This essay was written for my Major Research Project during my undergraduate programme.
Spring 2022.
In my previous essay, I explored image and text relations within contemporary photobooks. My writing focussed predominantly on three books that, in my opinion, are seminal to the conversation of image and text relations within the contemporary photographic practice: Aaron Schuman’s Slant, Justine Kurland’s Girl Pictures, and William Eggleston’s William Eggleston’s Guide. All three of these books utilise the image-text relationship uniquely and successfully. In conclusion to that essay, I surmised that, despite all three of them using the image-text relationship differently, all three of them prove how the two modes of communication can be united in a powerful and meaningful way, and also how the two, when entwined, can change the world around us.
Here, I will turn my attention away from the book-form specifically and take a broader look at how the two modes of communication as well as other contextual information does (or does not) affect the reading of contemporary photography. I will be using theories from key academics and philosophers to explore these ideas as well as looking introspectively at my own work and how I can and am exploring the ideas I uncover here, within my own practice. I do not necessarily expect to break new ground with the theories that I will be exploring, instead I want to further my own understanding and produce a body of work that can be used as a learning tool within the field of understanding photography’s relationship with the surrounding world.
Throughout this essay, I will be referring to “the reader” at various times despite whether I am speaking about visual or textual based works. This is predominantly to maintain simplicity and ease of reading throughout. It also aligns with my belief that we do not view photographs or other visual works of art; we read them. We must spend the time seeing every detail and understanding what we see, just as one would do when reading literature or poetry.
The essay will be split into four key parts:
Chapter 1: Text as Photograph. In this chapter I will be discussing whether or not textual pieces can be considered photographs and in turn the effect that this may have on the reading of the works.
Chapter 2: The Combination of Text and Image. Here, I will be discussing how the pairing of visual and textual based pieces effects the reading of contemporary photographic works and will be using theoretical references from Prof. Dr Karen Fromm, W.J.T. Mitchell, Susan Sontag, and others to back my ideas up.
Chapter 3: How alternate contextual information can affect the reading of art. In the final chapter I will continue to use theoretical references to explore how other contextual pieces of information such as the gallery space and cultural or historical understanding effects the reading of contemporary photographic works.
Chapter 1: Text as photograph.
I initially began this chapter by trying to define the word ‘photograph’ or ‘photography’ to which I was led to the definition of “a picture produced by photography” (www.dictionary.com, n.d.) – not helpful, and then the little more sympathetic Cambridge Dictionary definition “a picture produced using a camera” (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.) again, not helpful. Yet, I do not believe this is the route I should be taking. Instead, I should be searching for the definition of photography as a concept. The two mentioned definitions of the word photography show complete disregard for the cameraless photographic (!) practices of cyanotypes and photograms. And I find it challenging to call Man Ray’s photograms (or rayographs has he would have preferred them to be referenced as (Tate, n.d.)) as anything less than exquisite photography. So, what does make a photograph?
In the momentous, The Photobook: A History Volume II, Martin Parr and Gerry Badger conclude the book by speaking about Alexander Honory’s The Lost Pictures. They describe Honory’s work as “the ultimate photobook” (Parr and Badger, 2004, p.326), which (surprise!) contains no photographs! Instead, only text – poetry – acting as mnemonics for the images that are/were lost. Some short – “boy, pistol, tree” – some protracted – “young women, long skirt, white blouse, long necklace, earring, red lips, young soldier, two medals” (Parr and Badger, 2004, p.326).
Figure 1: Photography depicting The Lost Pictures
Parr and Badger’s commendation of this book opens so many questions and undoubtedly confirms that to be a photograph, the camera does not need to be involved. Perhaps, as alluded to by Barthes in his 1967 essay The Death of The Author, it is the image produced in one’s imagination upon viewing the reference source material, with the help of their past lived experiences, that is the true photograph (Barthes and Heath, 1977)?
The best (most tenable) definition of the concept of photography I have come across thus far comes from the Victoria and Albert Museum:
“The essence of photography lies in its seemingly magical ability to fix shadows on light-sensitive surfaces. Normally, this requires a camera, but not always” (Victoria and Albert Museum, 2011).
On the surface, this definition seems valid yet it’s easy to pick holes in its rationale. The statement allows us to interpret that text printed using the digital chromogenic printing technique – a printing approach in which light-sensitive paper is exposed using lasers or LEDs and then developed in traditional darkroom chemicals – are photographs and, in contrast, allows us to draw the conclusion that text printed through inkjet routes (ink-based) are paintings. However, this seems comically obtuse due to its deep insensitivity toward the skill and prowess required in the medium of painting.
