"autobiography is an extension of control over self image..." but that "the autobiographer stands apart from the self, tried to envision and read it from a vantage distanced from the passage of time."
Talks about how the act of taking a photo of oneself, of making a "representational image" is the construction of "I". There is trouble in this though- representation-creating is never finished, never complete, never totally controlled. As Barthes says: "What I want is that my mobile image, buffeted among thousands of shifting photographs, altering with age and situation, should always coincide with my profound self. But its the contrary which must be said; myself never coincides with my image, for it is the image which is heavy, motionless, solid, and myself which is light."
so... we photograph ourselves to try and control our representation, among the thousands of others, to try and show who we truly are, and yet, as Mark Twain finds, this is impossible, the image never changes, it is a solid, the self beneath is "easily graspable", made into a un-complex object. Death of an author (Foucault)
This an image of Mark Twain, who spent lots of time reconstructing and reshooting his self-image to try and "capture his soul".
The answer to this; "hyper-manufacturing of images"- to try and control, to try and show who we are.
Especially important in a world where we are represented unknowingly, unwittingly, from all sides by surveillance- photography has become an identity thing, a way of making solid what it actually fluid and ever changing; if it is said that if you didn't photograph it, it never happened, then is it also true, if we do not photograph ourselves, we do not exist, are unrepresented, are out of control.
This all links into anxiety about self-image, and also about how disposable photos are now- we must keep creating, keep constructing, to keep control.
"photographs show that someone has been there- photographic honesty and immediacy of photographic representation"
"photographs are not simply the things they represent, but must be made through the culture that creates or consumes them."
"photographs show that someone has been there- photographic honesty and immediacy of photographic representation"
"photographs are not simply the things they represent, but must be made through the culture that creates or consumes them."
More Barthes:
"When I feel myself observed by a lens, everything changes; I constitute myself in the process of posing. I instantaneously make another body for myself. I transform myself in advance into an image." This is an active thing, because the photograph "creates my body, or mortifies it."
"I lend myself to the social game. I pose, i know i am posing, I want you to know i am posing, but this must not..alter my essence of individuality"
"In front of a lens I am the same time the one I think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, the one others think I am, the ones which is used to exhibit." (also what various audience members think I am?) "I do not stop imitating myself"
This is all very useful, about the act of being photographed. Likens the act of being photographed as a subject like being made into an object- like dieing. Links to death of an author.
This made me think of this hiliar video:
Some more disposable camera projects
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/may/07/trashcam-photography-in-pictures
I saw this disposable camera project, which is all the dustmen in Hamburg who make the wheelie bins into pinhole cameras. I love the creativity of this more than the photos; the idea of making something which people associate with rubbish and digsust into something useful and beautiful and artistsic.
These photos are really cool too- I like their style, which is actually quite good quality and rather beautiful despite the fact that they are made inside a bin.
I also like that they are pin-hole cameras, which make them seem even more like someone is peeking out of the side of a bin; this is really cool and a great effect.
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