‘To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means … · 2015. 4. 22. · (Susan...

Visual Anthropology Candidate Number: 108647

‘To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge--and, therefore, like power’. (Susan Sontag). Critically engage with this statement.

Photography, according to Sontag, is a means to capture reality, of preserving the

past in away that becomes a kind of theft. Such an becomes an aggression, a form of

structural violence act that which makes reality manageable or subject to schemas of

categorisation and classification. Using the work of Sontag and Berger as a departure, I

contrast pieces of colonial photography with the work of Pushpamala N., Clare Arni and

Heidi Larson, as well as the work of ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch. Through this

comparison, I aim to provide a critical reflection on ‘the politics of representation’ and to

question the ways in which filmic techniques have potential to transcend the power

dynamics which Sontag claims are inherent with photography. Through this argument I aim

to question whether film is able to transcend these very power relations, as well as

bringing into question the ability of the photographic image to do the same.

As John Berger astutely points out, photographs do not retain significance in

themselves but in the subjective interpretations of the viewer. What is important to

remember is the original presence or positionality of the person behind the camera, the act

of ‘being there’. Responding to Sontag in his essay ‘Usefulness of Photography’ in his

book About Looking (1980),

Berger further problematises the

issue of ‘truthfulness’ of the visual

image, referring to the

photograph as an ‘intervention’

rather then a documentation of

truth, a tool which “relieves us

from the burden of memory” (180,

p.55). The ‘context’ of such an

image is crucial, and Berger

stresses the importance of the

photographer being less of a

“reporter to the rest of the world”

then as “a recorder for those

involved in the events

photographed (p.58). Here Figure 1


Berger grasps the important fact that

images not only capture but reconstruct

reality, that within photographs is imbued the

ability to cause ruptures, to intervene in the

process of memory. Here I would like to use

the example of colonial photography, a

practice grounded in the belief of the true

objectivity of the camera, of the camera as a

tool to preserve and categorise reality.

The ‘indexicality’ of the photograph allowed

for the colonial state to have knowledge

over and thus control over their ‘subjects’.

Here Pinney explains how the power of the

photographic

‘gaze’ leeds to individual

identity being “largely displaced by

generic masks rendered visible to the

state” (1997, p.23). The structuring of

the image, in form as well as context,

allowed for the “frame” through which

these so called ‘records’ of reality to

become obscured. In the colonial

encounter, photography largely

became the method of proof for the

theory of ‘types’, anthropometric

measurement (Figure 3) being the

methodological tool to justify theories

of Social Darwinism. Thus through

the seemingly innocuous act of the

Figure 2

Figure 3


collection of evidence,

the visual image

became a ‘weapon’ in

which the colonial

other became

identified and

classified. This

essentialisation of the

colonial ‘other’ “not

only helped to sustain

imperialist expansion

but also supplied

Europeans with a new,

empowering

framework for identity

based on racial and

cultural

essence” (Maxwell

1999, p. 9).

Through her work with first generation Pakistani and Indian

children in Southall, England, Larson (1988) argues that photographs

can be used to uses “to question rather than confirm events

photographed” (p415). Drawing from Henri Cartier-Bresson's notion

of capturing the "decisive moment”, Larson argues that photography

provides a methodological tool which may facilitate ethnographic

work to the extent that it allows the researcher the possibility “not to

"confer" importance, but to recognise it” (p434). This idea of the

photograph being able to sample or capture a moment of reality

speaks to common sensical perceptions of the photograph but such

an approach seems to be lacking in reflexivity of the power relations

involved in such image-making. As Macdougall remarks (2005),

“framing people, objects, and events with a camera is always about

something, it is a way of pointing out, of describing, of judging” (p3).

Here I argue that Larson, does not truly point out how her images

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7


form a genuine collaborative attempt to convey meaning, and this sense of ‘conferring’ is

thus robbed of it’s significance. The act of conveying cultural symbols (Figure 4), of

documenting, when taken outside of it’s context, can become bound to the same dilemmas

of ‘judging’ found in colonial photography.

Providing a more substantial critique of the ‘truthfulness’ of the visual image, the

work of Pushpamala N, a visual artist based in Bangalore, India, aims to not only to

subvert and critique colonial photography through looking at the way images are framed

and contextualised, as well as the aesthetic impetus behind such imagery. Here power

relations are questioned and explored, as seen through her self portraits which critique

anthropometric representations (Figures 5, 6, 7) and the objectification of the self. These

photographs in many ways reflect the need for self representative visual media as

advocated by Ruby (1992:58). Particularly Interesting is Figure 8 and 9, in which the

framing as well as the presence of ‘onlookers’ (perhaps experts) is revealed, exposing the

artifice of the photograph. Such a technique allows the viewer to be forced to confront the

very process of the construction of cultural identities “within a context designed to

destabilise those identities rather than maintain or strengthen them (Maxwell 2000, p10).

