Notes On Love and Photography

Notes on Love and Photography Author(s): Eduardo Cadava and Paola Corts-Rocca Reviewed work(s): Source: October, Vol.
116 (Spring, 2006), pp. 3-34 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40368422 . Accessed: 21/11/2012 19:55
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Noteson Loveand Photography*
EDUARDO CADAVAand PAOLA CORTES-ROCCA I seeboth When loveinfascinayours, my gaze meets your gaze and your eyes, - and youreyes tion are notonlyseeing but also visible. And sincethey are in as much visible or the as the world) (at (things objects seeing origin ofthe I or could touch with even lashes them, world), my finger, precisely lips, eyes, - ifI daredcome neartoyouin thisway, and lids,byapproaching you ifI one dared. day - -Jacques On Touching Derrida, areyou?I am playing hideand seek / desire only you.I desire you.. . . Where I I end whole But know will and the world willbe with ghosts. upfinding you, we love each because a chain illuminations lit because other, of newly passes us. through - Andre Mad Love Breton, was themost To be on an islandinhabited byartificial phantasms insupporttobe in lovewith oneofthese was worse thanbeing ableofnightmares; images the a phantasm wealways havewanted weloveto in lovewith person (perhaps havea phantasmatic existence). - Adolfo The Inventionof Morel BioyCasares, whenhe writes Camera Lucida ? Does he think Is RolandBarthes dreaming ofhis hedreams us at onepointthat mother ofwhom every day(hetells day,orofthemother every orofthemother that heboth knew and didnotknow, saw and heonly dreams ofhismother), Is hehaunted that was never ruinofall thememodidnotsee,orofthemother herself? bythe in the that hewished tocapture, Or ries book, ofthis forevery writing dayand always? ofher and thelight thathelps to oneday,between technology photographic bring bywhathappens, - a photograph when shewasfive old in which heclaims a photograph years ofhismother life andfrom which heseeks to "derive" all photography? Or to ofthe faceheloved, findthetruth
* for their liketo thank Hal Foster andBenjamin Buchloh andsupport, Wewould encouragement A longer research assistance. version of thisessay willappearin and RogerBellinforhis diligent on Camera editedbyGeoffrey Batchen and Doug Nickel, and a collection ofessays Lucida, Palinodes, Creative MITPress andtheCenter for from Photography. forthcoming
Ltd.and Massachusetts Institute 2006,pp. 3-34. 2006 October OCTOBER116, Spring Magazine, ofTechnology.
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- within elsebywhat all at once themovement and writing, and in happens, ofhisthoughts - among relation tohisbody the work his the of unconscious, ghostly experience photography, thetraumatic and the Barthes ofmusic, experiences ofdeathand mourning, pangsoflove? dreams his vision us like he calls "a what (and writes) (offering something photography itself: new the a declaration love as he burns and conthat, form ofhallucination"), fire of of says, " sumes a to enables him him, "floating him, him, flash that, blinding disorienting experience and touch and ifwelisten tothemuteness tothe hisfinitude; ofhismournful ofhis song, cry we can hear him writing, perhaps say: I approach as I wait andforall time, butI know love, myself for you,today, my with butalso inyour the I approach is lost and cannot that, death, your life, self befound.In themidst I experience themadness desire: to ofthisloss, ofa single time with in thenight, and with thehope liketheclick time, that, affect secretly, I may livetoarchive themusic love ofa camera, yet ofmy foryou.I love you,I desire I cannot livewithout you,I wanttoseeand touch your body, you,and, with I am no longer eventhough I knowthat, evenbefore yourdeath, myself, and because love was notmyself death, your ofmy foryou,I already If I have - ifit haspierced - it is because been wounded death meand struck me by your " thiswoundalready was "mine, was thesignature love.Likethe already ofmy I soonwilltell death has been tomy added punctumaboutwhich you, life, your evenif, the it was there. No alive,but from very beginning,already longer simply notyet I offer and death, in thehope dead,at thethreshold oflife youthisbook thatit can suspend and derange and