Another aspect to approach the scrutiny of the photograph is by looking at the likes of photo and video sharing social media platforms such as Instagram. It is possible to share text and other language mediums through the photo sharing platform so, does this – by default – categorise that text (or other language medium) as a photograph (or photo)? Below is an example of when I have explored the functionality of text-based pieces via Instagram.
The best (most tenable) definition of the concept of photography I have come across thus far comes from the Victoria and Albert Museum:
“The essence of photography lies in its seemingly magical ability to fix shadows on light-sensitive surfaces. Normally, this requires a camera, but not always” (Victoria and Albert Museum, 2011).
On the surface, this definition seems valid yet it’s easy to pick holes in its rationale. The statement allows us to interpret that text printed using the digital chromogenic printing technique – a printing approach in which light-sensitive paper is exposed using lasers or LEDs and then developed in traditional darkroom chemicals – are photographs and, in contrast, allows us to draw the conclusion that text printed through inkjet routes (ink-based) are paintings. However, this seems comically obtuse due to its deep insensitivity toward the skill and prowess required in the medium of painting.
Another aspect to approach the scrutiny of the photograph is by looking at the likes of photo and video sharing social media platforms such as Instagram. It is possible to share text and other language mediums through the photo sharing platform so, does this – by default – categorise that text (or other language medium) as a photograph (or photo)? Below is an example of when I have explored the functionality of text-based pieces via Instagram.
Figure 2: Screenshot illustrating my personal experimentation with sharing text-based works via Instagram
Perhaps the best definition of photography is to create image.
Text is encompassed in its ability to create an image in a reader’s mind; visual photography is contained in its ability to show an image. In the essay Context Matters: Image and Text in the Works of Allan Sekula and Martha Rosler, Prof. Dr Karen Fromm suggests an agreement with this sensibility when discussing contemporary documentary practices within photography:
“On the one hand there is an interest in presenting the topic in a comprehensive and sophisticated form by combining various forms of imagery (which may be texts and documents as well as photographs)” (Fromm, 2021).
Returning to The Death of The Author, Barthes argues that the reader is the true author of a body of work. It is their lives experiences, beliefs and thought processes that bring the final meaning to what they’re reading (or seeing), thus constructing its ultimate value (Barthes and Heath, 1977). This suggests that the image is not what is given but what is perceived.
In my own practice, I have a series of text-based pieces that live alongside visual-based pieces. The text-based works are formulated by viewing the visual-based pieces as a whole, drawing on past experiences, and referencing classical romanticism writing inspired by poetry and lyrics in the interest of creating a visual representation (image) within the reader’s psyche. This will be discussed further in chapter 2.
Chapter 2: The Combination of Text and Image.
Having explored text as a photograph and outlined my own definition of the photographic image as a concept, we can now delve further into the pairing of images with text and what effect this has on the readers perception of the work.
In the essay Context Matters: Image and Text in the Works of Allan Sekula and Martha Rosler, Dr Karen Fromm explains the following quote taken from Sekula’s 1978 essay Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary (Notes on the Politics of Representation) (Fromm, 2021)
“These artists, on the other hand, openly bracket their photographs with language, using text to anchor, contradict, reinforce, subvert, complement, particularize, or go beyond the meanings offered by the images themselves. These pictures are often located within an extended narrative structure” (Sekula, 1978, p.866)
Fromm highlights that Sekula is perhaps suggesting “a means to burst the bubble of photographic illusionism” (Fromm, 2021). This means that photographs on their own create and illusion of being objective when in fact this is not true (creating illusion). By bracketing photography with language one can break this illusion and offer more detail that would have been readily available. An excellent example of pictures being located within an extended narrative structure is found within Justine Kurland’s Girl Pictures. The visual work is prefaced by a short story by Rebecca Bengal titled, The Jeremys. This short story briefly allows us into the lives, thoughts, and feelings of the girls that we are about to encounter on the following pages. In my previous essay I argued that the inclusion of the short story – that gives further biographical information to the characters in the photographs – makes for a better experience of the book as a whole and that I believe the spine and cover should not only bear Kurland’s name but also Bengals as it is the combination of the two mediums that creates such a compelling body of work.