These depictions highlight the staged nature of colonial photography, revealing both the

frame and the bias in such a way which is unavoidable, exposing the ‘violence’ and

historical weight involved in the production of such images of the ‘Other’ (Said 1978), and

the ways in which such a frame gave the visual image “such importance in the colonial

Figure 8 Figure 9


imagination” (Pinney 1997, p20). The first photographic images of non-european peoples

were produced by anthropologists (Maxwell 2000, 38), and such a pursuit involved the

documentation of physical and cultural characteristics, conforming to a “system of

representation that was based on racial essences” (ibid). Such a system of categorisation

assumed that visible signs of the body could tell us about cultural differences, in a

‘scientific’ manner which often assumed these racially defined bodies could be examined

to establish a certain form of cultural hierarchy and thus justify colonial power. Beyond

social darwinism, such techniques of depersonalisation allowed for the organisation of

groups which assisted imperial management, and in many ways led to the shaping of the

colonial world, whose sediments remain powerfully transcribed both geographically as well

as in the cultural imagination to this very day.

“The fundamental problem in all social science is that the facts are always distorted by the presence of the person who asks questions. You distort the answer simply by posing a question.” (Rouch, J., & Feld, Steven 2003, p219).

This quote typifies Jean Rouch's

approach to ethnographic filmmaking

through it’s sensitive reflexivity and

awareness of the power dynamics

inherent in the visual image. Rouch, in

his attempt to create a “cinéma-vérité”

aimed to question the neutrality of so

called ‘documentary’ film; his belief

was that film and photography is

always imbued with power and

residue of ‘authorship’ - the gaze

situated behind the lens. Such an

applied and collaborative approach

to visual anthropology allows “the

experiences of those who are normally invisible to be seen and their voices and feelings to

be heard” (Pink 2011, p450). A photograph cannot show the same temporal relationship

between objects as a film can, they are only fragments (Omonri 2006).

“I am a student from Africa working on my thesis at the university. Would you permit

me to measure you?”. This question comes from the protagonists of Rouch’s film ‘Petit à

Figure 10Damore and Lam study and discuss architecture and the city in the ‘west’


Petit’, Damore and Lam, who travel to paris to study to Paris to study the French “tribe” so

as to get measurements and

observations, to build a luxury hotel

catering to westerners (Figure 10,

11). Here the direction of the gaze is

reversed, as the filmmaker at once

collaborates with those he is

portraying, aiming to interrogate the

“superiority of reason” (Stoller 1992,

p56). Stoller remarks that

“europeans are usually the

observers not the observed”, and

here Rouch provides an account of

his own “tribe”, the French,

embracing the transformative

potential of the visual image to problematise and bring into question the very foundations

of ‘photographic knowledge’. To Rouch their is “almost no boundary between documentary

film and films of fiction’ (Rouch 1978), as he acknowledges “the permeability of categorical

boundaries (fact/fiction/objectivity/subjectivity)” (Stoller 1992, p56). By aknowledging the

porousness of such categorical boundaries, Rouche challenges both the categorisation

inherent in colonial photography, as well as inherent in the venture of anthropology itself.

“The act of focusing involves an element where the self enters the other. In addition,

when it comes to discourse, the self remakes what it has perceived in order to present it to

others (Lydall, J & Strecker 2006, p139). Here Lydall, J & Strecker highlight the pluralistic

aspect of photograph, the intersubjectivity involved in the process of image making, this

intersection between the ‘subject’ and ‘object’. To conclude, I believe that Rouch’s ‘shared

anthropology’ allows for a distinct dialogue to emerge between cultures, and a genuine

critique can emerge which transcends the work of Larson (1988), whose act of ‘conferring’

seems genuinely empty of dialogue in comparison. The interpersonal engagement person

in Rouch’s work, where films are not only shown and discussed with the subjects, but

involve a creative collaborative process which act to expose the constructed nature of

cultural narratives. Yet even Rouch acknowledges his positionally and the power held by

the filmmaker or photographer when he remarks that “film is the only means I have to

show someone else how I see him.” (Rouch, J., & Feld, Steven. 2003, p43). Yet his belief

Figure 11Damore and Lam inspect ‘western’ vehicles


that this quest of knowledge mustn’t be a “stolen secret” but an “endless quest where

ethnographers and those whom they study meet” (Rouch, J., & Feld, Steven. 2003, p101)

allows for more space to interrogate a bring into question issues of power then

photography. Such an approach has similarities with Trinh T. Minha quest to speak nearby,

and perps such a pursuit must be adopted to transcend the seemingly inescapable power

relations involved in process’ of ‘knowledge production’. Perhaps to truly engage with

Sontag’s observation one must align oneself with anthropologists such as Geertz and

Rouch in the stance that ethnography and visual media mustn’t claim to be ‘truthfull’ but

rather tell a story.

