Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2008 Performing photographs: memory, history, and display Melanie A. Kitchens Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Kitchens, Melanie A., "Performing photographs: memory, history, and display" (2008). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 797. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/797 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. PERFORMING PHOTOGRAPHS: MEMORY, HISTORY, AND DISPLAY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Communication Studies By Melanie A. Kitchens B.A., Georgia Southern University, 2001 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2004 December 2008 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to extend many thanks to my dissertation committee for your continued support and encouragement throughout my academic career at LSU and beyond. I feel blessed to have been able to learn from each of you. Trish Suchy, for always probing me to articulate my argument. Tracy Stephenson Shaffer, for showing and teaching me how to have a voice. Michael Bowman, your brilliance never ceases to amaze and delight me. Thank you for your insight and honesty. And to Ruth Bowman, my friend and mentor, without you this dissertation would not be what it is today, neither would I. Thank you for believing in me and teaching me how to articulate myself. This process has been a delight, and I have learned so much from you. Thank you to Patti Pace for introducing me to the folks at LSU. We miss you! To all of my friends, thank you for still being my friends and for the chats, hugs, and glasses of wine. To my old friend Amy and my new friend Allison, thanks for your open ears and understanding. To my Baton Rouge family Danielle, Gary, Gretchen, Joseph, and Lisa, I miss you and am so thankful for your love and friendship. To Ben, Bess, David, Eric, Justin, Jess, Jes, Mary Lynn, Ansley, and Linda, thanks for being my buds. Special thanks to my family, without you I certainly would not have been able to complete this dissertation and degree. Thank you for doing everything in the world for me! Mom, thanks for teaching me to always do my best and never settle for less. Dad, thanks for teaching me to believe in myself and appreciate the smaller things in life. My sweet little sista, Carlton, thanks for teaching me patience and warmth. My grandparents, Miron and Doris, thanks for teaching me tolerance, and my grandmother Alice (I miss ii you), thanks for teaching me strength. Thank you Jan for your insight and Mike for your openness. And Bella and Liza for your unconditional love. I love you all! Finally, I would like to thank the love of my life, Lucas. For being the jolly green giant to my sprout, the biker to my bike, the tomato soup to my grilled cheese, and the hot pepper to my sunflower. You are everything to me. Thanks for always listening and making me laugh. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………...ii ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………...vi CHAPTER ONE PERFORMING PHOTOGRAPHS………………………………………… 1 CHAPTER TWO BIOMECHANICAL WOMAN WALKS WITH A WATERING CAN…..19 CERTAINTIES…………………………………………………….. 19 NOT SO CERTAINTIES………………………………………….. 21 MUYBRIDGE’S CAREER………………………………………...24 SCIENCE AND ART STORIES…………………………………...26 MEYERHOLD’S CAREER………………………………………..32 BIOMECHANICS………………………………………………….37 A WOMAN WALKS IN AN ETUDE……………………………..48 MAKE YOUR OWN MOVEMENT ………………………………59 CHAPTER THREE BUILDING A CHARACTER IN A PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM…………..60 THE PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM……………………………………61 STANISLAVSKI’S SYSTEM……………………………………..74 THE ALBUM AS SYSTEM……………………………………….78 MINIATURE WORLDS AND NOSTALGIA…………………….91 CHAPTER FOUR THE EPIC IN A PORTRAIT ………………………………………………95 A PORTRAIT OF EPIC THEATRE………………………………. 98 A PORTRAIT OF MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY PARIS…….. 105 A PORTRIAT OF THE COUNTESS……………………………... 112 THE PORTRAIT SCHERZO DI FOLLIA AS EPIC THEATRE......120 CHAPTER FIVE FOUND: MISSING MEMORIES AND HISTORIES……………………. 131 FOUND MAGAZINE……………………………………………...132 THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED………………………………...142 FOUND IN IMAGE THEATRE…………………………………...146 FOUND IN THE JOKER SYSTEM……………………………….149 CHAPTER SIX THE EXCESS OF ELEMENTS IN THE CHROMATIC DIET.................... 159 THE CHROMATIC DIET………………………………………….160 TRACKING CALLE ………………………………………………166 FORMAL AESTHETICS…………………………………………..171 iv THE BAUHAUS…………………………………………………...176 THE THEATRE OF IMAGES……………………………………..182 FOOD DANCE: A SPECTACULAR OPERA IN SEVEN ACTS.. 187 CHAPTER SEVEN CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………..206 WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………….222 VITA………………………………………………………………………...230 v ABSTRACT In my study, I place concepts and practices of photography and performance in dialogue to enable our understanding of how photographs perform and how performance contains or can contain elements we attribute to photographs. The connection between photography and performance that most intrigues me is how they make memories and when collected or restored in some socially shared way make histories too. My specific aim is to understand how photographs and performance might benefit from each other in how they make and transmit memories and histories. To activate the study, I select and focus on five specific events in which photographs are or have been displayed. I analyze each event in terms of its “internal,” “original,” and “external” or display context (Barrett 96), pertinent concepts and practices of photography, and also those of performance that are similar. By means of a comparative approach, I look at what memories and histories appear to be remembered and forgotten, and how, in each photographic event and the performance practices I draw on. My study is significant because while scholars have discussed the conceptual links between photography and performance, they have not considered the practical links. This study emphasizes the latter and thereby offers methods for “doing” photography and/in performance that feature rather than minimize how memories and histories are made in both mediums. vi CHAPTER ONE PERFORMING PHOTOGRAPHS The photograph touches me if I withdraw it from its usual blah-blah: “Technique,” “Reality,” “Reportage,” “Art,” etc . to allow the detail to arise of its own accord into affective consciousness. – Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (55) The central irony of representation – its tendency to make absent the very thing it wishes to make present. – Della Pollock, “Introduction: Making History Go” (27) In this study, I place concepts and practices of photography and performance in dialogue to enable our understanding of how photographs perform and how performance contains or can contain elements we attribute to photographs. The connection between photography and performance that most intrigues me is how they make memories and when collected or restored in some socially shared way make histories too.1 My specific aim, then, is to understand how photographs and performance might benefit from each other in how they make and transmit memories and histories. To activate the study, I select and focus on five specific events in which photographs are or have been displayed. I analyze each event in terms of its “internal,” “original,” and “external” or display context (Barrett 96), pertinent concepts and practices of photography, and also those of performance that are similar. By means of this comparative approach, I look at what memories and histories appear to be remembered and forgotten, and how, in each photographic event and the performance practices I draw on. My study is significant 1 In The Past is a Foreign Country, David Lowenthal distinguishes between memory and history, stating, “history differs from memory not only in how knowledge of the past is acquired and validated but also in how it is transmitted, preserved, and altered” (212). For Lowenthal, memory is experienced and validated as personal and singular to each individual whereas histories are viewed and validated as collective accounts assembled from memories and other restored remnants. While histories certainly affect individuals and their memories, their prime function is to benefit (or not) an institution, community, or group of people, such as a family (212-214). 1 because while scholars have discussed the conceptual links between photography and performance, they have not considered the practical links. This study emphasizes the latter and thereby offers methods for “doing” photography and/in performance that feature rather than minimize how memories and histories are made in both mediums. Below, I elaborate on the subject, method, and significance of the study as summarized above. First, I review the diverse types, contexts, and usages of photography as discussed by Terry Barrett in Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images. Then, I explore the relationship between the photographic medium and memory and history. Next, I summarize the photographic events I examine in my study and the performance practices I draw