On Distance in Photographic Images
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Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] On Distance in Photographic images Susanne Ramsenthaler Presented in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Submitted to the University of Glasgow Faculty of Arts December 2006 © Susanne Ramsenthaler 2006 ProQuest N um ber: 10390612 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10390612 Published by ProQuest LLO (2017). C o pyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 - 1346 (GLASGOW LNlVERSiTY] lï.ïBRARYy Abstract This thesis forms an inquiry into distance as experienced in the medium of photography. Distance manifests itself in myriad forms right down to contact with the photo-sensitive surface, which is where the photogram is born. Separation of the observer from the observed was the model for the camera obscura, a model followed by a great number of eighteenth and nineteenth century spectacles, before the ‘black box syndrome’ was passed on to the camera image, both still and moving. Maurice Blanchot’s statement “the game of distance is the game of near and far” is the key to my juxtaposition of camera images versus contact-based processes such as the photogram and, by extension, the X-ray. Camera images are taken at a distance (far), but are easily read (near), whereas the photogram requires the closest of proximity for its creation (near) but the resulting image is often not immediately decipherable and therefore cognitively far. I examine in depth the history and ontology of the photogram and, to a lesser extent the X-ray, with regard to the element of touch and the visual dissolution of boundaries between ‘inside and out’. Touch and vision intermingle in many ways; some interactions incite memories, others produce sensations of knowledge that can never be experienced or verified. Much writing on the nature of photography has been concerned with veracity through contiguity and the transference of light waves. I investigate this particular notion of ‘touch’ as well as the all-pervasive idea of the indexicality of the photographic image, which I find does not to stand up to the requirements of the index as defined by the semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce. But, in a final instance of role reversal concerning near and far, the photogram does. Table of Contents Abstrflct.................................. 1 Tîiblc of Con tents. ............ 2 List of Figures..............................................................................................................................................4 Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................................... S Introduction................................................................................. 6 1 The Photogram: History and Practice...................................................................................19 1.1 Beginnings..............................................................................................................................20 1.2 Rediscovery........................................................................................................................... 28 1.3 Method Defined.................................................................................................................... 45 1.4 Where Opposites Meet: Fuss, Ferran and the Christening Gown.............................50 1.5 Light for Light’s sake......................................................................................................... 64 2 Observer-Status: On Vision and Photography..................................................................71 2.1 1 see - Therefore I A m ........................................................................................................73 2.2 Disembodied Spectatorship Pre-Photography............................................................... 75 2.3 Old Meets N ew ......................................................................................................................78 2.4 Traversing Black Space.......................................................................................................85 2.5 Camera Conventions............................................................................................................90 2.6 To Walk or Not to Walk......................................................................................................96 3 The Pop-Diva’s Posterior and Other Tales of Close Contact....................................... 105 3.1 Half-Life: Helen Chadwick’sPool ...................................................................................106 3.2 Upside Down and Inside O ut.......................................................................................... 114 3.3 Between a Rock & a Hard Place: The Visual and the Haptic...................................119 3.4 Depiction versus Manifestation....................................................................................... 125 4 Tactare - (con)Tact - T ouch....................................................................................................142 4.1 Haptic Emanations............................................................................................................. 143 4.2 Touch and Photography.....................................................................................................156 5 Stronger Than Light: Some Thoughts on X-rays.............................................................159 5.1 Beginnings............................................................................................................................ 159 5.2 From Death To Life............................................................................................................ 165 5.3 Inside / Outside.....................................................................................................................166 5.4 Brave New World......................................................................... 171 6 A Question of Semblance........................................................................................................... 176 6.1 Peirce and the Im age..........................................................................................................178 6.2 Lightwave Theories............................................................................................................ 186 7 C onclusion......................................................................................................................................199 Bibliography........................................................................................................................................... 203 Photography / History....................................................................................................................... 203 Photogram / X-Ray............................................................................................................................ 207 Theory / Criticism.............................................................................................................................. 211 Other......................................................................................................................................................215 Part Two: Transitaria - Images and Writings................................................................219 Prologue: Eternal Return .........................................................................................................................221 Beauty and the Beast...................................................................................................................................225 1. The Facts....................................................................................................................................226 2. The Fictions..............................................................................................................................228 3. Metamorphosis......................................................................................................................... 232 4. Interpretations...........................................................................................................................235