that, time, love, confessing my enduring it can transform I "the need" into I "the wound, my enduring corpus body see," the I touch. body I is mad, and, in the worldof Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida,its Photography deliriumand danger are relatedto the experience of love,and, more particularly, to whathe calls the "pangs of love,""extremelove."1But whatis love,and in what us a glimpseof our mortality? waydoes it pain us, pierce us, strikeus, and offer Whatis its relationto death, mourning, What does love music,and photography? have to do withthe ruin,loss, and dissolutionof the self?What does it mean to love a photograph,and in what waydoes love mean nothingelse than loving a photograph (is it even possible to love something other than a photograph)? Whatis the relation,withinthe space of photography, betweenthe "observedsuband how does thisrelation,at least accordingto ject" and the "subjectobserving"
1. Camera Lucida: onPhotography, trans. Richard Howard(NewYork: and Farrar, Straus, Reflections totheEnglish Giroux, translation ofthis text are tothis Inc.,1981),pp. 116,12.Allreferences edition and will be citedparenthetically as CL. Since, on occasion, we havemodified this we also translation, include references to theoriginal French in thisinstance, thesecondcitation can be edition; then, in La chambre found claire: Note surla photographie Editions du Seuil,1980), (Paris: pp. 179,28.AllreferencestotheFrench edition aregiven theEnglish citation andwill be cited as CC. following
onLove andPhotography Notes
a reconceptualization ofbothphotography andlove? Thesearethe Barthes, require raised butmoving meditation on photography and byBarthes' strange, questions mother. Barthes' text carries thesignature ofa vigil thedeathofhisbeloved that ofmourning, is morethansimply an experience morethansimply a surviving teson photography, as is legible in nearly or a meditation one of since, timony every relatedto a mother itssentences, it remains who has died (perhaps amorously and notonlyin hismemory. evenmorethanonce),butis stillliving, Indeed,we thelogicofthebook,itis hismother's within herlivcouldevensaythat, survival, indicates that herdeath, that things pass,that they changeand ingon, evenafter survival asksus tothink becausethis notoftheimpossitransform, and,minimally, but of of not life or death, butlife to life the of a return impossibility dying, bility "lifedeath."It is thisghostly sureven moreprecisely, and death,or perhaps, - thatdefinesthe madnessof the - as a metonym forall such survivals vival ofphotography, that we simultawithin themedium sinceitis there, photograph, of and the factof its the absence the "observed subject" neously experience between life and between and the relation death, testimony "having-been-there," and amongthepast,thepresent, theselfand an other, between itsimpossibility, all theseapparent the deliriousspace of photography, Within and the future. in relation in order to be to the and ruined are rethought oppositions suspended oflovealsobreaks downand shatters sincetheexperience oflove"itself," madness therelation between others(including thesesameoppositions, many alongwith and and and absence, singularity repetition, presence interiority exteriority, and chance). This means,amongother and necessity and blindness, lucidity is also,and perhaps mostessentially book on photography thatthislittle things, disIt is Barthes'true"lover's a texton love and eroticism. and significantly, is always to to speakof photography and thisbecause,as he suggests, course," of love. speak in thefirst few this reinforces Barthes when, pagesofhisbook,he conpoint he sees "only thereferent, thedesired that whenhe looksat a photograph fesses It is he beloved the "love," 7/CC, explains, precisely body"(CL, p. p. 19). object, oftheimage"{CL,p. 12/ enableshimto "erasetheweight that "extreme CC, love," and to "invisible" the to make 6/CC, (CL, p. thereby p. 18), photograph p. 27), butthe objectof his desire, his cleara pathforhimto see notthephotograph, and particutheforce oflove, itwouldseemthat beloved's If,at first glance, body. the surface to him to enables of "extreme love," passthrough photographic larly in orderto medium ofthephotographic to exceedthelimits reachthereferent, itclearthat there can be no lovewithout Barthes soonmakes see hisbeloved, phothischiasmic axiomis love. But to state without no and photography tography is really at stakein this sincewhat ofa mystery, thebeginning to articulate merely mean what"love"and "photography" of understanding is the possibility context his includwithin text he mobilizes other terms like all the since, here, especially and even "music," "death,""mourning," "identity," "punctum," ing "studium? to his to terms "Barthemes" call these like to "mother" (we would signal effort
