Abstract
As a membrane between the photographer and the photographed, the camera does not document information but creates photographs that are traces and remnants of former relationships. In Azoulay’s Photography The Ontological Question, the hypothetical camera’s agency creates a panopticon. The hypothetical exhibition space and the speculation of an image’s dissemination, for example online, similarly transforms the ontology of photography, specifically power dynamics between the photographer and the photographed. The ready availability of self-publishing has changed the intent of photography, causing the death of the snapshot. The assumption that photographs will be viewed, creates images that are meant to capture. This contradicts values championed by Sontag in Against Interpretation. Images become evil objects creating violent cultures just as Baudrillard explains in Simulacra and Simulation. As Farocki displays in Images of the World and Inscriptions of War, this perpetuates the ontological violence Glissant refers to in For Opacity. This essay steps away from the utility of photography ridding it of its violent power. By emphasizing the event of the photograph rather than the resulting image, photographs are made without the looming gaze of future viewers hungry for aesthetics and information. The photograph as a snapshot regains a certain form of tenderness to say “This is how I relate to you.” Through a study of the images of Sally Mann, Edward Meatyard, Nan Golding, Herve Guibert, Josef Sudek, and my photography, I examine how obscurity and absence within the snapshot make a democratic and nonviolent image that escapes interpretation and ontology.
Presenters
Hannah WilderStudent, Contemporary Art Practice, Royal College of Art, London, City of, United Kingdom
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Ontology, Snapshot, Opacity, Tenderness, Democratization, Interpretation
