any interest one may have
in seeing the object face-to-face.
Lopes 2003: 441
This allows Lopes to state that if seeing an object through a
photograph is not identical to seeing the object face-to-face then an interest
in seeing the object through a photograph may not be satisfied by seeing the
same object face-to-face. He lists several factors that set seeing an object
through a photograph apart from seeing the object face-to-face. This, as well
as other factors, includes seeing properties in the photographed object which
are not normally revealed when we see the same objects face-to-face;
second, photographic seeing through bridges the spatial and temporal
distances; third, seeing through photographs decontextualises; fourth, the
camera may intrude upon or disturb what it photographs, thus the presence
29
of the camera is an essential part of the context in which we see
photographically; finally, seeing through photographs is always twofold, it
melds seeing the photographed object and its properties with seeing the
photograph itself and its properties (Lopes 2003: 443). Having in mind the
transformation caused by the above-listed factors, Lopes argues that:
Photographs can promote clear seeing, foregrounding features of objects that are
difficult to discern face-to-face. In some cases they are able to do this because they
show objects removed from their temporal and environmental contexts, when these
contexts make some properties of objects difficult to discern. In other cases, the
absence of the object is crucial: for example, we might notice features of a very
dangerous or disturbing object that we could not notice in the presence of danger or
disturbance. Finally, features of the photographic surface can be used to highlight
features of the photographed object. (...) In addition, photographs afford revelatory,
transformative, defamiliarizing, or confessional seeing when they show us objects
as having properties that they could not be seen to have face-to-face.
Lopes 2003: 444
To summarise, Lopes redefines the transparency of photographic
images and observes that our interest in seeing objects through photographs
is not identical to the interest we have in seeing the objects face-to-face.
Lopes brings to our attention the changes in some properties of objects that
can take place in effect of different factors intrinsic to the photographic
medium. This allows Lopes to underline that any aesthetic interest in a
photograph is not an interest in the scene or objects depicted but in the
scene or objects as seen through photographs. Our aesthetic interest in a
photograph 'is an interest in the photograph as it enables seeing through. It
is an interest that photographs can foster and satisfy and face-to-face seeing
30
cannot' (Lopes 2003: 445). Photographs then, when seen as photographs,
engage a genuine aesthetic interest. Lopes successfully demonstrates the
falseness of Scruton's claim that our interest in photographs is limited to an
interest in the actual objects depicted, and allows for an aesthetic interest in
photographs which, although transparent, do not show the depicted objects
as we would have seen them in face-to-face inspection.
3
Contingency of Perception
I have been examining the question of the photographic record, its
transparency and the possibility of an aesthetic interest in photographs. My
investigations have concentrated on the aspects of visual inspection of
photographs, and as such were concerned with what we see when we look
at a photograph. To conclude my examinations I will briefly reflect on the
problem of perception and its historicity. This is why we need to address the
widely discussed matter of the transformation of perception thesis. According
to the thesis, modernity is characterised by a new kind of perception. It
claims that the faculty of perception changed some time around the late
nineteenth century and early twentieth century in relation to photography and
9
cinema. As observed by Noël Carroll:
Modernity, in other words, brings forth a new kind of perceiver, one of whose major
modes is exemplified by the Baudelairean flaneur who is, according to Crary, "a
mobile consumer of a ceaseless succession of illusory commodity-like images".
Wandering through the rapidly expanding cities of late-nineteenth - and twentiethcentury modernity, these ambulatory observers are constantly shifting their attention
31
from one thing to another - from one event, scene, sensation, spectacle, or product
to the next.
Carroll 2001: 13
Crary, in his work Techniques
of the Observer,
notes that problems
concerned with vision, attention and those related to the possibility of
controlling
visual/sensual
experiences
were
widely
nineteenth century, and underwent rapid development.
10
discussed
in
the
Crary demonstrates
how historical transformations in ideas about vision were inseparable from a
larger reshaping of subjectivity that concerned not optical experiences but
processes
of
modernisation
Suspensions
of
Perception:
and
rationalisation.