Furthermore, in the book Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology art historian W.J.T. Mitchell speaks on how words and images seem to become implicated in a “war of signs” (Mitchell, 2009, p.47) similar to that found in the paragone debate of the Italian Renaissance. The paragone (the Italian word for comparison) debate refers to several theoretical comparisons and debates that occurred within 16th century Italy including painting Vs literature but most famous for the wrangling of painting Vs sculpture and now, seemingly, images Vs text.
This “war of signs” theory is seminal to my practice. It is the scrutiny of the two communication devices that I am most interested in as opposed to any narrative or documentary based presupposition.
My current practice is constructed with two fundamental ideologies, as discussed at the end of chapter 1. The first is visual works that are partially built narratives and partly based on lived experiences—the second being text-based pieces – poetic but not poems – that is again based on similar themes to the visual works but hover deeper into romanticism. Both mediums influence the construction of one another.
The work is currently segmented into three versions presented in three working book maquettes:
Maquette 1: Visual pieces read with text pieces.
Maquette 2: Visual pieces separate from text pieces.
Maquette 3: Text pieces separate form visual pieces.
It is Maquette 1 that I want to focus my attention on within this chapter. Maquettes 2 & 3 will be covered in the following chapter.
In On Photography Susan Sontag states how in “bureaucratic cataloguing of the world, many important documents are not valid unless have, affixed to them, a photograph-token of the citizen’s face” (Sontag, 1979, p.21, 22). In other words, even in such an important setting as “bureaucratic cataloguing” there is still a need for a visual component to a narrative in order to create a whole (of course, things have changed since 1979 and other visual artifacts such as fingerprinting and facial recognition software are now employed but the sentiment is still the same). Sontag further backs this up by saying “The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: ‘There is the surface. Now think – or rather feel, intuit – what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way” (Sontag, 1979, p.23). By this, Sontag is inferring that the photographic or the visual does not present the whole as there is no such thing as the objective truth in photographic terms, or as W.J.T. Mitchell states images are “like an actor on the historical stage” (Mitchell, 2009, p.9), representing history but not quite being wholly truthful. Instead, we must use other communicative devices to further our understanding of what we are viewing, and only then will we begin to glimpse at what is – or what is trying – to be inferred. This echoes back to Sekula’s thoughts on bracketing photographs with language as a way to reinforce their meanings (Sekula, 1978, p.866).
In Maquette 1, my text-based pieces are interwoven between the visual-based pieces, actively changing the reading of what has been viewed and what is to be viewed. For example, by placing the words “when will it (?) happen” on the preceding spread of a pair of jeans hung on a tree, one can infer potentially sexualised connotations or, differently, thoughts reminiscent of a changing mindset. Less on the nose examples can also be utilised to create cognitive dissonance in a reader’s mind, such as placing a text piece reading “(when I’m with you) the world keeps turning, but for a second, I stop spinning” ahead of a visual piece illustrating a tree trunk tabling a brick.
Figure 3: Digital mock-up depicting the pairing of visual with textual work within my own practice.
Aaron Schuman’s 2019 book Slant is a key example of this dissonance of harmony. By purposefully separating what could be considered consensual relationships between text (newspaper clippings taken from a local Amherst, Massachusetts paper) and visual (wry, black and white, modernist documentary style photography) works it allows the reader to have freedom and responsibility toward constructing the narratives within the work. This freedom and responsibility of narrative awarded to the reader can also be offered in greater permission through other construction systems such as the binding of a book or layout (or lack of cohesion) within a gallery space. For example, by not binding the paper sheets in a book or not creating a distinct route around a gallery space, the reader can manipulate the allegory of a piece of work in 3D space. The ambiguous use and companionship of visual and text based pieces can be very effective when utilised with thought and consideration.
Another example, in attitude as opposed to structure, in which image and text relations have been concerned and thus influenced my practice is Connor Franta’s 2021 book House Fires. House Fires is a collection of essays, photographs, and poems amassed into a memoir exploring love, sex, depression, friendships, and the importance of not letting your thoughts appear as though they are reality. Surprisingly, despite Franta’s combined count of over 20 million followers across all social media platforms, there is not a tremendous amount of press discussing the book. However, this may not be integral in its receptions and appreciation. I believe Franta’s intention with his exploration of the image-text relationship here is obvious and compelling.
