The Adventure of a Photographer

Italo Calvino (1923-1985) was a Cuban born writer who lived and worked in Italy. He worked as a journalist as well as becoming well known for writing short stories and novels. This short story ‘The Adventure of a photographer’ is from a collection of his short stories ‘Difficult Loves’ that are all based around themes of love and loneliness.

In this story Calvino presents the idea of truth in photography. He demonstrates that often when taking photographs, the motivation is not to document reality but to produce an image of your ideal. The idea is that photography is the framing of part of a particular moment in a particular way.

The first way this is demonstrated in the text is through the discussion of family photography specifically “new parents framing their offspring” (222). He talks about the desire for parents to photograph their children saying that “The photograph album remains the only place where all these fleeting perfections are saved and juxtaposed, each aspiring to an incomparable absoluteness of its own.” (222).

Initially Antonio (the main character, a bachelor) feels excluded from the family photography of his friends. Calvino mentions Antonio being asked to take the “family group or multi family picture” (223) as not having a family he is seen as an outsider. He says that initially “an awkward stiffening of his arm would make the lens veer to capture the masts of ships or the spires of steeples, or to decapitate grandparents, uncles, and aunts. He was accused of making a joke in bad taste.” (223). This quote expresses the desire for parents to have a photo that documents not reality but an idealised version of the moment. Antonio also observes something similar when he says “If you take a picture of Pierluca because he’s building a sand castle, there is no reason not to take his picture while he’s crying because the castle has collapsed, and then while the nurse consoles him by helping him find a sea shell in the sand.” (224)

When Antonio takes up Photographing Bice in the story he talks about “the ideal postcard in his mind” (229) that he is trying to photograph. Then he goes on to question whether he wants to photograph a fantasy (230). Antonio comes to the conclusion that “Whatever person you decide to photograph, or whatever thing, you must go on photographing it always, exclusively, at every hour of the day and night. Photography has a meaning only if it exhausts all possible images.” (233) So, he photographs Bice constantly and then when this obsession drives her away he photographs the absence of her. He ends the story photographing photographs. This seems as if perhaps he was obsessed with the process of photography more than his subject. By this I mean that I see the character as trying to make photography capture some kind of truth and I think that this is impossible so to end by photographing the photographs implies a realization or acknowledgement that the photograph is itself an object that has its own version of the ‘truth’.

So the idea that I have drawn from Calvino’s story is that photography is the framing of a moment in an attempt to produce an ideal image. However this is just a concept drawn from a short story; how does it relate to personal photography in reality and photography as a creative medium?

In the article ‘Imagination and Memory’ Maryanne Garry and Devon L.L. Polaschek discus the scientific studies that support the theory that imagining false events (especially repeatedly) can lead to the development of actual memories of the imagined event. The reason I bring up this article is that I want to discus how creating idealised images of particular moments in our personal histories could possibly affect our autobiographical memory.

This article summarises some of the important research in the area of memory. The research shows that “imagining the past differently from what it was can change the way one remembers it.” (6) The article shows that memories can not only be altered but entire false memories implanted through imagination alone (7). They say that “These studies show that false memories can be created when people think about (and probably imagine) childhood events in an attempt to remember them.” (7) and that “repeatedly examining ones past can change the way one remembers it.” (8).

So if we relate this to the process of personal/family photography we could draw up a hypothesis that repeatedly examining an idealised version of an event in your past could actually affect the memories that you have of that event. One of the keys to altering memory that Garry and Polaschek identify is repetition. This means that the repeated exposure to a photo that displays a particular version of the truth could lead to the memories of the event to become confused with the version of the event in the photograph. As many of the studies they discus deal with implanting entire false memories into subjects as well as altering details of existing memories it does not seem a huge jump then to assume that memories could be altered through repeated exposure to the idealised representations of events that we often see in photography.

Patricia Holland discusses Family photography. She expresses the view that in family photography “memory interweaves with private fantasy and public history.” (1). She also asks whether photography is about people looking to produce their own ideal image (7). She concludes her discussion by saying that “Family photography can operate at this junction between personal memory and social history, between public myth and personal unconscious. Our memory is never fully ‘ours’, nor are the pictures ever unmediated representations of our past. Looking at them we both construct a fantastic past and set out on a detective trail to find other versions of a ‘real’ one.” (13-14)

So we can conclude that family and personal photography can be an act of recording a fantastic or idealised version of an event or moment. However does this relate to photography as a creative medium in art? I think that it has implications in that people can often view photography as a truthful medium. These writers lead me to conclude that photography is more of an ideal or fantasy than a truth. Should this then affect the way we take photos, as Antonio tried to photograph constantly in an attempt to capture truth? Or perhaps it should instead affect the way we view photographs?

References:

Italo Calvino, “The Adventure of a Photographer”, in Difficult Loves, William Weaver, Archibald Colquhoun and Peggy Wright (trans.), San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984, pp 220-235. Print.

