Abstract: AbstractA loss of meaning ensues as family photographs come into public circulation and display, and the question of how memory endures within this process has become of increasing concern. Retaining photographic materiality, along with original meanings previously associated with images, has been presented as one way of defending against loss. This paper argues that this involves a particular dynamics of object-relating, which is important to consider. What is documented here is how a new cultural treatment of family photographs, within photographic theory and practice, performs a heightened fidelity to the photographic object, which can be challenged on certain grounds. The article takes as its particular focus the artistic adoption of images as "found photography", where the provenance of the photograph is unknown. Rather than being concerned with defending against the loss of meaning that arises through the public-artistic appropriation of such material, I prefer to see the photograph as a "transitional object" and argue for both a greater recognition of the complexities of the process of appropriation, but also for an unbounded notion of "use", as a means of releasing the potential of the "found" photograph, as a point of imagining for new realities. Notes1 See, for example, "Lessons of Darkness", Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, 1988. Images also shown in Marianne Hirsch, Chapter 8, "Past Lives".2 Here, Rose is deploying Laurent Berlant's terms, which are directed toward the critique of the replacement of "active citizenship" with sentiment, which Rose sees as drawn through "the public citation of affective institutions such as the family" (Rose 131).3 Rose deploys Kaja Silverman's "ethics in the field of vision" (qtd. in Rose 112) in The Threshold of the Visible World to define the moment of encountering the photograph as representative of the moment of being face-to-face with "the other".4 Langford deploys Walter Ong's notion of "orality" in Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the World in order to describe how photographic albums are not only defined within conversation but also themselves represent conversations formed in time.5 Buse is referring to Elizabeth Edwards' "Photographs as Object of Memory" here, specifically her desire to see the photography "not merely as an image" (qtd. in Buse 190), but as an affective presence in the world.6 This is a reference to Allan Sekula's "The Body and the Archive", often and easily misquoted as "The Body in the Archive".7 Cathexis is the investment of energy in the object, which is transferred from the mother to other objects; the photograph here.8 As Barthes refers to "a team of sociologists" (7) dealing with amateur photographs, it can be assumed that this is a reference to Pierre Bourdieu's study Un Art Moyen first published in France in 1965. Both Barthes and Bourdieu, in their different ways, announce a dismissal of aesthetics.9 Nicholas Abraham and Maria Torok adopt Sandor Ferenczi's definition of this concept, which was taken up by Freud and Abraham and Melanie Klein, and which was interpreted as a kind of transference and moment of inclusion of the object in the ego. Initially defined in 1909 in "Introjection and Transference", the processes were later clarified in 1912 in "On the Definition of Introjection". It is the clarification which concerns Torok, who seeks to put forward the distinction between "introjection" as a process of "incorporation", and "incorporation" as a failed form of "introjection", more forcefully. This emphasises the importance of mediation in the process of self-identification and meaning-making.10 Originally published in The Casual Eye in 1971.11 As Benjamin Buchloh argues, the earlier shock effect of appropriative art practices was to become reformed as an epistemology of the archive developed around 1925, which he sees as signalling the end of photocollage.12 Edward Steichen The Family of Man, Citation1955, and John Szarkowski The Photographer's Eye, 1966, both at the Museum of Modern Art, sought to foreground the importance of photography by elaborating its placement within a wider universal human experience, firmly including the domestic sphere within the photographic frame.13 Joachim Schmid, from the series Archive, 1986–94 and Alexander Honory, Institute of Contemporary Family Photography, The Found Image, 1989 (see Bull, "The Elusive Author").14 Other People's Pictures, a film by Lorca Shepperd and Cabot Philbrick, documents this growing personal interest in collecting family photographs in America.15 <http://www.ohiomagazine.de> First published in 1995 by Huber and Jörg Paul Janka in Germany.16 <http://www.usefulphotography.com> Published by Kessells Kramer in the Netherlands.17 Joachim Schmid: Selected Photoworks at the Photographer's Gallery, London, 20 April–17 June 2007.18 A revealing vision of their life on tour is given in their film "Off and On Broadway", which includes live performances of the songs under discussion here.Additional informationNotes on contributorsKaren CrossKaren Cross is a Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Roehampton University. She is currently working on a monograph, Amateur Photography: Work, Materiality and the Everyday, to be published with Intellect. Karen co-edited, with Julia Peck, the special issue of Photographies on the topic of "Photography, Archive and Memory" in 2010, volume 3 issue 2.
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-01-02
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 7
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