Firstly, I’d like to speak about the effectiveness of the images as stand-alone products: they’re fantastic! Described as “film photographs” (Simon & Schuster, 2021) on the book’s online blurb, they are reminiscent of 70s deadpan photography by the likes of Stephen Shore, William Eggleston, or Joel Meyerowitz and compliment the overwhelming nostalgia found in Franta’s exceptional writing. However, their primary function is not to act as stand-alone photographs but instead to add visual context and personal guidance to the anecdotes and poetry surrounding them. Chapter 2, Tulip, is book-ended by bright, colour photographs of, yes, tulips. This simple inclusion may, on the surface, appear heavy-handed but it is anything but. Franta’s use of colour and exceptionally bright colours is wholly intentional. If this book were not to contain photographs like these, it could easily and quickly feel like a bombardment of melancholia, an attack on the senses. Instead, sundering the text pieces with the visual allows the reader time to pause and reflect on what has been said. It acts as a warm safety blanket telling you that, despite what you have just read and what you may currently be feeling, everything will be alright.
Chapter 3: How alternate contextual information can affect the reading of art.
This chapter will cover maquettes 2 & 3. Maquette 2 has the visual works being viewed on its own, separate to the text pieces, and Maquette 3 in the opposite manner – the text pieces being viewed separate from the visual.
By combining visual pieces with textual pieces, one can produce clarity and cohesion by offering an extended narrative and contextual information, yet also create ambiguity, allowing the reader to form their own narratives; by separating the two mediums, I believe, the artist can further this ambiguity. This hypothesis is backed up by David Bate in his book The Key Concepts: Photography in which when speaking about the syntax of a sentence he states: “One phenome has made the world of difference. In one sense, this is what poetry and humour do; they rearrange the expected order of syntax and normal logic, mixing signifiers up to make language seem strange, or even to create nonsense meanings, which, in effect, disrupt the sense of reality we expect from language” (Bate, 2018, p.19). By rearranging the syntax or the phenome which in the case of my own work is the either the visual or textual-based work I can “disrupt the sense of reality” the reader would expect.
In this section I will explain how, in my mind, my current practice is to be completed and viewed: In the end, I hope to finalise the project with two books – two volumes – that together make a singular piece of work. Volume 1 will be as Maquette 2 is now, and Volume 2 similar to Maquette 3. Each volume will contain the same number of pages, and the works contained in each will lay on the same pages as they do in Maquette 1.For example, in Volume 1, there will be blank pages where the text should lay and vice versa in Volume 2. This manner of construction means that the reader may go two, three, maybe even four pages without viewing a piece of work in either of the volumes. This act of relieving one medium from the crutches of the other and allowing space between the works acts similarly as a space to breath and reflect shown in the visual works of Franta’s House Fires, as mentioned in Chapter 2.
The quote “Just as no document or artefact can directly supply evidence in isolation, photography is always contextually determined and connotative” (Fromm, 2021) is where I’d like to begin my exploration within this chapter. By this, Prof. Dr. Fromm is, just like Sontag did in On Photography, pointing to the fact that photography or a photograph cannot produce and evoke all of the contextual information the reader may require. By separating the two communication devices I can create a wholly unique viewing experience for the reader. By viewing the visual pieces as a collection before the viewing of the textual pieces as a collection, the reader, once reaching Volume 2 reveals a hidden context that may or may not confirm their position toward the visual work, they were initially viewing a form of twist ending, commonly used in films to relieve tension and answer unanswered questions that have been surfacing throughout the previous hours. A reward, like finding the opening text of an exhibit after walking the wrong way around or reading about the new text-less photobook you’ve just ordered. Resulting in confirmation or, sometimes, dissatisfaction with the reality.
Alternatively, the reader could view either Volumes as singular bodies of work, creating their own textual or visual pieces to converse with my own. As for many, there may be no interest in the textual or alternatively, the visual, instead they may only wish to interact with one and not the other.
The first essay in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing has a great emphasis on how words can frequently never convey the feelings and information that visual works can and how – just as Barthes does – refers to the fact that the way we see things is based on what we know or believe in.
“Yet this seeing which comes before words, and can never quite be covered by them” (Berger, 2008, p.8).
Berger uses the example of how during the Middle Ages, a time when the physical existence of Hell was well believed in, must have led to the sight of fire contrasting the current, modern (albeit Western) interpretation of pure pain, loss, and destruction with more religious bearings (Berger, 2008). This idea is critical within semiotic theory. A key founder of the modern thinking of semiotics, Ferdinand de Saussure, spoke about this by arguing how the signs (in this case the viewing of fire) are arbitrary since the cultural convention has created the meaning.