As
he
says
in
the
One of the most important nineteenth-century developments in the history of
perception was the relatively sudden emergence of models of subjective vision in a
wide range of disciplines during the period 1810-1840. Dominant discourses and
practices of vision, within the space of a few decades, effectively broke with a
classical regime of visuality and grounded the truth of vision in the density and
materiality of the body. One of the consequences of this shift was that the
functioning of vision became dependent on the complex and contingent
physiological makeup of the observer, rendering vision faulty, unreliable, and, it was
sometimes argued, arbitrary.
Crary 2001: 1 2
11
Crary continues his argument by stating that the emergence of the
idea of subjective vision was the condition for the historical emergence of
notions of autonomous vision. The determining of vision as lying in the body
allowed then for the development of techniques aimed at its controlling and
stimulating. This had its consequences, as stated by Crary:
32
The disintegration of an indisputable distinction between interior and exterior
becomes a condition for the emergence of spectacular modernizing culture and for
a dramatic expansion of the possibilities of aesthetic experience. The relocation of
perception (as well as processes and functions previously assumed to be "mental")
in the thickness of the body was a precondition for the instrumentalizing of human
vision as a component of machinic arrangements; but it also stands behind the
astonishing burst of visual invention and experimentation in European art in the
second half of the nineteenth century.
Crary 2001: 13
The problem of attention, in the nineteenth century, becomes a
fundamentally new object within the modernisation of subjectivity. Crary
argues that 'part of the cultural logic of capitalism demands that we accept
as natural switching our attention rapidly from one thing to another' (Crary
2 0 0 1 : 30). But is this enough to postulate the changes in our perception,
taking place at some deeper level?
The modernity thesis has been criticised on several occasions.
12
N.
Carroll notes that the postulated changes in perception cannot take place on
evolutionary grounds. Such changes in the faculty of perception reflect
changes concerned with attention which occurred 'as a result of the situation
of modernity, not as a result of the process of natural selection' (Carroll
2 0 0 1 : 13). It is often claimed that the modern city bombarded people with
things they wanted to see, resulting in a specific mode of attention switching.
Carroll rejects such claims, stating that the human perceptual apparatus, at
the level of anatomical and physiological structure, is constantly in motion,
and even if the modern city gave us more to scan, the faculty of perception
was already calibrated for rapid attention shifting, it only engaged the faculty
33
of perception further in a long-familiar activity (Carroll 2001: 14). The idea
that human vision changes over history was also challenged by Arthur
Danton in his article 'Seeing and Showing', wherein he establishes that
perception is cognitively impenetrable, and as such does not have a history.
The idea that we see pictures differently is an obvious one but it is usually
claimed that the differences are not the effect of changes occurring in the
faculty of perception. They might be the effects of the conceptual content of
perception, differences in conceptual backgrounds and enculturation.
Carroll also emphasises the consequences of adopting the modernity
thesis. If such changes occurred, as claimed by its proponents, then the
thesis would contradict some long established, influenced and accepted
beliefs. As Carroll puts it:
There can be little doubt that, at least most of the time, authors like Crary believe
that the modernity thesis contradicts "a persistent, and most often unexamined,
Kantian prejudice that perceptual and cognitive capacities are ahistorical; that is,
they are unchanging and permanent, and most significantly independent of an
external social/technological milieu that is in constant flux".
Carroll 2001: 13
We may not succeed in determining whether the postulated plasticity
of eye and the historicity of perception is the effect of some changes in the
faculty of our perception which occurred some time in the nineteenth
century. But we need to agree that people do see the same things differently
at the level of conceptual content of perception, which could be the effects of
differences in conceptual backgrounds and enculturation. Evaluations of
pictures and photographs include all sorts of mental processes. Some of
34
them expose the historical contingency of our experiences. Others reflect
differences at the level of the semiotics of images, their connotations and
denotations, which are often culturally determined.