Garry, Maryanne and Polaschek, Devon L. L. "Imagination and Memory." Current Directions in Psychological Science. Vol. 9 (2000): pp. 6-10. JSTOR. Web. 07/06/2010.

Holland, Patricia. "Hisory, Memory and the Family Album." Family Snaps: The meaning of domestic photography. Ed. Spence, Jo and Holland, Patricia. London: Virago, 1991. pp. 1-14. Print.

Entropy Made Visible

Robert Smithson (1938 -1973) is an American artist commonly associated with the land and process art movements. In this interview he discuses the preoccupation with entropy that has influenced his work.

Smithson has his own interpretation of entropy and how it has informed his art. He says “On the whole I would say entropy contradicts the usual notion of a mechanistic world view. In other words it’s a condition that’s irreversible, it’s a condition that’s moving towards a gradual equilibrium and it’s suggested in many ways.” (189)

Smithson takes a pessimistic view of entropy or he seems at least to be interested in examples of negative irreversible change. He discusses entire cities being permanently flooded and includes photos of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. However perhaps he does not see these as negative; he says “I don’t find these depressing” (192). However phrases like: “There is still the heat death of the sun.” (191) do seem fairly pessimistic. Essentially he is saying entropy means that the earth is a closed system and that a closed system eventually deteriorates beyond repair.

Smithson admits to a fascination with disaster and frames this as a human need. He says “It seems that there’s almost a hope for disaster. There’s that desire for spectacle. I know when I was a kid I used to love to watch the hurricanes come and blow the trees down and rip up the sidewalks. I mean it fascinated me. There’s a kind of pleasure one receives on that level.” (196)

Jeffrey S. Wicken discusses entropy in the article ‘Entropy and Evolution: Ground Rules for Discourse’. He is discussing these concepts in a scientific context however he highlights some of the confusion that has arisen around entropy between scientific disciplines. He says “That thermodynamics is much misunderstood by the biological community is hardly surprising, considering that the history of the entropy concept has invited misunderstandings and semantic imprecisions.” (23)

Wicken criticises some of the broader applications of the term entropy. He says that “Entropy was formulated as that state function in thermodynamics that had the property of increasing in irreversible processes.” (23) Here he is saying that entropy was the name given to one particular function or equation and that he thinks that the term should not just be applied to anything that behaves similarly. An example of this that he discusses is the attempt to apply this function, entropy, as a concept in information theory (Smithson references this also in the interview with Sky (190)). He says that there are similarities between entropy in thermodynamics and information theory but that they are not the same and that “One needs rather to be healthily wary of the impulse to generalize from equation to concept.” (25) He suggests that there are entropies (indicating differences between the applications) and then there is entropy as it is used in thermodynamics (which means that specific function).

This article only discusses the misunderstandings that occur within the scientific community and does not go into the implications of this confusion outside the sciences. For me however the amount of confusion inside the scientific community raises the question of whether artists should borrow from science at all. Also in relation to artists like Smithson who are borrowing specific concepts or ideas, should the demonstration of their understanding of these concepts be under scrutiny?

Peter Lloyd Jones has written about the use of entropy in art. He deals specifically with the attraction and possible relevance of the use of entropy in art. He discuses how entropy can be interpreted pessimistically and used as “a grandiose metaphor for degeneration and decrepitude.” (30) He also points out that certain uses of the term entropy as a metaphor can exhaust the scientific content of the term completely (32). I think he is raising a good point about the use of a scientific term or idea out of context and whether or not this is appropriate as misuse can lead to the scientific content of the term being lost. In relation to the use of entropy by artists, using Smithson as a specific example, he concludes that “Even methodically to correct the errors in their use of thermodynamics is to miss the irony. In Smithson’s polemic ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’, the quotations from Bridgeman on Thermodynamics sits down on the page with Alice Through the Looking Glass.” (Jones 34)

So then, Wicken believes it is dangerous to try and form a concept from an equation and certainly in the sciences this may be a valid observation but does it hold any weight for artists, like Smithson, who have embraced entropy as a concept. I, for one, think that it’s fine for artists to explore terms that do not directly apply to their own disciplines. I agree with Jones in that to focus on the errors is to miss the point of the work.

One Quote from Smithson that particularly intrigued me was: “Now there may be a point where the earth’s surface will collapse and break apart, so that the irreversible process will be in a sense metamorphosized, it is evolutionary, but it’s not evolutionary in terms of any idealism. There is still the heat death of the sun. It may be that human beings are just different from dinosaurs rather than better.” (Smithson 191) This was in relation to a question about how entropy related to evolution. This quote may seem overly pessimistic but for me it highlights a potential way to think of evolution, as change not necessarily for the better but just as change, which was not how I had previously considered the term. I think Smithson’s work, including his discussions and writings, can make his point of view and ideas accessible. However I do not think his work should be seen as an accurate scientific illustration but more as an artistic investigation.

