In some previous research, I explored the idea of a metonymic object such as hair while a photograph might be considered a sign rather than a metonymic object in its own right. I also showed that Allan Sekula wrote that while photographs might function as a metaphor, some possess metonymic qualities, “the photograph is invested with a complex metonymic power, a power that transcends the perceptual and passes into the realm of affect.”(Sekula, 1982, p. 100)

Edwards essay moves on from that idea of metonymy to look at the way photographs operate as objects used for the telling of history. “The central tenet of my argument is that photographs are not merely images but social objects, and that the power of those social objects is integrally entangled with the nature of photography itself” (Edwards, 2005, p. 27)

It seems immediately obvious to me that in thinking of the anthropological impact of the visual image as opposed to the dominance of semiotics, provides a very different way of engaging with the photograph. Edwards quotes Csordas who argues that semiotics dominates and is concerned with representation rather than ‘being in the world’. The difference between a semiotic view of the world and a ‘real life view’ is framed as a distinction between language and experience. (Edwards, 2005, p. 28) I went back to this source and was interested in another idea of Csordas, “You cannot really study experience, because all experience is mediated by language – therefore one can only study language or discourse, i.e. representation” (Csordas, 1994, p. 11) This reminded me very much of the argument made by historian Jenkins, and I apologise as I reproduced this quotation in my research on metonymy but feel this is of enough interest to produce again. Jenkins speaks of the difference between the past and history, “The past has occurred. It has gone and can only be brought back again by historians in very different media, for example in books, articles, documentaries, etc., not as actual events. The past has gone and history is what historians make of it when they go to work. History is the labour of historians” (Jenkins, 1991, p. 8) It is interesting to consider these two ideas are framed around language and in particular, written language. Csordas goes on to quote Ricoeur saying, “language gives access to a world of experience in so far as experience comes to, or is brought to language”  (Ricoeur in Csordas, 1994, p. 12) This is an interesting concept with respect to photography. How can I ever use enough words to describe what my eyes see? Unless, of course, what my eyes see, are words. Also, and of relevance to my work, in the context of a worn gravestone where the words have vanished over time, what then of the idea of language giving access to experience? That person who was placed into the ground no longer has a name and it seems to me that the most basic thing about any of us is our name.

As an aside, I remember an exercise in an earlier unit looking at comparing the human eye with the camera lens. The visual world, or more importantly, how humans perceive the visual world, is way beyond the complexity of a camera. Just how complex the sense of vision is can be shown by some facts I collected for a previous unit. These are very relevant when I was thinking of my son’s loss of vision due to cancer and of his medical scans.

• More than 50% of the surface of the brain is set aside for visual processing (Hagen, 1996).
• Humans can detect between 700 and 900 different shades of grey (Kimpe and Tuytschaever, 2007)
• Humans can make out between 2 and 10 million colours (Marín-Franch and Foster, 2010).
• Humans are able to extract meaning, or in other words the brain can process visual information, at the rate of around 75 images per second (Potter et al., 2014).
• The human optic nerve contains up to 1.7 million nerve fibres (Jonas et al., 1992). Compared with the sense of sound the difference is stark; sounds are collected by about 30,000 nerve fibres (Wolfram, 2002).

These facts are for healthy people. I wonder how these statistics change when eyesight doesn’t work and what the brain does with all that processing power? Does the memory and imagination of the visual world still occur? I would need to look more into that but it is for another day.

These facts give an interesting insight into semiotics and the limitations of language when being used as substitutes for other senses and especially vision. It seems that information gathered from what is seen has prominence over information perceived through other senses and even over what we read? The written word is also, in part, processed through vision but also needs recognition of word shapes, translation of what they mean and understanding. It is claimed that skilled readers can process between 250-350 words per minute.(Wu et al., 2020, p. 3) which is far slower way to absorb information than the 13 to 80 milliseconds per image as measured by Potter.

Strange then to consider Csordas’s argument that semiotics is so dominant it is over represented. Interesting when I was looking at graveyards that if the words on the gravestone have vanished, the carved visual symbols might still exist or at least the symbol of the empty gravestone. Edwards speaks of the dominance of the semiotic and an over reliance on “textual metaphors” and reading signs, She quotes Claessen, “This position reflects the values attached to Western understandings of the hierarchy of the senses where seeing and hearing stand for the production of rational knowledge—and touch, smell and taste for the lower, “irrational” sensory” (Claessen quoted in Edwards, 2005, p. 37). Maybe in quoting my facts and figures about the sense of sight, I have perfectly illustrated this idea of a western view of the senses?