The problem of evaluating pictures and their different readings can be
regarded as a fundamental intrinsic value of photographs. We experience
this problem each time we look at photographic images. It is often our
assumption, whether conscious or not, of the logical continuity of events
taking place in the real world, before as well as after the act of
photographing, that forces us to assign available meanings to a particular
photograph. It seems that our assigning of meanings stems from our desire
to place a particular photograph, persistently understood as the recorded
fraction of the past-present,
within that continuity fictionally constructed by
the viewer in the very specific and present-present
act of looking at
photographs. Otherwise, they remain meaningless objects without histories.
To assign a meaning is to interpret. To interpret is to speak, whether to
yourself or to others. To speak is to re-invent and re-create, to construct
again the world and histories. This re-invention can only be executed within
the process of interpreting a particular image, a photograph. The process
itself is always taking place in the viewer's very specific present-present
act
with all its consequences. To this extent, such constructed images can only
exist while they are being viewed. Each time we look at a photograph, we re¬
engage ourselves, and we construct the image again, and again, through the
process of reading it and speaking about it. Thus ambiguous photographs
35
can only exist during and within that process. If taken outside, they remain
meaningless objects without histories. Our personal construction of meaning
is partly achieved through and is dependent on the photographer's act.
Again, we are confronted with the impediment of time. We remain unable to
escape the notion of time locked in a photograph by the very act of capturing
the image - photographing - which itself relies and depends on time. We
look at the captured fracture
of the past-present
conception of then the present-present
through
another's
during the act of taking the photo. We
ignore the fact of being removed from the setting, act and time of detaining
the frame, being instead faced with the context of viewing the finished
photograph. For there is an ontological gap impossible to bridge. In effect,
what we see is not the past-present
nor is it the act of someone else's
construction of the then present-present,
but an autonomous entity that
belongs to our reality. In consequence, a photograph can only be understood
in terms of its own internal aesthetic organisation. A photograph derives from
rather than being of. There cannot be logical continuity of meaning or
expression within a photograph. Obviously, some meanings of images may
be and are distorted in the sense that they might have already been
subjected to previous readings, thus meanings have been assigned and
recorded. This can take the form of a caption, note, or so-called history of
the image, and so on. In constructing the act of assigning meaning,
photographs often provide the basis for a historical analysis and support
diverse claims. Theories defending the idea of the referential properties of
36
the photographic image exploit the concept of its indexical nature. Such
views employ a historical application of the medium to provide not only
answers to how things used to exist but also how they were seen and
recorded. This is achieved by presupposing that the reality, being an
external entity, is available for an objective confirmation through an act of
photography.
Our aesthetic evaluation of photographs also depends on our
intellectual equipment. In other words, our aesthetic experience is historically
contingent.
B. Rosebury
recently aired such a claim, for
example.
13
Rosebury maintains that 'each of us is situated at a unique point in space
and time from which we imagine a personal and collective history, and our
enjoyment of any object of aesthetic attention is capable of being influenced
by associations, that is, by our locating it within some part of that imagined
history' (Rosebury 2000: 77). Our own and unique anchorage in personal
and collective history affects the process of contemplation of works of arts.
The idea may seem straightforward but in fact it may also conflict with some
beliefs which 'dispose us to exclude associations from the realm of
aesthetics' (Rosebury 2000: 73). Among such beliefs Rosebury lists Kant's
claim that aesthetic judgment is disinterested, formalist doctrines of the
sufficiency of form for aesthetic experience and the autonomy of aesthetic
emotion from the emotions of historical life, and, the commonsense reflection
that the work of art we are contemplating must be enjoyed and valued for
what it is, and not for some other arbitrary reason. Rosebury attempts to
37
reconcile these arguments. He aims at emphasising that such personal
associations may in fact enhance rather then diminish the value of works of
art we contemplate. As he puts it:
The human aesthetic life, like (for example) the human sexual life, has as its motive
force an appetite which for its own purposes selects, combines, and assigns value
to elements of the contingency that surrounds us at a given time. The person for
whom we feel sexual desire, and a fortiori the person with whom we fall in love, is
constituted to our imagination, at least in part, by a confection of his or her social,
cultural, and other historically contingent attributes and not merely by ahistorical
properties of body and soul. The aesthetic faculty, I believe, is characterised by a
similar rapacious openness, capacity for synthesis, and need for the authenticity of
spontaneity. In contemplating a work of art, as in loving or desiring another person,
we focus intently upon a single object, but its value to us is enhanced, rather than
diminished, by our seeing it from and through and in the light of the imagination
which for each of us is given content by our personal and collective 'history'.