Further into the essay, Berger states, when speaking about the man-made image, “it then showed how something or somebody has once looked – and thus by implication how the subject has been seen by other people” (Berge, 2008, p.10), emphasising just how difficult it can be to separate art from the artist. A realisation, Berger states, most likely began around the time of the European Renaissance (Berger, 2008, p.10). Berger uses the example of the paintings of the Governors and Governesses of The Old Men’s Alms House by Frans Hals in the seventeenth century. These paintings were officially commissioned and made by a man, who by this point was coming toward the end of his life, who was destitute and that had recently survived freezing to death due to the donation of three loads of peat. The donation being administered by those who are now immortalised on his canvas. This biographical information is important because it has subsequently informed the reading of the paintings since. Was Hals looking at the Governors and Governesses from a position of socio-economic jealousy or a position of admiration toward their generosity? We will never have definitive answers for these questions, but the information we do have will forever allow us to speculate.
This way of thinking can be linked to my own work reasonably quickly. Friends of mine or those close to me will recognise those in the visual works; maybe it is them, causing a reading into the work that a stranger would not have. For example, as mentioned, many of the text-pieces hover over quite romantic or sentimental ideas meaning that those closest to me may infer an allegory between the text-pieces and those featured in the visual when in fact, this may never have been a conscious intention. This is not to say that strangers may not also infer these links, but it is less likely. Of course, the opposite could be said in that those closest to me may know that a textual piece was not based on someone featured in the visual. This is fascinating to me. As an artist, one likes to believe they have control over what they are making, when in fact, this could not be further from the truth. We never indeed are in control. We create and express our ideas and ideologies to the best of our abilities, but then it is in the hands of the universe to do as it pleases with what we have realised. This anxiety of control is consistent with a belief expressed in Barthes essay The Death of The Author, in which he says, “The author still reigns in histories of literature, biographies of writers, interviews, magazines, as in the very consciousness of men of letters anxious to unite their person and their work through diaries and memoirs” (Barthes and Heath, 1977, p.143). Here, Barthes is expressing how, throughout history, diaries, memoirs, biographies, and other means of self-aggrandising expression have been utilised by artists to keep control of the meanings.
Another area in which contextual information can affect the reading of a piece of work, as briefly mentioned in Chapter 2, is the gallery space. In Chapter 2, I touched very briefly on how the layout of an exhibition space can actively affect the consumption of the work shown. This is an experience I have personally come face to face with numerous times. Often it is down to poor or no direction by the invigilating staff, awkward room layouts, or poor curation. No matter the reason, however, the result is still the same. Quickly, a show can become disjointed. I have experienced a recent example at The Hayward Gallery, London. Although the show, Mixing It Up: Painting Today was not a photographic show, my position is still the same. The disjointed layout and lack of flow through the exhibition space led to not only myself but others missing out on vital works, creating confusion around which biographical text-pieces belonged with which painting and an experience of the show (and subsequently of the art and artists in the show) to be less than successful. The loss of deeper contextual information such as the biographical text-pieces surrounding a work creates the most significant disparities of differences to the assumed reading of a work. Just like the example that Berger uses when speaking about the paintings Frans Hals produced in the 17th century, the addition of biographical information or, for example, the assignment of biographical information to an incorrect body of work can significantly change assumptions that the readers may have.
The viewing conditions can also affect the reading of a body of work. In the essay Leaving the Movie Theater (En Sortant du Cinéma is the original, untranslated title) Barthes discusses this. Barthes states how, when he goes to the cinema it is as if he has two bodies; “a narcissistic body which gazes, lost, into the engulfing mirror, and a perverse body, ready to fetishize not the image but precisely what exceeds it: the texture of the sound, the hall, the darkness, the obscure mass of other bodies, the rays of light, entering the theatre, leaving the hall” (Barthes et al., 2010, p.349). The first body Barthes speaks of – the narcissist – is one hypnotised by the image, the story that he is pressing his nose against. The second body – the perverse – is instead interested in the surroundings rather than the movie. The dark cube, one finds themselves in when visiting a cinema, the excitement of entering a space in which the body can relax amongst a plethora of other relaxing bodies, becoming “sopitive”. The experience.
It is difficult to separate the narcissistic from the perverse. They are entwined. They control and effect one another. The perverse does not reveal itself without the need for the narcissistic, and the narcissistic does not expose itself with as great of intensity without the perverse.
