The Monstrous in Photography - Essay Example

The monstrous in photography Photography as a modern form of painting gives rise to various controversies. The question about opportunities of photography as a cultural form is being actively discussed. A photographic image is relative. The relativity of photography specifies how our cultural outlook and modern cultural experience is structured. Painting reflects and estimates the spiritual contents of epoch, its social development. Every picture influences feelings and ideas of spectators, forcing them to experience the validity represented by the artist. Painting serves also as means of public education. Many products of painting have documentary and informational value. Our epoch is distinguished by the tendency of showing the reality. However our reality is not always pleasant to look at, that is why critics and psychologists, painters and photographers argue about the representation of monstrous and the taboo in respect of this representation. The body in modern American art is shown as defenseless, injured, sexual, disjointed, dreadful and supernatural. There are a lot of unquotable elements. This concerns the artists like Mike Kelley, John Miller, Kiki Smith, Robert Gober, Cindy Sherman, Andres Serrano, Barbara Nortfleet and others.It is really impossible to forget the shocking gesture of Andres Serrano. In 1991 in the Austrian gallery he exposed a composition "'Piss Christ'" The crucifixion written by urine (yellow on red) was showed in gallery no more than for three days - they were afraid of pogroms. On the first day the 51-years Catholic tried to break a frame, but he was dragged back by the guards. On the second day two teenagers managed to do that. The next fascinating sight can be found in the book of Barbara Nortfleet "Looking at Death". Nobody would dare to remain indifferent looking at this astonishing book, a collection of over a hundred fascinating and often scandalous photographs. After looking through at least several of them one will never be able to look at death as he did before. Here you will find different kinds of death: on the stage and in war, by violence and in medicine. There is absurdity and tragedy, knack and pretense. This book makes us look at our life differently and inspires to appreciate every moment of living. The creativity of the abovementioned authors is actively discussed by many critics; different opinion was formed about their work. However what does the person feels looking at such images Are they criminal and must be forbidden or can they just serve as a cause for thinking What do they really represent The concept of representation is a key concept both for a paradigm of "cultural researches" and for feministic criticism. At the same time it is one of the most problematic concepts in terms of definition. Stewart Hall says that the representation has two main meanings: 1)"speaking for somebody" representation or somebody's interest; 2) representation in art or philosophy (as a representation of something existing by other means). Stewart Hall considers it to be possible to reduce all the variety of cultural approaches in the decision of this problem to three basic models of interpretation: reflective (mimetic), intentional and constructional (including semiotic and discursive approaches). Hall defines the representation as a process by means of which subjects of culture use the language (any system of marks) for values manufacture. Objects of representation have no sense: it appears during the interpretation and the communications, coding and decoding of texts and depends on the cultural context. Photography is philosophical observations and reflections. The photographer is not an operator, he is a producer, he creates and organizes a situation, he is a stage manager, the thin psychologist penetrating into the depths of human soul. From this point of view a completely necessary condition of perception is a certain preliminary cogitative gesture, some kind of "hidden manner". It is important not to refuse the experience of our inherent photography perception (no matter in what contexts it showed itself) but to realize it completely. It is necessary to see the photographic image as unessential, strange, almost casual (or inevitable, total, persuasive, that is definitely the same). It is important to cease sliding off automatically in depth of a picture, identifying the represented subjects, to concentrate on the surface of the photographic image. Looking at the painting "'Piss Christ'" a person can think about the essence of the religion. As it was mentioned above, everything is relative, so the religion is also relative. The person thinks: "The God is close to us, he is taking care of us and our health, he is everywhere". The opinion about the painter can also be different. Some people can consider him to be crazy and hopeless; others may find him brave and self-expressing. The work of Barbara Nortfleet is quite different. It can't be treated in the same way. Here we see the reality as it is, and we see the most awful we have in this world - death. "Looking at death" is the name of the book, by which the author calls upon to look at death. In painting the general properties of art are shown brightly that is why it was called "the textbook of life". The book with the images of death teaches us how to live. By virtue of presentation of an image the estimation of life by the artist, expressed in product of painting, gets special persuasiveness for the spectator. Creating artistic images, painting uses color and figure, expressiveness of dabs, that provides flexibility of its language, allows to reproduce in plane colorful riches of the world with the completeness inaccessible to other kinds of the art. Products of photographer are unchangeable, created picturesque pictures visually one-moment. However photography may reflect not only a condition of absolute static character, but also sensation of time development, an emotional saturation of the moment and passing instantaneousness of the situation, and also effect of movement, change (due to the rhythmic organization of the image, changes of color, light shadow, etc.); in painting the developed narration, the intricate plot is possible. All this allows monstrous photography to embody all visible phenomena of the real world not only directly and evidently (including a nature in its various conditions) It allows to show wide pictures of people's death but also to aspire to disclosing and interpretation of essence of life processes, a world of the individual person, to the expression of the abstract ideas. The book changes our idea of death, those who wanted to die before looking at these pictures, probably changed their planes. All the monstrous images shown in the book are compensated by the improving of the changing of spectator's outlook usually for better. Straight after the bloody drama in Beslan in the newspaper "Toronto Star" the photo which people discuss till now was published. This picture appeared in other Canadian newspapers, and also in "New York Times". In the picture the young woman dressed in black strokes the head of dead child lying on a stretcher. His face is in blood. The mother's face is calm Madonna's on an icon. Usually the newspaper does not publish