Pub Date : 2023-10-05DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2023.2256534
Miyabi Goto
AbstractHara Kazuo’s seminal documentary film, Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974, actively disturbs presumed boundaries and, in so doing, foregrounds the centrality of performance in documentary filmmaking. While existing scholarship on this documentary focuses primarily on the moving images, in this essay I focus on a series of photographic images inserted in the beginning and examine the impact and workings of photography in the composition of this documentary. The opening photo-sequence proceeds to draw a narrative of the familial relationship existing in the past, facilitating our spectatorial understanding of the personal history of those who are involved in the making of this documentary. At the same time, the photography in the sequence casts its gaze upon us viewers, creating the sensation that we are the ones who are interrogated. As such, the photo-sequence calls on us, pushing us to form a personal relationship with what we see. I contend that the photography in this documentary film engenders a moment for a broader scale of reflection on our own precarity, irrelevance, and non-necessity in the world surrounding Extreme Private Eros.Keywords: PhotographydocumentaryreproductionmotherExtreme Private Eros AcknowledgmentsThe author wishes to express her gratitude to Yanie Fécu and Megan Sarno for their continued support and to two anonymous reviewers for their detailed, constructive comments.Disclosure statementThe author declares that s/he has no relevant interests that relate to what is presented in this article.NoteNotes1 Examples of documentaries laden with socio-political implications include Ogawa Shinsuke's Sanrizuka series and Tsuchimoto Noriaki's Minamata series.2 An example includes the close-up of Takeda's face filmed by Hara when they engage in sexual intercourse. According to Hara's reflection in Camera Obtrusa, the sequence came into being as per Takeda's request: "I want to see what my face looks like while having sex, so I want you to film me" (105–106).3 For this essay, I use a DVD version of the film distributed by Facets Video in 2017. All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.4 Jun Okada's (Citation2018) study sheds light on the disconnect between local women in Okinawa and Takeda visiting from the mainland, calling the latter's feminist position “mis-guided” (183–186).5 I have in mind, for instance, Annmaria Shimabuku's (Citation2018) book Alegal for the geopolitical contextualization of Okinawa in the 1970s. For women's movements developing in Japan, I owe my understanding to Setsu Shigematsu's (Citation2012) book Scream from the Shadows and Ayako Kano's (Citation2016) Japanese Feminist Debates. Lucy Fischer's Cinematernity gives a helpful insight into genealogies of representations of mothers in (primarily Euro-Anglo-American) films. Book-length analyses of cinematic figurations of mothers in the Japanese context (and beyond) are much needed.6 Nakane Wakae's (Citation2016) work reminds us that Takeda and
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Pub Date : 2023-10-05DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2023.2249367
Richard Haynes
Sir Peter Heatly is a former Scottish diver who competed in three British Empire Games and one Olympic Games. On all his journeys to major competitions, he took personal photographs and kept published material and ephemera related to his trips, which were subsequently neatly stored in albums and scrapbooks, and, until 2018, were kept by his family when they deposited the personal archive to the University of Stirling. The vernacular photography of Heatly provides personal evidence of sport mega-events from the mid-twentieth century from an athlete’s perspective. It raises questions about the value of vernacular photography, family albums, and scrapbooks for interpreting and understanding the cultural historiography of sport and how much visual culture helps make sense of the cultures of international sport during the post-war period. The article provides some critical and analytical approaches to the use of such material, questioning the motivations for their original production and archiving, as well as recognizing such photographs are not simple documents of the past with unproblematic meanings but are contingent on specific “networks of authority” and open to contested meanings.
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Pub Date : 2023-10-05DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2023.2256171
Andrew O’Brien
AbstractThis portfolio and artist statement addresses the ongoing photographic series Drift Alignment, which explores the historical and contemporary conditions along the US-Mexico border. The work examines the legacy of Spanish colonization, US territorial expansion and contemporary migration with an emphasis on the various ways in which astronomy and celestial navigation have played a role in the evolution of the border region of southern Arizona.Keywords: migrationimmigrationastronomyUS-Mexico bordercelestial navigationlandscape Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsAndrew O’BrienNoteAndrew O’Brien is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. O’Brien’s artistic practice draws from lived experience to examine the organization and perception of physical space—especially as it relates to landscape and the built environment. His work is informed by the history and symbolic potential of materials, as well as the shifting incarnations of the photographic image. Works range from experimental publications, to photographs, video, and installation. He has exhibited widely, including at the Houston Center for Photography, The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado, the West Gallery at California State University Northridge, and the Art Museum of Northern Illinois University, among others. In 2021 O’Brien was named a Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellow.