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- thesetwowords or concepts to makethem"his") ize his use of them, singular and concepts. can never oftheir relation words be understood outside toother without Like the lover thesingularity of his beloved whowishes to address that recourse tothelover's a language discourse he inherits, Barthes seeks toinvent wouldbe morefaithful and to what he "perceives" to be thesingular, paradoxical, 2 in submit to the character of He order to that, contradictory photography. suggests to the of to surrender adventure, photographic unprecedented experience photogwe wemust invent a language with which wecanapproach it,evenifweknow raphy, to never seize or it. Like all the therefore seeks Barthesian lover lovers, may capture in namea world that hasnever his if existed before as his might, yet eyes, language itforth, touch itfor thefirst time. as weknow from hisearlier Indeed, analycalling sisofthelover's desires elsethanto moreand nothing discourse, language nothing - andtheworld touch thebeloved's inwhich itexists. body In thesameway thatthelover's wishes to approach and touchhis language Barthes itsessence, desires to and touch to touch beloved, approach photography: to touchon whatdifferentiates othermodesof representation. In the it from his in formulaof he a text, confesses, wonderfully opening paragraph ambiguous tion thatsignalsboth photography's relation with and its intimate singularity "I decidedI likedPhotography I cinema: in opposition from which to theCinema, nonetheless failedto separate it. Thisquestion I was overcome insistent. by grew an 'ontological' was 'in desire:I wantedto learnat all costswhatPhotography of essential feature itwasto be distinguished from thecommunity itself,' bywhat to disOverwhelmed the writer seeks (CL,p. 3/CC,pp. 13-14). images" bydesire, coverthe "ontology" that of photography, forconcepts thanlooking but,rather and definethe fundamental withwhichwe might elements might distinguish determine he suggests thattherecan be no reflection photography's singularity, on photography thatdoes notbeginwiththe revision or concepts of thewords with which wespeakand think aboutimages, and through which welookat them. Barthes "his"words or conand reinforces the factthathis "Barthemes," signals otherthanwhatwe usually wouldexpectthemto cepts,designate something meanthrough a seriesof typographical of thecapitalization strategies, including and the strategic use of quotation Giventhewayin marks.3 terms, italicization, which each Bartheme condenses a series that and encrypts ofassociations prevent it from of self-identical to itself, we could evensaythatitscondition remaining can only be theimpossibility ofitsever a fixed semantic content. possibility having
notonly and remarks Barthes invents a setofLatinate buthe alsoceaselessly marks 2. neologisms evenfamiliar in sucha way hasbeen terms in eachinstance, what break from that, they generally away - an archaic conceived or meant He choosesLatinas the"mother ofphotography bythem. tongue" to describe a modern a dead language around to evoke a technology language technology, organized - becausemodernity death in relation itemerges. For can only be understood to thepastfrom which in an excellent discussion ofthis see ElissaMarder, on theMother to Say:Fragments point, "Nothing theAgeofMechanical Createur 40,no. 1 (Spring 2000),esp.pp.28-30. Reproduction," L'Esprit - hisuse ofcapitalization, - havebeen commented 3. in particular on Barthes' stylistic strategies The Roland Barthes: the mostelaborate accountis provided Brown, extensively. Perhaps byAndrew Clarendon Press, (Oxford: 1992), Figures ofWriting esp.chaps.1 and2.