In the case of a body of photographic works, just like a film, something draws the reader into it (the narcissist). Perhaps a desire to learn about the world, learn about themselves. Perhaps, it is merely a distraction from the day’s fundamental tasks. As Barthes puts it, “Except for the – increasingly frequent – case of a specific cultural quest (a selected, sough-for, desired film, object of a veritable preliminary alert), he goes to movies as a response to idleness, leisure, free time” (Barthes, et al., 2010, p.345). Yet, one cannot take the work out of the context in which it is viewed (the perverse). May this be the photobook, the gallery space, online portfolio, advertising billboard, whatever the viewing case may be, the narcissistic reading cannot be separated from the perverse.
This chapter will cover maquettes 2 & 3. Maquette 2 has the visual works being viewed on its own, separate to the text pieces, and Maquette 3 in the opposite manner – the text pieces being viewed separate from the visual.
By combining visual pieces with textual pieces, one can produce clarity and cohesion by offering an extended narrative and contextual information, yet also create ambiguity, allowing the reader to form their own narratives; by separating the two mediums, I believe, the artist can further this ambiguity. This hypothesis is backed up by David Bate in his book The Key Concepts: Photography in which when speaking about the syntax of a sentence he states: “One phenome has made the world of difference. In one sense, this is what poetry and humour do; they rearrange the expected order of syntax and normal logic, mixing signifiers up to make language seem strange, or even to create nonsense meanings, which, in effect, disrupt the sense of reality we expect from language” (Bate, 2018, p.19). By rearranging the syntax or the phenome which in the case of my own work is the either the visual or textual-based work I can “disrupt the sense of reality” the reader would expect.
In this section I will explain how, in my mind, my current practice is to be completed and viewed: In the end, I hope to finalise the project with two books – two volumes – that together make a singular piece of work. Volume 1 will be as Maquette 2 is now, and Volume 2 similar to Maquette 3. Each volume will contain the same number of pages, and the works contained in each will lay on the same pages as they do in Maquette 1.For example, in Volume 1, there will be blank pages where the text should lay and vice versa in Volume 2. This manner of construction means that the reader may go two, three, maybe even four pages without viewing a piece of work in either of the volumes. This act of relieving one medium from the crutches of the other and allowing space between the works acts similarly as a space to breath and reflect shown in the visual works of Franta’s House Fires, as mentioned in Chapter 2.
The quote “Just as no document or artefact can directly supply evidence in isolation, photography is always contextually determined and connotative” (Fromm, 2021) is where I’d like to begin my exploration within this chapter. By this, Prof. Dr. Fromm is, just like Sontag did in On Photography, pointing to the fact that photography or a photograph cannot produce and evoke all of the contextual information the reader may require. By separating the two communication devices I can create a wholly unique viewing experience for the reader. By viewing the visual pieces as a collection before the viewing of the textual pieces as a collection, the reader, once reaching Volume 2 reveals a hidden context that may or may not confirm their position toward the visual work, they were initially viewing a form of twist ending, commonly used in films to relieve tension and answer unanswered questions that have been surfacing throughout the previous hours. A reward, like finding the opening text of an exhibit after walking the wrong way around or reading about the new text-less photobook you’ve just ordered. Resulting in confirmation or, sometimes, dissatisfaction with the reality.
Alternatively, the reader could view either Volumes as singular bodies of work, creating their own textual or visual pieces to converse with my own. As for many, there may be no interest in the textual or alternatively, the visual, instead they may only wish to interact with one and not the other.
The first essay in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing has a great emphasis on how words can frequently never convey the feelings and information that visual works can and how – just as Barthes does – refers to the fact that the way we see things is based on what we know or believe in.
“Yet this seeing which comes before words, and can never quite be covered by them” (Berger, 2008, p.8).
Berger uses the example of how during the Middle Ages, a time when the physical existence of Hell was well believed in, must have led to the sight of fire contrasting the current, modern (albeit Western) interpretation of pure pain, loss, and destruction with more religious bearings (Berger, 2008). This idea is critical within semiotic theory. A key founder of the modern thinking of semiotics, Ferdinand de Saussure, spoke about this by arguing how the signs (in this case the viewing of fire) are arbitrary since the cultural convention has created the meaning.
