Thoughts - Reading an archive - Alan Sekula

The use of archive images is widespread. As Alan Sekula points out these images are often taken out of context and re-purposed. Sometimes this is a good thing as the images can have polysemous meanings that the original photographer or curator may not have seen or intended. But there is also a danger that archives can be used to maintain a point of view that is inherently biased. Images that were made for propaganda purposes (including commercial work) can be removed from context and used as an historical document of fact. This can be very dangerous if these images start to appear to show a version of history without their original context.

In an archive all images become equal; or as Sekula more eloquently states:

"Visual differences can be homogenised out of existence when negatives first printed as industrial glossies and others printed on flat paper and tinted by hand are subjected to a uniform standard of printing for reproduction in a book. Thus the difference between a mode of pictorial address which is primarily 'informational' and one which is 'sentimental' is obscured. in this sense, archives establish a relation of abstract visual equivalence". Sekula ().


Unfortunately with mass globalisation and the fast moving pace of information it feels that media organisations are less inclined to strictly verify the source of images as much as they used to.

Thoughts: Photography chpt 2 - Visual Culture

I would agree with the point of view that Howells makes for photography as an art form in chapter 3 of Visual Culture. By analysing a series of work made by a photographer the intent can usually be seen or worked out. It therefore follows that if an artist's intent can be ascertained then the photograph is more than just its subject matter; which seems to be the main thrust of arguments against photography as an art form. The mechanical recording and output of a subject onto paper (or digital media) is just part of the process; though this is usually focused on (naively or wilfully?) to the exclusion of all the other artistic intentions and choices that have to take place before and after the clicking of the shutter. Also, it is interesting that whenever arguments such as the element of chance or lack of control over subject are made to exclude photography, (because of lack of intent) it is 'straight' photography such as 'street' or 'documentary' that is used to bolster the argument - conveniently forgetting all about other modes of photography such as constructed. That is because to look at these other areas the argument of lack of intent would immediately fall flat.

Thoughts - Poststructuralism and the language of photography

After several readings I still don't fully grasp the intent of Roland Barthe's "The Rhetoric of the Image". It will take a few more readings I think. The concept of a 'sign' containing 'signifiers and signifieds' is straight forward enough and the examples used make a lot of sense when it comes to deconstructing an image. I can also relate to the poststructuralist notion that a sign can be polysemous (my favourite new word). Poststructuralist thinking, in similarity to the Postmodernist view, believes that art is intertextual. Cultural, sociological, and lived experience are all tools used to perceive artworks in a particular way. The artworks originator and the individual viewer cannot claim definitive authority over it. There is commonality of experience and there is difference - all are valid. In this respect I liked Barthe's description of a 'floating chain' of signifieds' that are waiting for the viewer to anchor around an image. The viewer (through individual intertextual experience) selects a signified sign and makes sense of the work to counteract the "terror of uncertain signs". Barthes (1977).

This, I think, is the gist of what Barthes was writing about although I will definitely need to re-read some more.


Barthes, R. (1977) The Rhetoric of the Image.