marks aroundthe usesquotation Barthes Thisis why (in thispassage, frequently that "initself);they theword, and thephrase word"ontological" name,or signal - likethe but rather themis neversimply monosemic, conceptenclosedwithin ofhimself the"advent" as intophotographic whose spaceannounces entry subject - is always else.As is so often the ofbecoming in theprocess an other something - itstypographical its ofhiswriting eachelement casewith eccentricities, Barthes, its dictionand distribuits echolaliaand repetitions, and movement, rhythm - works toconvey. he wishes toenact what tion words and and circulation, whose whosemovement a text creates IfBarthes in this instance itis becausehe wants and enactitssemantic drift, names, embody is that love and photography thatwhatmakeslove and photography to suggest the same. ever remain or amorous nor their neither subjects photographic they textis an before This means,amongotherthings, else,Barthes' that, anything of photography in zone" foranytheory of a "safety on the constitution assault borders that wouldseparate, strict to delineate itwouldbe possible which define, forthinking wouldbe indispensable that theelements and establish photography reflection most to the essential become that have words the "initself." any Among than"subject," setof terms no moreimportant is perhaps there on photography that and a heretical invents Barthes and "reference." questions language "image," each of and the in to destabilize order this redefines unity integrity Trinity" "Holy - towork ofmultiple forms of and notpositions, in favor ofprocesses ofitsterms therefore to and to themselves be identical would that not unities and becoming one the distinction between Dissolving altogether. photography reconceptualize couldbe saidto belongto in a way that Lucida Camera and another, term proceeds in which ofphotographic a theory oflove;it proposes theexperience becoming in whichmodelsbecomeimages, is a forceof transformation: the photograph becomephotographs. and subjects becomesubjects, images tosusitis impossible and metamorphosis, of transformation this Within logic between the represented The relation we call "reference." tainthe abstraction does notpresuppose and image, reference between objectand itsrepresentation, the process remain or an objectwhosebeingand existence outside, precede, that Barthes On the an it becomes which suggests photocontrary, image. through is at the heart of "literal" what makes absolutely stages representation graphic a crisis of into the this is and modern temporal precisely putting representation, What stands itsrepresentation. and then later isan object first there inwhich order to that or an ofthephotographic infront way a porapparatus object subject gives - does not"exist" "onceI feel click. As Barthes thecamera's before trait explains, in the of I constitute the observed lens, myself process everything changes: by myself in I transform for make another I myself body myself, 'posing,' instantaneously is not transformation intoan image"(CL, p. 10/ advance CQ p. 25). This"active" in likesomesacrificial to thecamera, himself whooffers thatofsomeone victim, that whatmakes whoknows thatof someone butrather orderto be reproduced, - is - and therefore "himself ever himfrom he "is" himwhat being simply prevents
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themultiplicity does that inhabits "him." In thesameway that thebeing ofan object notexist before itsrepresentation, there alsois never a single, homogeneous object - evenbefore - coincides that it is placedin front itself. What of thecamera with Barthes in an and is here, manner, nothing engages systematic rigorous extremely lessthanwhat thedifficulty ofall contemporary reflections on photograproduces the absence of the as he and here lies his and But, phy: subject. suggests strength this absence does not result or from but,on courage disappearance effacement, thecontrary, from and As he it, multiplication proliferation. puts in front of thelens,I am at thesametime:theone I think I am,the one I want others to think I am,theone thephotographer I am, thinks and the one he makesuse of to exhibithis art. In otherwords, a I do notstopimitating action: and becauseofthis, each strange myself, timeI am (or let myself I invariably suffer from a be) photographed, sensation of inauthenticity, of imposture to sometimes (comparable certain {CL,p. 13/CC,pp. 29-30) nightmares). - and theportrait - constitutes as itsgenre a radical and Photography parexcellence absolutedestabilization of the Cartesian to certain subject, night"comparable and not unlikethe one advancedbypsychoanalysis, in which"I think mares," I am not,therefore where I am where I do notthink."4 Likepsychoanalysis, pho- a subjectthatwouldbe complete shatters the subject of reason and tography - byintroducing coincidental withitself a plurality thatis not producedbythe force ofunconscious and thegaze: "I see,I feel, butbyaffects desire, metonymic henceI notice, I observe, and I think" I do me that {CL,p. 21/CC, p. 42). It tells - that notexist before I exist as an image, or,moreprecisely, myimage only only as a seriesofimages, none ofwhich are everone. It redeems me from theimmoofa "self and tells me that is reproduced theI that in each newimage, and bility in every ofeach oftheseimages, is never evenone at themoment inwhich it copy thecamera. "I onlyresemble," Barthes "other of notes, posesbefore photographs and thisto infinity: no one is everanything butthecopyofa copy, realor myself, mental" act that would CC,p. 159).Undoing {CL,p. 102/ every contemplative presumea distance between "itselfand theimageon which itfocuses, Camera Lucida - as theneutral ofan observer ofa process that putsthecategory subject presumoccurs outside him intocrisis. ably The provocative statement that"a photograph is always invisible" {CL, p. to passthrough itin order to movedirectly to 6/CC, p. 18)- becauseitis possible - shouldbe read notas a meansof devalorizing the referent or overcoming the of the image,but as a wayof contesting historical and sociological materiality and understandings oftheimage. IfBarthes from thevery claims, readings beginalone and disarmed" {CL, p. 7/CC,p. 20), it is ning,thathe is "'scientifically'
4. of the Letter in the Unconscious," in Ecrits: A Selection, trans. Alan JacquesLacan,"Agency Sheridan York: W.W.Norton andCo., 1977), (New p. 166.