photos of dead children, but it was a special case. The readers considered the publication very differently. Some of them treated this fact negatively saying that the journalists harass them and their children by publishing such photos. They know what happened and there was no need to place this photography in order to remind them about that. But many other people had different opinion. Julia Osborn, the reader, said: "Trying to protect ourselves and our children from a similar sort of publications, we try to run away from the reality. And it is a reality. Yesterday in New York, today in Beslan, and tomorrow Tomorrow instead of this woman, there may be someone of us What shall we tell children when they will see this not in the picture but in the reality" The comments of William Grant were the following: "It is necessary to print photos for people to touch another's trouble and apprehend another's pain as their own. The photo reminds us of this fault. It is not pleasant but it is a reality. Certainly, it is more pleasant to see comedy films and soap operas." Probably, due to such pictures people in the safe and quiet countries can estimate and understand what actually life means. Probably, having seen the tragedy of other people in other countries they will understand, that the world consists not only of their well-being and disputes on was it necessary to print this or that picture in the newspaper whether or not. There are a lot of controversies about the pictures of homosexuals. Some critics consider them to be too monstrous and want them to be forbidden. Actually, looking at the picture with homosexuals we usually feel the same when looking at the sexual pictures of normal people. The photography is not an object but a tool of the analysis. The modern person entries the problematic of philosophical anthropology: the model of "photographic person" which incorporates the most essential features of "modern person" is built. Homosexuals can't be considered to be monstrous; they are piece of "modern person's" art, not separate from other pictures of the nude. Monstrous in photography is what we feel inside of our soul, what we are afraid of. Psychologists proved that it is better to show some of hidden fears than to keep hiding them. Sometimes they advise to draw the fear in order to kill it inside of yourself. The more we look at the monstrous at the photography the less fear we feel - we are just getting used to the images of monstrous, we don't deny them, but also we are not afraid of them any more. But what is the taboo What barrier should not be crossed What pictures should we consider to be unacceptable The strangest thing is that the pictures that we can be afraid of sometimes contain nothing monstrous at first sight. In the Internet there are some pictures by unknown authors, that could be consider among forbidden. This is one of them. At first sight this picture seems inoffensive: little child in red. But if to look closer one can notice that the child is lost on the traffic road. I will also mention the words that were written under the picture by the author: "I like to see children dying". This photography was made either by a maniac, or by a person with the sick nervous system. This picture really has "monstrous" implication. In other words, this knowledge is not about photography, this knowledge is by means of photography. Inside this optics many old concepts and oppositions steadily reproduced in respect of photography lose an urgency: documentary - art, professional - amateur, author's - anonymous etc. Another thing appears to be essential: zero degree of photography that invisibly presents on photographic paper prior to the beginning of developing. In the result the habitual ratio "photography - reality is overturned. By such consideration the photography does not display, but generates the reality. The world around is cut out frame-by-frame, and the task of "operator" consists only in catching a ready framework. The "operator's task is to coincide with the reality that is always photographic. The question is with what sort of reality In culture the photography has the certain set of values. To argue on a photo means to open the essence of reliability, knowledge, memory, history, subject, biography values etc. Finally, through a photo all modern anthropology "is pulled out". Thus it is important, that photography is not a casual (marginal) but a basic element of "modern" experience. Discrepancy, basic complexity of photography is an essence of the characteristic of modernity. "The photo flickers as object of the philosophical analysis. Sometimes it is maximum transparent, sometimes it is completely impenetrable. It is superseded in ordinary and not noticed, disappearing, turning in stuff and dust together with short-lived newsprint; it appears a center of the highest, sacral values." (Stewart, Helen, "The psychological perception of the image", London 2002) It is capable to cause all the spectrum of reactions - from full ignoring up to affect. "The nature of a photo may be described only through mutually exclusive characteristics: continuity - break, ossification- eluding, studium - punctum, aspiration to avoid death - the embodied death." (Harley, John "The theme of modern photography", London 2004) The photo as the statement about "modernity" is important not only as a certain way of reality designing, but more important complex of problems is concentrated around of concept of a photo as of the form of knowledge. The question about the nature of photography is impossible without a support of visual experience, however the experience that is structured definitely. The photography exists only in concrete demonstration. From this point of view individual has advantage over the general and concrete - over the abstract. The concrete analyses of a visual material may be considered within the framework of habitual genres (reviews, case studies etc.), but they take up more important task: to show described cognitive opportunities of a photo. In this sense pictures may not be restricted to only illustrative function. Any, even maximum detailed description is unable to replace visual experience. The analysis of a photo is an experience of philosophical writing, and it is necessary to take this into account. According to the time of creation monstrous photos are related to the different periods - from an erotic photo of XIX century up to pictures of modern authors (Cindy Sherman, Diana Arbus and other). However it would be wrong to believe, that modern people are interested in the history of a photo. The photo, including historical, attracts as actual visual experience. The cognitive potential of photography fully opens today: the time of photography as a cogitative form coincides with today's. The term "monstrous" does not mean "ugly" or "nonstandard". In the pictures we usually see not what they really represent but what we really feel about them, their hidden representation, the feelings of the author. Therefore there is a taboo which it is not in the pictures, but inside of our souls. Bibliography 1. Harley, John "The theme of modern photography", London 2004. 2. Stewart, Helen, "The psychological perception of the image", London 2002 3. Black, Barbara, "Modern Photographers", New York, 2004 Read More