这个作品集和艺术家声明解决了正在进行的摄影系列漂移对齐，它探索了美墨边境的历史和当代条件。这项工作考察了西班牙殖民，美国领土扩张和当代移民的遗产，重点是天文学和天体导航在亚利桑那州南部边境地区演变中发挥作用的各种方式。关键词:移民;移民;天文学;美墨边境;天体导航;作者简介:andrew O 'Brien是查塔努加田纳西大学艺术系的副教授。奥布莱恩的艺术实践从生活经验中汲取灵感，审视物理空间的组织和感知，尤其是与景观和建筑环境有关的空间。他的作品受到历史和材料的象征潜力的影响，以及摄影图像的转变。作品包括实验出版物、照片、视频和装置。他的作品曾在休斯敦摄影中心、科罗拉多州柯林斯堡的美术摄影中心、加州州立大学北岭分校的西画廊和北伊利诺伊大学艺术博物馆等地展出。2021年，奥布莱恩被任命为田纳西州艺术委员会个人艺术家研究员。
{"title":"A Portfolio from the Series <i>Drift Alignment</i>","authors":"Andrew O’Brien","doi":"10.1080/17514517.2023.2256171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17514517.2023.2256171","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractThis portfolio and artist statement addresses the ongoing photographic series Drift Alignment, which explores the historical and contemporary conditions along the US-Mexico border. The work examines the legacy of Spanish colonization, US territorial expansion and contemporary migration with an emphasis on the various ways in which astronomy and celestial navigation have played a role in the evolution of the border region of southern Arizona.Keywords: migrationimmigrationastronomyUS-Mexico bordercelestial navigationlandscape Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsAndrew O’BrienNoteAndrew O’Brien is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. O’Brien’s artistic practice draws from lived experience to examine the organization and perception of physical space—especially as it relates to landscape and the built environment. His work is informed by the history and symbolic potential of materials, as well as the shifting incarnations of the photographic image. Works range from experimental publications, to photographs, video, and installation. He has exhibited widely, including at the Houston Center for Photography, The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado, the West Gallery at California State University Northridge, and the Art Museum of Northern Illinois University, among others. In 2021 O’Brien was named a Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellow.","PeriodicalId":42826,"journal":{"name":"Photography and Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135480678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-18DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2023.2208450
Ankana Sen, D. Mathew
{"title":"Rediscovering the Work of Sham Sundar Das: A Look at the Photographer’s Unrecognized Legacy","authors":"Ankana Sen, D. Mathew","doi":"10.1080/17514517.2023.2208450","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17514517.2023.2208450","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42826,"journal":{"name":"Photography and Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45051186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-25DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2023.2194746
Published in Photography and Culture (Vol. 15, No. 4, 2022)
发表于《摄影与文化》(2022年第15卷第4期)
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Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2023.2228149
Erina Duganne
{"title":"“¡No Nos Desapareceremos!”: Artists Call’s Visual Solidarity with Central America","authors":"Erina Duganne","doi":"10.1080/17514517.2023.2228149","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17514517.2023.2228149","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42826,"journal":{"name":"Photography and Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41877154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2023.2243730
Adam Brett
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Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2023.2180175
Luqman Lee
Historical records indicate that, from as early as the 6th century, Chinese traders and Indian Brahmins were already settled in the Malay Peninsula (Lee 2018). Along with a large community of Arab traders since the 1100s, these communities have shaped a vibrant cultural cosmopolitanism in the peninsula that lasted till the nation’s independence in 1957. While many practices of this historical cultural cosmopolitanism have since evolved or ceased altogether in contemporary Malaysia, larger and more popular cultural expressions are still being articulated in new ways and forms (Keoy et al. 2022a, 2022b; Lee 2019, 2022). One of these expressions is the Malaysian Chinese, Nine Emperor Gods, Taoist festival. Like many traditional religious beliefs, there are multiple versions of historical accounts relating to the identities of the Nine Emperor Gods prior to their canonization as deities. There are also a comparable number of differing accounts about the start of this religious movement (Cheu 1996, 51-55). One popular account tells of nine brothers from a fishing village in Fujian Province who helped the last prince of the Ming dynasty in his escape to Thailand. They arrived in Songkhla, navigating by the nine northern stars. Shortly after their arrival, they disappeared together with the nine stars. In their place, nine censers – thought to be the manifestations of the nine brothers – were found floating on the sea near Songkhla. It is believed that though their spirits ascended to the southern heavens, they return to visit the Chinese regional community during a yearly tour of the South Seas. This account explains why the festival is observed by devotees in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, and provides the reason for performing the welcoming ritual at a waterfront (Cheu 1996, p. 54). The festival is celebrated from the first to the ninth day of the ninth lunar month every year and begins with an Amoy opera (in the Fujian, Guangdong operatic tradition) that denotes the start of the Taoist rituals that would be held in celebration of the nine deities. A street procession that comprises devotees carrying symbolic palanquins and prayer statues, a Chinese musical ‘percussion’ troupe, and sword-wielding as well as skewer-bearing spirit mediums, will make its way from the devotees’ temple to a nearby waterfront at the appointed time. With the welcoming ritual, the spirit mediums invite the nine deities to return with them to the temple where they will be entertained (by the percussion music and the Amoy opera, among others) and worshiped for the nine days. The