himself as someone sheltered andprotected toimagine becausehe refuses who, bya in theend,an affective andeven, distance, critical, historical, rigorously sociological, a photographic The I whospeaks in Camera Lucida and completely analyzes corpus. that he holdsin hishands a series ofphotographs without imagining contemplates ofa relation or bondthat hasexcluded him: on theconwitness that he is a neutral that binds theimageto itsreferent alsoincludes him. adherence thesingular trary, theassumption ofan ontological difference between from Thisiswhy, far reinforcing - oftheobserver - the"humanity" ofthechemiand themateriality thesubjectivity forms a Camera Lucida works todestabilize that cal paperormetal photograph, plate an image. becomes a subject and thesubject becomes this frontier: theimage They a or reveals ina relation certain areboundtogether that, intimacy, acquiring privacy thesubject and thephotograph between one:theencounter itself tobe an amorous theimage(that"anithespark thatsubjectivizes he holdsin hishandsproduces hisownphotographic illuminates mates" it)andthat being.5 simultaneously theactoflooking at a photograph therethanto science, Closerto pleasure a subjectand an image,but rather between foredoes not differentiate brings and thatof the subject thatof the observed "twoexperiences: subject together also is to recognize the (CL,p. 10/CQ p. 24). To lookat a photograph observing" that seizes to a of dimension "self," identify particularity my my photographic a kindofphothat I already or acknowledge am,and in advance, gaze,to register he can take in theearly as Barthes Thisiswhy, pagesofhistext, suggests tograph.6
thegazeiscalled "adventure" evokes andattracts what this amorous 5. Within CC, relation, ( CL,p. 19/ - "contingency, toparticularity islinked adventure thephotographic adventure, singularip. 38).Likeany - andtotheadventurer's in Camera Lucida confrontation a series adventure" CC, (CL,p. 20/ p. 40) form ty, therisk ofan "internal adventure thephotographic Likeall adventure, with theother. implies agitation, wants to be spoken" oftheunspeakable which a certain an excitement, too,thepressure labor, ( CL,p. a kind ofagitation and intothesubject and produces breaks thephotograph 19/ CC,p. 37). Likemusic, - transforms - andhereis theeffect thesubject andthereby oftherisk that (andofallrisk) interruption "Inthis sudThisiswhy, when Barthes "himself." him from desert, that, suggests glum remaining prevents it"(CL,p. 20/ reaches a specific CC, me,andI animate me;itanimates p. 39),he implies denly photograph at the an experience oflosing hislife, butofpassing risk is never that theadventurer's that that, through risk isalso, atthe an other life. Butthis himthelife he didnothave, "animates" him, gives edgeofdeath, what makes a photographic oflove, trivial. Thisiswhy andliketheadventure sametime, experience very that to transform this intoa ofan incredible feat works is precisely theenactment an adventure triviality To say that there inunexpected andtransformative ofadventure canunfold inwhich thepower field ways. there can be no adventure other that without adventure can be no photography means, things, among the wemight love(as another name for Thisiswhy, andtransformation. a force ofanimation without say, thelover ontoa that a transformation means: adventure, animation, adventure) displaces photographic theobserved northesubject observhe norhisbeloved neither oneinwhich new terrain, (neither subject their encounter. were "before" whothey ing)canremain For of lovedependson our beingable to lovea photograph. thevery Thisis why 6. possibility an excitement" is to experience"an internal to love a photograph Barthes, (CL, p. agitation, be spoken or known, cannot and to take"into theadventure ofwhat 19/CC, my p. 37), toexperience is to embrace is dead,what is goingto die" (CL,p. 117 what arms /CC,p. 179).To lovea photograph in relation to and tofind andloseoneself a kind ofmadness, toexperience oftheother, themortality of a photothebeloved as we know, and insidethebeloved, thebeloved, has,liketheviewer since, To lovean other, thelover's thelover's a trace ofthelover, internalized then, "prick," punctum. graph, - to lovewhat, meansto lovea photograph to loveanother us,piercing us, wounding living person, us. orexperienced as entirely other than be thought andentering us,canno longer