Further into the essay, Berger states, when speaking about the man-made image, “it then showed how something or somebody has once looked – and thus by implication how the subject has been seen by other people” (Berge, 2008, p.10), emphasising just how difficult it can be to separate art from the artist. A realisation, Berger states, most likely began around the time of the European Renaissance (Berger, 2008, p.10). Berger uses the example of the paintings of the Governors and Governesses of The Old Men’s Alms House by Frans Hals in the seventeenth century. These paintings were officially commissioned and made by a man, who by this point was coming toward the end of his life, who was destitute and that had recently survived freezing to death due to the donation of three loads of peat. The donation being administered by those who are now immortalised on his canvas. This biographical information is important because it has subsequently informed the reading of the paintings since. Was Hals looking at the Governors and Governesses from a position of socio-economic jealousy or a position of admiration toward their generosity? We will never have definitive answers for these questions, but the information we do have will forever allow us to speculate.
This way of thinking can be linked to my own work reasonably quickly. Friends of mine or those close to me will recognise those in the visual works; maybe it is them, causing a reading into the work that a stranger would not have. For example, as mentioned, many of the text-pieces hover over quite romantic or sentimental ideas meaning that those closest to me may infer an allegory between the text-pieces and those featured in the visual when in fact, this may never have been a conscious intention. This is not to say that strangers may not also infer these links, but it is less likely. Of course, the opposite could be said in that those closest to me may know that a textual piece was not based on someone featured in the visual. This is fascinating to me. As an artist, one likes to believe they have control over what they are making, when in fact, this could not be further from the truth. We never indeed are in control. We create and express our ideas and ideologies to the best of our abilities, but then it is in the hands of the universe to do as it pleases with what we have realised. This anxiety of control is consistent with a belief expressed in Barthes essay The Death of The Author, in which he says, “The author still reigns in histories of literature, biographies of writers, interviews, magazines, as in the very consciousness of men of letters anxious to unite their person and their work through diaries and memoirs” (Barthes and Heath, 1977, p.143). Here, Barthes is expressing how, throughout history, diaries, memoirs, biographies, and other means of self-aggrandising expression have been utilised by artists to keep control of the meanings.
Another area in which contextual information can affect the reading of a piece of work, as briefly mentioned in Chapter 2, is the gallery space. In Chapter 2, I touched very briefly on how the layout of an exhibition space can actively affect the consumption of the work shown. This is an experience I have personally come face to face with numerous times. Often it is down to poor or no direction by the invigilating staff, awkward room layouts, or poor curation. No matter the reason, however, the result is still the same. Quickly, a show can become disjointed. I have experienced a recent example at The Hayward Gallery, London. Although the show, Mixing It Up: Painting Today was not a photographic show, my position is still the same. The disjointed layout and lack of flow through the exhibition space led to not only myself but others missing out on vital works, creating confusion around which biographical text-pieces belonged with which painting and an experience of the show (and subsequently of the art and artists in the show) to be less than successful. The loss of deeper contextual information such as the biographical text-pieces surrounding a work creates the most significant disparities of differences to the assumed reading of a work. Just like the example that Berger uses when speaking about the paintings Frans Hals produced in the 17th century, the addition of biographical information or, for example, the assignment of biographical information to an incorrect body of work can significantly change assumptions that the readers may have.
The viewing conditions can also affect the reading of a body of work. In the essay Leaving the Movie Theater (En Sortant du Cinéma is the original, untranslated title) Barthes discusses this. Barthes states how, when he goes to the cinema it is as if he has two bodies; “a narcissistic body which gazes, lost, into the engulfing mirror, and a perverse body, ready to fetishize not the image but precisely what exceeds it: the texture of the sound, the hall, the darkness, the obscure mass of other bodies, the rays of light, entering the theatre, leaving the hall” (Barthes et al., 2010, p.349). The first body Barthes speaks of – the narcissist – is one hypnotised by the image, the story that he is pressing his nose against. The second body – the perverse – is instead interested in the surroundings rather than the movie. The dark cube, one finds themselves in when visiting a cinema, the excitement of entering a space in which the body can relax amongst a plethora of other relaxing bodies, becoming “sopitive”. The experience.
It is difficult to separate the narcissistic from the perverse. They are entwined. They control and effect one another. The perverse does not reveal itself without the need for the narcissistic, and the narcissistic does not expose itself with as great of intensity without the perverse.
