One concept I am thinking through right now is the idea of frames. A photograph can be framed, obviously, but I am also thinking of a book as framed by its cover (a cover that often features an image). In addition, I want to write about frames more metaphorically, as in, how is in image contextualized? A photograph in a fashion magazine has a different "frame" than a photograph in a newspaper, for example. When a photograph is taken, the sitter might have an idea of how that image should be framed, how it will be contexualized. With photography, the image gets reproduced without the sitters' permission. A photograph of Madonna, for example, originally shot to promote her tour is read differently when it is shown in the context of her impending divorce.
Here is quote from a great book, Fashioning Sapphism, that explains further this idea:
"As the image filters into public culture, its message, formerly at the service of the photographic subject, is resituated in a different context, one that effectively steals away the earlier frame. The portrait thus becomes a 'frame' entrapping the would-be framers" (167).
Do you have a photograph of yourself that was used in a way that you didn't intend? Or read differently than you imagined? Or published without your consent?
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Quote of the Week
"There are only two types of dissertations: Done and Not Done."
Feeding the Lake
"All of writing is like a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. And there are trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake. It is very important. Nothing else is important."
Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys
Disseration Topic
It's complicated. And a constant work in progress. I also feel very protective of it. It's something about how changes in photography influenced writing in the 1920s and 1930s. If you want to know more, we can discuss in person.
2 comments:
Yes, and if you get a Facebook account you can see most of them on Chris's page.
I would approach the question from a most Buddhisty perspective.
"When a photograph is taken, the sitter might have an idea of how that image should be framed, how it will be contextualized."
True -- and yet that idea is purely a function of ego. The sitter has a conception of self that is fixed, existing inherently from its own side, rather than arising contingent on cause and circumstance. From the point of view of Buddhist Middle Way philosophy (cf. Arya Nagarjuna and the commentary of Chandrakirti), the former view is logically incorrect while that latter represents true reality. One would like to think the dislocation that occurs upon reframing the picture represents a chip off that instinctual ignorance.
Today I learned that "skeevy" comes from the Italian word "schifoso" meaning disgusting, detestable, rotten, repulsive, foul, hideous, loathsome, distasteful, lousy, filthy.
I did not know that.
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