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"himself as a "mediator forall Photography," and why he can become"themeasure of photographic 8-9/ CC, 'knowledge'"(CL, pp. p. 22). This also is why or is neverhere or are never innocent: the camera representation testimony therein orderto register and how the does not exist to confirm "reality," image it is from different us. Instead, Barthes the of that essence suggests photography lies in its affirmation of becoming. names (without Photography naming)the itself process whereby something stopsbeingwhatit "is"in orderto transform into"something else."It "represents to the thatvery subtlemoment tell when, I am neither nor but a who feels he is an truth, subject object subject becoming I then a micro-version of I am death (of parenthesis): object: experience truly a specter" and lifeand death,subject (CL, p. 14/CC,p. 30). Between becoming in and a of I kind the am object,subject image, becoming parenthesis, specter declares thatthe onlyimageor subject thatcould really be an imageor subject wouldbe theone thatshows itsimpossibility, itsdisappearance and destruction, itsruin. To lookat a photograph thesingular therefore meansto contemplate adherence thattransforms me intoan imageand whattheimagedemonstrates to me at about it means to be a what (without demonstrating anything all) photographic The relation between theobjectand itsimage, subject. amongtheimage-object, theobject-image, ofexperiencing and my me to theadventure thephogaze,links As as a mirror that returns me to own tographic fragment my image. Barthes "I am the of reference and is what this explains, every my photograph, generates astonishment in addressing to the I am fundamental is itthat myself question: why - in alivehere andnow?" am I notthere words, (CL,p. 84/CC,p. 131).In other why thefragment ofpaperthat I holdin my handor in theplacein which thephotoam I nottherethen, in themoment in which theclickof graphwastaken? Why theshutter washeard,in the precise in which instant whattheimageshows me wastransformed intothisimage?If photography is "thecunning of dissociation consciousness from it is not because (CL, p. 12/CC,p. 28), identity" only photoga crisis in theidentity ofthesubject butalso becauseitintroduces a raphy signals mediation and breakintothevery interior oftheconcept ofidentity. Within the thatI am never self-identical to myself, and that photographic space,I "discover" there is no object, no act,no instant that evercoincides with "itself." Each time we holdan imagein ourhands, themagic ofphotography returns to repeat itself and thephotographed and thephotographic encounter themselves apparatus againas ifforthevery first in partbecausetheobserver, haunted and constituted time, by this earlier is himself a photographic encounter, apparatus. Photography prevents - ours,butalso thatofsomeoneor us from everrecognizing thisor thatidentity else because is the name of the destruction of any something "photography" consciousness ofidentity. - a law thatinterrupts This law of bothlove and photography identity by - belongs it with the and transformation towhat makes marking signofdifference Barthes' meditation on loveand photography so radically a provocative: against
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- to to fixand preserve lies in its capacity sense thatphotography's signature a network of associations he mobilizes the camera, arrest whatis before that, or difand destabilize theopposition seekto disorganize and textually, practically and and movement, suchas stasis between ference terms, preservation opposing ofdisThatthis work and mourning. and memory and death, survival destruction, of theexperience of is shown to be at theheart and destabilization organization - as Barthes ofdisorganizaelse thana process wouldhaveit,loveis nothing love - is what and as ifweweretracing to trace, we are meant tionand destabilization likethe theAriadne's thread and as we follow to a kindofsecret, which, listening as a child, ofhismother Garden Winter brings together photography, Photograph and death. love, II - forthis forphotography an ontology Whatwouldit mean to formulate is characterized to Barthes, medium that, singuonlyby"contingency, according this with Camera Lucida adventure" 20/ CC, 40)? (CL, ontological opens p. p. larity, to to a spaceentirely devoted desire advances, and,as thetext way ontology gives Barthes in Photography desire:"I wasinterested reasons," onlyfor'sentimental' itnotas a question to explore "I wanted (CL,p. (a theme)butas a wound" writes, to as a theme(or as a question is notto be thought 21/CC,p. 42). Ifphotography a reduced to cannot be because it it is an wemight which theme; answer), provide of thevery "unclassifiable" itis because, (CL,p. 4/CC,p. 15),itwounds possibility the Thisis why ofphotography. or concept ofthetheme theme and,in particular, attentive a reading thistext