I think that in the end contemporary scientific thought influences the way people think in general as well as influencing art and culture. In other words artists will be influenced by contemporary thought whether or not they do this intentionally. Therefore artists are borrowing from other disciplines anyway and there is no reason to question those artists who want to explore scientific concepts outright.

References:

Holt, Nancy, ed. The writings of Robert Smithson. New York: New York University Press, 1979. Print.

Jones, Peter Lloyd. "Some thoughts on Ruldolf Arnheim’s book “Entropy and Art”." Leonardo Vol. 6 (1973): p. 29-35. JSTOR. Web. 05/05/2010.

Wicken, Jeffrey S. "Entropy and Evolution: Ground Rules for Discourse." Systematic Zoology Vol. 35 (1986): p.22-36. JSTOR. Web. 05/05/2010.

On The Death of the Author

‘On the Death of the Author’ is a short story by Alvaro Enrigue. Enrigue is an editor, literary critic and author. He was born in Mexico and currently lives in Washington DC. His work is often categorised as post-modern, mixing different themes and narrative styles (literaturfestival.com). On the Death of the Author is based partially on the true story of Ishi, who is known as the last Yahi Indian. Melded into the story of Ishi is a discussion of Enrigue's writing process.

Enrigue presents the story of Ishi in the following order. Ishi was found close to death outside a slaughterhouse and was subsequently taken to jail. A San Francisco professor saw an article about him in the paper and decided to take him to the museum of anthropology. He lived the rest of his life in the museum as a living exhibit/janitor. Enrigue also tells of the persecution of the Yahi and details of Ishi’s life in the museum.

Enrigue has, as far as I can tell, conveyed the facts of Ishi’s tale accurately (Ishi: A Yahi Indian). However the discussion of his writing process and ideas is, to me, a much more interesting aspect for discussion. In this story Enrigue expresses distaste for things in writing and life in general that are too literal. He says “…it does seem to me that so much literalness could end up being harmful…” (Death of the Author 2). He talks about, instead of this literalness, leaving things open and allowing for some mystery or mythology in life and in literature.

He says that he has tried to write this story many times before without much success (1). He also says that his first 5 or 6 attempts were always too political and “…literal to the death with all [their] meaning exposed…” (4). He says that the political aspects in the story do not interest him as much as the more abstract idea of being the last of something.

My understanding is that his troubles in writing this tale lie in the expression of meaning. He does not want a lifeless factual recounting of the story nor does he want a political commentary on the new world’s attitude towards the Yahi. Instead he seems to want to express the mythology and mystery that he gets from the story by providing suggestions and leaving the meaning open to interpretation.

Enrigue’s idea, as I understand it, is that the suggestion of meaning is possibly more powerful than a literal expression would be. This is because it leaves things to the imagination of the reader. A suggestion can create possibilities for meaning to be elaborated within and thus different readers can draw different conclusions by applying their own background and experiences.

Umberto Eco discusses this idea in his book ‘The Open Work’. He says that although when viewing a work of art we are looking at a finished product, we come to it with our own personal ‘credentials’ (1-3). In other words when looking at a work of art each person will apply their own tastes, prejudices and individual perspective. He also notes that an individual may have a different view of a work at a different time because of what is going on in their life at that moment (6).

Eco writes that the value of art is tied up in this ability to be reinterpreted (3-4). He makes a comparison between a work of art and a traffic sign. The sign can only be interpreted one way as it is a symbolic functional item and if it is interpreted differently through an individual’s particularly vivid imagination it ceases to function as a traffic sign and thus loses its value. The work of art, however, presents information within a framework that is subject to individual interpretation. This is because it is presented as art but Eco also claims that art gains its validity from its ability to be suggestive and open to multiple interpretations.

This relates to Enrigue's opinions that a story suggestive of meaning is more powerful than one that dictates a literal meaning. Throughout the story he discusses his dislike of literalness both in literature and in life. The alternative he proposes is that open and perhaps illogical or unpredictable stories are better. This is because, he says, of the feeling of mystery and mythology that they produce (Death of the Author 5). For Enrigue then the value of literature is in its ability to be suggestive of meaning not literal.

Although Enrigue does not discuss the idea of differing interpretations of a work specifically I think that his denial of literalness in favour of a more suggestive approach points to a favouring of what Eco calls open works. The ‘open work’ presents information that has the potential to produce meaning through interpretation and each individual including the author can take their own meaning from it (The Open Work 9). Enrigue only discusses writing this story but Eco applies the idea of the open work to visual art and music as well as literature.

References:

Eco, Umberto. The Open Work. Translated by Cancogni, Anna. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard university press, 1989. Print.

Enrigue, Alvaro. Translated by Levine, Suzanne Jill and Kushner, Anna. "On the Death of the Author." Words Without Borders. Web. 17 March 2010.

Author unknown "Alvaro Enrigue." www.literaturfestival.com. International literature festival Berlin, 2004. Web. 10 April 2010.

Nicole Mullen "Ishi: A Yahi Indian" Hearst Museum Berkeley. Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, 2003. Web. 10 April 2010.