To return to Edwards, she argues that photographs “are tactile, sensory things that exist in time and space, and thus in embodied cultural experience.” (Edwards, 2005, p. 28) She goes on to mention that in western civilisations, photographic theory tends not to regard the photographic image as a relational object and instead the photographic capture deals with the concepts of realism, subjectivity, truth, and especially the idea of historical ‘truth’, narrative, identity, death and loss. (Edwards, 2005, p. 28) When a collection of photographs is passed around as a social activity and the context of who a person might be, or might have been, or where a picture was taken is explained, this becomes a, “verbal articulation of histories.” The words and the story go together as “the oral, tactile and haptic component of telling histories.” (Edwards, 2005, p. 36) Interesting here that the photograph is considered a real, haptic object and to consider how this sense might change if the group were gathered around a projection screen for a slide show or a computer monitor to share images. It seems that the tactile and haptic senses would be missing in that case. Also, interesting that in this story telling, the photographer does not seem to feature. The story seems to be all about the subject and the photographer has become the same as the audience.

Edwards speaks of photographs not only being visual history but also oral history. The oral part of the story isn’t just describing the image but is about story telling which in turn isn’t just about speaking but also about listening. I wonder at this. About a photograph in a gallery, stripped of any orality. Maybe with a small white card to give the piece a title, a date, the name of the artist and maybe a few words on what the work might mean. This extends the idea of fragmentation of information and trying to extrapolate what we see into a more meaningful whole. Interesting to consider how much I want to try and fill out fragments in my own work and how much I want the audience to build their own stories. How much direction to provide? Edwards speaks of the voices within the photograph and of the power of oral articulation, “When individuals, events or other details are not known, photographs do not have voices. People were asked to ‘find voices and stories buried in the pictures’ (Lost Identities 1999). Oral articulation, the naming of names, invests tellers with a dynamic power over their own history” (Edwards, 2005, p. 39)

Edwards comes to end of her essay speaking of touching photographs and of the person in the photograph through their indexical trace, almost coming to life by the touch of the audience and by their reaction to that touch. The memory triggered by the photograph seems enhanced by the combination of the senses used to engage with the object, “a more sensory way of thinking about photographs if we are to understand their true impact in the making of histories.”(Edwards, 2005, pp. 40–41)

References

Csordas, T. J. (1994) Embodiment and experience : the existential ground of culture and self. Cambridge, Mass: Cambridge University Press.

Edwards, E. (2005) ‘Photographs and the Sound of History’, Visual anthropology review, 21(1–2), pp. 27–46. doi: 10.1002/j.2326-1951.1993.tb03119.x.

Hagen, S. (1996) The Mind’s Eye, Rochester Review :: University of Rochester. Available at: https://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V74N4/0402_brainscience.html (Accessed: 31 July 2021).

Jenkins, K. (1991) Re-thinking History. Routledge.

Jonas, J. B. et al. (1992) ‘Human optic nerve fiber count and optic disc size’, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, 33(6), pp. 2012–2018.

Kimpe, T. and Tuytschaever, T. (2007) ‘Increasing the Number of Gray Shades in Medical Display Systems—How Much is Enough?’, Journal of Digital Imaging, 20(4), p. 422. doi: 10.1007/S10278-006-1052-3.

Marín-Franch, I. and Foster, D. H. (2010) ‘Number of perceptually distinct surface colors in natural scenes’, Journal of Vision, 10(9), pp. 1–7. doi: 10.1167/10.9.9.

Potter, M. C. et al. (2014) ‘Detecting meaning in RSVP at 13 ms per picture’, Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 76(2), pp. 270–279. doi: 10.3758/s13414-013-0605-z.

Sekula, A. (1982) ‘On the invention of photographic meaning’, in Burgin, V. (ed.) Thinking Photography, p. 249.

Wolfram, S. (2002) A New Kind of Science, A New Kind o Science Online. Wolfram Media. Available at: https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/notes-10-8–auditory-system/ (Accessed: 31 July 2021).

Wu, A. et al. (2020) ‘Language Processing in Reading and Speech Perception is Fastand Incremental: Implications for Event Related Potential Research’, Nature, 388, pp. 1–14.

John Berger wrote an essay which caught my eye, titled, “Photographs of Agony”.  This takes me back to my youth and watching news stories filled with the Vietnam War and the so called ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Berger writes of a photograph of a man with a child cradled in his arms, both are bleeding.

Specifically, he asks why such photographs appear in the press, his suggestion that either the press recognise a demand for the truth from their readers or alternatively that, “that these newspapers believe that their readers have become inured to violent images and so now compete in terms of ever more violent sensationalism.” before dismissing both of these ideas as firstly too idealistic and secondly too cynical. (Berger, 1980, pp. 41–42) I think the truth must lie somewhere between these two poles. Continued exposure to shocking imagery of violence, death and suffering, I believe, desensitises us. Is the picture of a famine as shocking as the first time any of us saw such a scene? There is also a matter of context. The image showing a famine, seems far away, both physically and in terms of the comfort and security of western lives. That famine, it seems, happens to others and never to us. It is seen on the television or in a newspaper but is not experienced first-hand. An image which brings the problems of faraway to a location familiar to us has the power to re-introduce the power to shock the viewer. So, an image of a suicide bomb in London or Madrid or the image of a dead child on shores of Greece are shocking because of the context. The city which might be known to us or a European beach where some might have holidayed are places seemingly far removed from war and famine and suffering.

