PARALLEL LINES: Federica Chiocchetti
Victor Burgin, Nuclear Power, 1977
Federica Belli The language of photography is still among the most contemporary ones, despite the growing diffusion of other digital arts. Which forms of photography do you find particularly exciting in our time?
Federica Chiocchetti My approach to photography has always been extremely literary, in the sense that I like the idea of consuming, perceiving and receiving photography in the same way one does with a novel or a short story. For me a photograph is exciting if it is somewhat surreal, ambiguous, mystical, mysterious, uncanny, and – why not – disturbing. Also – and photographers might hate me for that – I have always experienced images in a sort of “death-of-the-author” mode: I am hooked by images regardless of who made them. It does not matter whether it is an anonymous photograph from a flea market or an artwork by the most renowned photographer.
F.B. The point you made is critical both for photographers and observers. As a photographer, one often feels like being too involved in her own work, forgetting that what should speak is the image rather than the agenda of the artist. Also, going back to what you said, photographers are aware that everyone is representing reality through their phone as well; thus, we ourselves aim to something more I guess. We aim to work through visual literacy and add layers to our reality. Which is why photographs can be interpreted in many ways. We have all heard someone surely state that a strong photograph should communicate fully and univocally without the help of any text. Yet, history shows how easily images can be misinterpreted and twisted in multiple ways. Which can be the multiple roles of text in guiding visual interpretation in our days?
F.C. This is a huge question, it could be an additional chapter of my Ph.D. on the history and theory of photo-texts. It is fundamental to see captions not as the ultimate place where truth is to be found, even though we are trained to think that text is where we find real information about the image, but rather as an additional layer of meaning. The most amazing aspect of text is that it can be as subversive, fictional and subliminal as the image itself. Think of the amazing use of captions by Joan Fontcuberta in his 1980s projects Fauna and Herbarium, where he invented imaginary species of animals and plants, then using hilarious Latin titles to give the impression of scientific rigour: only through proper translation and deconstruction could the reader realise the actual aim of the artist. Also, there are multiple types of text that can be associated with images – which is why there are different types of photo-texts. Within the wide realm of photo-text, the various typologies originate from the different kinds of text that accompanies the images. Indeed, the first half of the term is what stays fixed (the photographic portion is constant); it’s the type of text to change: you can have poems, essays, novels... and then, blissfully, you always have exceptions or hybrids, such as conceptual photo-texts. Another aspect to consider is photo-text dynamics, which are extremely variable: in addition to the most traditional forms of interaction between image and text – the descriptive one, in which either the photograph illustrates the text or viceversa – the two languages can be employed to expand each other’s ambiguity.
War Primer, Bertolt Brecht
F.B. And, in a sense, the least expected ones are the interactions which subvert obvious interpretations, rather suggesting unexpected perspectives. For instance, during the last edition of Les Rencontres d’Arles festival, part of Fontcuberta’s work seemed particularly wild to me – I won’t ruin the suspence by telling you more. When thinking about images and text combined, one’s thoughts immediately go to the role of captions. Which other forms of interaction can actually arise between the two languages when text is inside the frame rather than outside?
F.C. Allow me to share a premise. The interaction between images and text is as old as the invention of photography: think of the Self-portrait as a Drowned Man by Bayard (1840), which is accompanied by a suicide note on the verso. For me the note is part of the artwork, even though it was often separated throughout history. If you remove it from the image, you kill the artwork. Anyhow, the intensity and the mode of interaction between photos and texts comes in waves throughout history: text’s invasion of the photographic surface was common among conceptual artists, who abandoned formal beauty in favour of the idea behind an artwork. I am thinking of Victor Burgin and Barbara Kruger, for instance: Burgin has this wonderful series, US77, consisting of mini-psychoanalytical essays inscribed on the photographic surface which reflects on masculinity and its fragility, at times revealing its toxicity, through notions of the male gaze and sexuality; Kruger has more a sloganeering approach, with strong graphic design elements affecting the relation between her found images and her words, and giving life to a confrontational dialogical work that interpellates the viewer (in Althusserian terms). It’s a barbaric invasion of text on images. Duane Michals’ work There Are Things Here not Seen in This Photograph (1977) consists of a photograph of the interior of a pub in which nothing is really happening, framed by a list of all those things the observer can’t see nor feel and thus expanding the limited bidimensional nature of the image. It’s a huge field the word and image one.
Hippolyte Bayard, Selfportrait as a Drowned Man
F.B. Definitely, and many of these experiments are lost in the flow of history. Turning to the specific genres of photo-literature and photo-poetry, in which ways are the symbols of these textual languages merging with the ones peculiar to photography? Which are the additional difficulties towards a successful communication in this cases?
F.C. There is a cloud of confusion around photo-literature. To begin with, there was no clear definition and many different things ended up being defined as photo-literature, while they were something else. I am thinking about ekphrasis for example. For me photo-literature is a novel or short story that incorporates photographs. The verbal and the visual co-exist. If it’s just a short story describing a photograph without showing the image, then it’s an example of ekphrasis. Often the incorporated photographs had an illustrative function, especially in the 19th century. The very first example of photo-literature, Bruges la Morte, is a very sad story by Georges Rodenbach about a flâneur who wanders around the city to mourn the loss of his wife; the city becomes a sort of presence constantly reminding him of her death. It is the first piece of fiction conceived to go with photographs. Then you have works such as The Emigrants or Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald, in which the incorporated photographs become literary devices of fictional evidence – quite an oxymoron, I know – for the narrative they accompany. When it comes to photo-poetry, effective interaction becomes even more challenging – especially if the poetry is rhymed and follows a classical scheme – due to the idiosyncrasies of the poetic language. One good example is the War Primer by Bertolt Brecht, a collection of clippings from mainstream newspapers during WW2 portraying the disturbing war propaganda, which he then accompanied with four-line poems deconstructing the ideology beneath the surface of the image. The aim was to train the viewer not to trust the image. Moreover, at times he even kept the original caption which accompanied the press image thus complexifying even further the word and image dynamics between photo, caption and poem. However, this is an extremely rare example: often times, the outcome is too literal and descriptive. In a way, a photo- text book becomes exciting when each spread works both as a standalone piece and as a part of a larger narrative. The good thing is you don’t need to apply a single photo-text approach throughout a book: one spread could be ambiguous and the next literal, what matters is rhythm. There is no specific formula towards a successful photo-text book, which is what gives the author the liberty to experiment freely.