In the case of a body of photographic works, just like a film, something draws the reader into it (the narcissist). Perhaps a desire to learn about the world, learn about themselves. Perhaps, it is merely a distraction from the day’s fundamental tasks. As Barthes puts it, “Except for the – increasingly frequent – case of a specific cultural quest (a selected, sough-for, desired film, object of a veritable preliminary alert), he goes to movies as a response to idleness, leisure, free time” (Barthes, et al., 2010, p.345). Yet, one cannot take the work out of the context in which it is viewed (the perverse). May this be the photobook, the gallery space, online portfolio, advertising billboard, whatever the viewing case may be, the narcissistic reading cannot be separated from the perverse.
Conclusion
Throughout this essay, I have explored how contextual information can result in a changed/altered reading of contemporary photographic works and how understanding these discoveries can and is transforming my own practice.
In Chapter 1, I explored the concept of photography and whether text-based works can be considered photographic. I looked at Roland Barthes essay The Death of The Author and its philosophy that the reader is the true author of a body of work as it is their thoughts, feelings and memories that bring true meaning to what they are seeing, reading, and viewing. This exploration has led me to conclude that the concept of photography should be encompassed in the ability to create image. This does not just mean the visual but also mental. A “traditional” photographic print allows one to see an image, while text-based pieces allow for the reader to create the image within their own mind.
Chapter 2 continues, with this conclusion in mind, navigating the pairing and relationship effects that textual and visual-based works can have on one another. Using ideas taken from essays written by those such as Allan Sekula, Susan Sontag, and Prof. Dr Karen Fromm, I have explored and discussed how bracketing visual work with textual work can add context and information that otherwise would not have been available to the reader.
Chapter 3 takes all of the ideas from Chapters 1 and 2 and builds upon them by looking at additional contextual information from a much more comprehensive view. Within this, I explored a key semiotic theory about how cultural nuances and histories affect the reading and perception of art. I used the example of my own work to back this theory up by speaking about how those closest to me will have a perception of my visual and textual work – and the themes they touch upon – that those who do not know me would have. I have also explored how different viewing and production scenarios will also affect the reading of works.
In conclusion, it is abundantly clear how contextual information affects the reading of contemporary photography. Textual data can be employed to aid in the reading of visual works by providing biographical, theoretical, or allegorical context. I believe one must also remember to engage in and appreciate their personal circumstances when reading work as socio-economic, political, religious, and cultural viewpoints can dramatically impact one’s reaction to what they are experiencing. One must also not refute the impact that the environment or construction surrounding the work also has.
There is no such thing as an unaffected work when it comes to context, just as there is no such thing as a true author.
Bibliography:
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- Barthes, R., Howard, R. and Barthes, R. (2010). The rustle of language. 1. California paperback print., [Nachdr.]. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Bate, D. (2018). Photography: the key concepts. Second Edition. The key concepts series. London New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
- Berger, J. (2008). Ways of seeing. Penguin on design. London: Penguin.
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- Fromm, K. (2021). Context matters: Image and Text in the Works of Allan Sekula and Martha Rosler[online]. Available from: https://photocaptionist.com/context-matters-image-text-works-allan-sekula-martha-rosler/ [Accessed 26 December 2021].
- Hunter, J. (1987). Image and word: the interaction of twentieth-century photographs and texts. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
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- Rodriguez, S. (2021). Instagram surpasses 2 billion monthly users while powering through a year of turmoil [online]. Available from: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/14/instagram-surpasses-2-billion-monthly-users.html [Accessed 21 December 2021].
- Sekula, A. (1978). Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary (Notes on the Politics of Representation). The Massachusetts Review. Vol. 19 No. 4. pp. 859–883 [online]. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25088914 [Accessed 29 December 2021].
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- Victoria and Albert Museum, D.M. webmaster@vam ac uk (2011). Camera-less photography: techniques [online]. Available from: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/camera-less-photography-techniques/ [Accessed 21 December 2021].
- www.dictionary.com (n.d.). Definition of photograph | Dictionary.com [online]. Available from: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/photograph [Accessed 17 November 2021].
List of figures:
- Figure 1: Honory, A. (n.d.). Photograph depicting The Lost Pictures. [online image]. Available from: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/37/32/e5/3732e5f8d4ece094068f3d10aa66aace.jpg [Accessed: 12 December 2021]
- Figure 2: Cashmore, S. (2021). Screenshot illustrating my personal experimentation with sharing text-based works via Instagram. [online image] Available from: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWgGgHHoiGn/ [Accessed: 12 December 2021]
- Figure 3: Cashmore, S. (2021). Digital mock-up depicting the pairing of visual with textual work within my own practice. [Digital Image] In possession of: the author.