Berger goes on in another essay, “Uses of Photography”, to provide a response to Susan Sontag’s book “On Photography”. He quotes Sontag, “a photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stencilled  off the real, like a footprint or a death mask.” (Berger, 1980, p. 54, from Sontag, 1979, p. 154)  Berger tells us that photographs do not preserve meaning. Interestingly he say that this is unlike memory. (Berger, 1980, p. 55) I am not sure that I agree with this. His use of the word ‘meaning’ seems to imply a kind of truth. Photographs do preserve a certain kind of truth, once we accept the limitations of what is shown in a two-dimensional image. The event captured by the camera did happen in some form. However, the photographic image is not the same as the actual event. The meaning behind a photograph can be open to interpretation but then so can what we see with our own eyes. Then if we remove what has been seen directly one stage and try to recall the event, it is open to change through time, through pollution of the memory caused by other related events, or by disease or simply by misremembering.

Berger goes on and talks of violence. Of the still image being torn from the original context of which that image was a part. He speaks that the image seized by camera as an act of violence. The group or individual who view the photograph, whether by an audience with knowledge of the subject of the photographic capture or not, might respond to the violence of the capture of that still image in different ways which might be expressed as “incredulousness” or “strangeness”.  “The total stranger might take any meaning or make any use from the photograph, “because the photographs carry no certain meaning in themselves, because they are like images in the memory of a total stranger, that they lend themselves to any use.” (Berger, 1980, pp. 55–57) This reminds me of the idea of photographs of the lost. Images I can buy where I know nothing about the subject or their story. These images lend themselves to my use and in return I create a new story for these images. One other thing occurs to me. All photographs will likely be lost forever or might fall into the hands of strangers who can make any use of these images or indeed can make no use of them. In that sense, our photographs and memories are identical, in that both will surely vanish. Our physical body and our memories vanish into ash or into the sea or the ground and after time passes there is nothing left. We might have told some of our stories to other people but they too will die and soon our stories vanish just the same as the photographic image fades and the paper rots or the memory card corrupts.

This is a key concept of my project. It isn’t just giving back a face to a medical scan, or in how I think of death or loss or remembrance, it is giving a new story to a new audience. Well at least for a short time.

References

Berger, J. (1980) About Looking. New York: Pantheon Books.

Sontag, S. (1979) On Photography. London: Penguin Books.

I have been continuing to read and to think about what I have read and how these ideas might relate to my own work. One thing which is starting to take form in my mind, is the progression of my original idea. Originally I had broad idea that I could investigate medical scan images looking for a way to try and bring back something of the person who that scan represents. I am now wondering about the medical scan as a photograph and how it relates to Barthes idea that a photograph is a precursor to death. The scan is a type of photograph which strips away recognisable features of the individual and of time and place. It even misses out vitality as the viewer has no idea if image shows a deceased person or not. This idea expands and alters my original concept and how I think of life, pain, death and loss have shifted. I was on a call the other day and someone used the word ‘bereft’. I wrote this down as I thought it is a word that can be applied to the living when thinking about the dead. The dead have no voice.

I have been working on a wide range of ideas this month, from a re-examination of Barthes and his idea of photography being a harbinger for death, research into how the death of a child might be seen differently to the death of a parent, reading a tutor recommended book by Geoffrey Batchen, arts-based research practice and a new piece looking at how I go about making a creative work which gives me space to explore my creative process. All this in addition to tutor and student meetings.

One thing I want to write here is a repeat of a point from previous feedback. I feel that this is crucial so I repeat this for my own benefit in an attempt to re-enforce the point. I have also copied this paragraph into my notebook.

How do I feel about my work? How do the different concepts and areas of research and creative works I review or create make me feel and react? Looking beyond initial feelings, how do I react and stop and think and revisit a chosen topic and how does reflection and time shape my responses and perhaps change or extend my perspective? 

I am working towards Project 4 where I will produce a test creative work based on my research to date. This will lead into Project 5 which is defined as a mid-point review.

 

My plan for my project is broadly as it was last month and the month before. I am still fairly comfortable with my dates and producing a project each month. There is nothing in my project plan I feel compelled to change at this stage.

As I said last month, I will look to produce a task for the literature review which I will fit into plan but at this stage there is no rush so will do this when I next provide a plan update.

I have some tutor led student chats in my diary and these might provide me with more insight to a tentative articulion of my thoughts about the literature review and a dissertation proposal. If so, then I can build such insights into my planning.