Bibliography


Berger, J. (1980). About looking. London: Writers and Readers.

Corbey, Raymond. (1993) “Ethnographic Showcases, 1870-1930.” Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 8, No. 3: 338-369.

Larson, H. (1988). Photography that listens. Visual Anthropology, 1(4), 415-432.

Jarvie, I.C. (1983) The Problem of the Ethnographic Real. Current Anthropology 24 (3): 313-25.

Galtung, J. (1990). Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research, 27(3), 291-305.

Georgakas, D, Gupta, U, Janda, J, Rouch, J. The Politics of Visual Anthropology: An Interview with Jean Rouch. in Rouch, J., & Feld, Steven. (2003). Ciné-ethnography (Visible evidence ; v. 13). Minneapolis, Minn. ; London: University of Minnesota Press.Ginsburg, F. (1991) “Indigenous Media: Faustian Contract or Global Village?”, Cultural Anthropology, 92-116

Lakoff, Andrew. (1996) “Freezing Time: Margaret Meads's Diagnostic Photography.” Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 12, No. 1: 1-18.

Lydall, J & Strecker, (2006). Men and women on both sides of the camera. In: Reflecting Visual Anthropology. Eds. Postma, Metje and Peter Crawford. Aarhus: Intervention Press; Leiden: CNWS Press Pp 138-56.

Lutz, C., & Collins, J. (1991). The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: The Example of National Geographic. Visual Anthropology Review, 7(1), 134-149.

Maxwell, A. (2000). Colonial photography and exhibitions : Representations of the "native" and the making of European identities. London: Leicester University Press

MacDougall, D. (2005). The corporeal image : Film, ethnography, and the senses. Princeton, N.J. ; Woodstock: Princeton University Press.

McLagan, M. (2008) 'Principles, Publicity, and Politics: Notes on Human Rights Media', American Anthropologist 105(3): 605-612

Said, E. (1978). Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. London: Clays Ltd.

Omory, Y. (2006). Recording, Constructing and Reviewing Teyyam, The Annual Visit of the God Vishnumurti in Postma, M., & Crawford, Peter Ian. (2006). Reflecting visual ethnography : Using the camera in anthropological research. Leiden: CNWS.

Pink, S. (2011). Images, Senses and Applications: Engaging Visual Anthropology. Visual Anthropology, 24(5), 437-454.Pinney, C. (1997). Camera Indica : The social life of Indian photographs. London: Reaktion Books.

Rouch, J., & Feld, Steven. (2003). Ciné-ethnography (Visible evidence ; v. 13). Minneapolis, Minn. ; London: University of Minnesota Press.

Ruby, J. (1992). Speaking For, Speaking About, Speaking With, or Speaking Alongside- An Anthropological and Documentary Dilemma. Journal of Film and Video, 44(1/2), 42-66.

Sontag, S. (1979). On photography. Harmondsworth: Penguin.


Stoller, P. (1992). Artaud, Rouch, and The Cinema of Cruelty. Visual Anthropology Review, 8(2), 50-57.

Wright, Chris. (1998). The Third Subject: Perspectives on Visual Anthropology. Anthropology Today, 14(4), 16-22.

Image Sources

Figures 1,2 3 Various Sources (shown beneath the images) taken from:

Maxwell, A. (2000). Colonial photography and exhibitions : Representations of the "native" and the making of European identities. London: Leicester University Press.

Figure 4

Larson, H. (1988). Photography that listens. Visual Anthropology, 1(4), 415-432.

Figures 5, 6, 7, 8

Pushpamala N. and Clare Arni (2000-2004). The Ethnographic Series: (Details). Sepia-toned silver gelatin prints Accessed at:http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/pushpamala_n_installation1.htm on 12.04.12

Figures 9

Rouch, Hean (1969). Petit à Petit: Paris: Films de la Pleiade
http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/pushpamala_n_installation1.htm

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