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Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2023.2223026
S. Willcock
As recounted by Batchen, in a paper on photographic chemistry published in the proceedings of the Royal Society of London on 20 February 1840, John Herschel attempted to ‘avoid much circumlocution’ in the description of photography by introducing ‘the terms positive and negative, to express respectively, pictures in which lights and shades are as in nature, or as in the original model, and in which they are the opposite, i.e. light representing shade, and shade light’ (17). The terminology contained an implicit hierarchy that has continued to haunt discussions about the medium. Negatives are seldom written about in detail by historians and are illustrated only rarely within the historiography of photography, a literature which reflexively prioritises the representational clarity of the positive print. Batchen’s latest book brings the negative into the frame and asks what shadow it might cast upon conventional narratives of the photographic image. Negative/Positive: A History of Photography opens with a brief analysis of Lennart Nilsson’s 1948 photograph for Lifemagazine showing a fellow photographer, Mayola Amici, at work in the darkroom of his studio in Stanleyville (Kisangani), part of what was then the Belgian colony of Congo. The Congolese photographer gazes intently at his wristwatch while a negative – a portrait – develops in his other hand. Dramatising the time of photographic production, the scene constitutes what W. J. T. Mitchell might term a ‘metapicture’, prompting viewers to reflect on the nature of images and image-making (Mitchell 2013). For Batchen, it exposes numerous aspects of photography that are too often obscured: the materiality and temporality of darkroom practices; the authorial interventions that are necessary to produce photographs; and the visual politics of the negative/positive process, historically conceived in terms of a racialised metaphysics of darkness and light (‘fair women are transformed into negresses’, as Herschel put it) (7). The rest of the book – a well-illustrated publication with 94 colour figures– is an attempt to illuminate this ‘repressed, dark side’ (3) of photographic history. There have recently been some scattered engagements in scholarship with the politics and aesthetics of the negative, in particular with regard to photography and race (Grigsby 2011; Campt 2012, 117–
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Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2023.2236331
Carol L. Magee
Abstract This essay examines Michael Tsegaye’s series Future Memories and Chasms of the Soul, underscoring not just the socio-political context of the work, but the possibilities of photography itself. Addressing the displacement occurring when neighborhoods and cemeteries were razed to accommodate urban redevelopment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the photographs tell the stories of these events, making present absences; in doing so, they open up present moments. Visually analyzing the photographs and drawing on theories of presence, place, absence, and memorialization, I center my argument on the temporal possibilities of the photographic moment. To argue this, I offer realignments in how presence and the present might be conceptualized in photography to enable a “being present”. Such reorientation is dependent upon the relation of the photographer to the subject matter and the viewer to the photograph, as well as the photograph’s relation to time.
{"title":"Being Present: Michael Tsegaye in Addis Ababa","authors":"Carol L. Magee","doi":"10.1080/17514517.2023.2236331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17514517.2023.2236331","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay examines Michael Tsegaye’s series Future Memories and Chasms of the Soul, underscoring not just the socio-political context of the work, but the possibilities of photography itself. Addressing the displacement occurring when neighborhoods and cemeteries were razed to accommodate urban redevelopment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the photographs tell the stories of these events, making present absences; in doing so, they open up present moments. Visually analyzing the photographs and drawing on theories of presence, place, absence, and memorialization, I center my argument on the temporal possibilities of the photographic moment. To argue this, I offer realignments in how presence and the present might be conceptualized in photography to enable a “being present”. Such reorientation is dependent upon the relation of the photographer to the subject matter and the viewer to the photograph, as well as the photograph’s relation to time.","PeriodicalId":42826,"journal":{"name":"Photography and Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45584213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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