Rosebury 2000: 88
This claim Rosebury makes seems to well characterise and confirm the role
of our own personal settings in the contemplation of works of art. The fact
partly explains the differences which occur at the level of conceptual
evaluation of images, leaving aside the issue of whether there are any
changes in the faculty of perception at an anatomical level.
I started my investigation into the photographic medium by explaining
and rejecting the camera-eye analogy. I rejected Scruton's claim of the
transparency of photography and ascertained that an aesthetic interest in
photographs is possible. I have redefined the transparency thesis proposed
by Walton. This has enabled me to conclude that photographs, although
transparent, do not show the depicted objects as we would have seen them
in face-to-face inspection, and as such they engage a genuine aesthetic
38
interest. I have also examined the issue of historicity of perception,
concluding that our contemplation of images is personally unique and
historically contingent. All this allows us to determine the nature of the
photographic record in relation to what we see when we look at a given
photograph. We now need to establish what cognitive and moral values can
be distinguished in the photographs which are the object of my investigation.
An examination of the photographic act and record will enable us to
determine what, if any, historical values are embodied in the photographs.
All this will permit us to reassess the nineteenth century photographs we are
studying and their historicism.
1
The title of Fox Talbot's paper was 'Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing, or,
The Process by Which Natural Objects May Be Made to Delineate Themselves without the
Aid of the Artist's Pencil'.
Such a claim was made by Rudolf Arnheim and others critics of photography. Snyder and
Allen concluded: 'It is the light reflected by the objects and refracted by the lens which is the
agent in the process, not "the physical objects themselves. These "physical objects' do not
have a single "image" - "their image"- but, rather, the camera can manipulate the reflected
light to create an infinite number of images. For details see: Joel Snyder and Neil Walsh
Allen, 'Photography, Vision, and Representation', Critical Inquiry, Vol. 2, No.1, 1975, 143¬
169.
For details of the works analysed see William L. King 'Scruton and Reasons for Looking at
Photographs', British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 32, No. 3, 1992, 258-265.
For a discussion on Walton's thesis and its reference to Scruton's claim see for example:
Cohen and Meskin 2004; Friday 1996; Lopes 2003; Walden 2005 and Warburton 1988.
For details see: Scott Walden 'Objectivity in Photography' British Journal of Aesthetics,
Vol. 45, No. 3, July 2005, 258-272.
For details see: Jonathan Cohen and Aaron Meskin 'On the Epistemic Value of
Photographs' The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 62: 2, Spring 2004, 197-210.
For details see: Noël Carroll, Theorizing the Moving Image, Cambridge University Press,
1996; Gregory Currie, Image and Mind: Film, Philosophy, and Cognitive
Science,
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
For details see: Dominic Mclver Lopes 'The Aesthetics of Photographic Transparency',
Mind, Vol. 112, No. 447, July 2003, 433-448.
Proponents of the thesis include, among other authors, Walter Benjamin and his
publication "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Illuminations, trans.
Harry Zohn, New York: Schocken Books, 1969; and Jonathan Crary and his publication
2
3
4
5
6
6
7
8
9
9
39
Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century, MIT Press
1992.
For details see: Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in
the Nineteenth Century, MIT Press: 1992.
For details see: Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and
Modern Culture, MIT Press: 2001.
See for example: Arthur C. Danto 'Seeing and Showing', The Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism, 59: 1, Winter 2001, pp. 1-9; and Noël Carroll 'Modernity and the Plasticity of
Perception', The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 59: 1, Winter 2001, pp. 11 -17.
For details see: Brian Rosebury: 'The Historical Contingency of Aesthetic Experience',
British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 40, No. 1, January 2000, pp. 73-88.
1 0
11
1 2
1 3
40