mobilized and concepts require throughout language his his of the at theend ofthefirst he calls, towhat book, "palinode," retracpart manner. in a tonameor conceptualize tionofhisdesire photography determinate - as a modeofassertion a that evensaythatthispalinode We might countersigns - is one ofthetext's It is beingasserted from what kindofwithdrawal signatures. in in one direction thetext thatmoves ofconceptualization to an effort belongs a to risk relaof a in search thereverse later tofollow order willing language path a languagethat,as he putsit,can only"speakof desireor of tion to "affect," in other of Camera words, Lucida, (CL, p. 21/CC, p. 41). The entirety mourning" of character the with commensurate a paradoxical byseeking language proceeds - a language for the the desire thatis guidedand interrupted thephotograph by to be mourned: remains lost,and nevercomprehended, that, always thing very itself. photography makesbetweenthe photograph's thatBarthes distinction The notorious ofa thesimulacrum as we will a distinction and studium see,is only that, punctum different remain terms these two same the at distinction time, (even if, always - appearsto be theexemplary cominstance ofthis each other) from paradoxical at least have it he would As or with desire initially the mourning. promise refers to a classical "italways and repetition: is a fieldof predictability studium
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ofmy ofinformation"; itiswhat "I perceive as a consequence body quitefamiliarly a It culture" constitutes (or "figures") total(CL, p. 25/CC,p. 47). knowledge, my that that refers to that the ity always image:the intention something precedes is the the whether it by photogmight govern photograph's production, generated is scanned thetechnology, or theobjectcaptured in theimage. Thisfield rapher, from the the claims is excluded detail that Barthes calls the which he by punctum, ofintentions, that field in thestrongest senseoftheterm "intentionality" is,in - butalso in thesenseofwhatthisor that terms of a subject's willof expression to say."Certain can or wishes or photographed subject photographic technology thephodetails he "If do it is doubtless because me,'" writes, they not, may'prick The has them there (CL, p. 27/CC,p. 49). punctum tographer put intentionally" therefore butalso from what counts as theartofthephotographer, escapesfrom - the what we could call the artof the photographic or of the object technique the exhibiof the the of technical moment, precision capturing processes, present - precisely tionofrarities which Barthes seeks is thenamewith becausepunctum to designate me what cannot "that accident which be seenin advance, pricks (but as a detailthat also bruises to me" (CL,p. 47/CC,p. 79). Defined me,is poignant or pricks the but a the that cuts also as wound that fascinates, interrupts studium, and the would view the that it, pointsdirectly image corporealgaze punctum - a field evokes toward that that affective field enjoyment always openedbyimages as bothpleasurable andwounding. Ifthestudium ofa "cerwouldseemto be on thesideoflegibility, theeffect taintraining" or "education" (CL, p. 26/CC,p. 48) (CL, p. 28/CC,p. 51), ifit evokesthe rangeof cultural whichwe maydraw and historical contexts from information thatenablesus to engagea photograph (evenifonlyin a general the is what disturbs this what or strikes way), punctum legibility, punctures through the surface of reproduction: "itarisesfrom the scene,shootsout of it likean and piercesme"; it "disturbs" the studium arrow, (CL, pp. 26-27/CC, p. 49). with the force the of thepunctum Emerging ghostly supplement, appearsas a kind of transit or relay between the photograph and theviewer itsviothat,despite nevertheless can be drawninto a network of lence, despite its singularity, associations. Like the languagethatmovesin relationto affect, in relationto desireand mourning, thepunctum in relation works to the studium. As Derrida in the he after Barthes' death, explains elegy wrote shortly as soon as the punctum ceases to oppose the studium, all the while to as soon as we can no it, remaining heterogeneous longer distinguish herebetween twoplaces, or things, itis notentirely contents, subjugated to a concept, ifby"concept" we meana predicative determination thatis distinct and opposable. Thisconcept ofa ghost is scarcely grasin its self as the of a Neither life nordeath,but pable ghost concept. thehaunting oftheone bytheother.
Notes onLove andPhotography
13
he adds,"isas unsubstantial oftheconceptual as a cam"The Versus' opposition," era'sclick."7 If at first studium glanceit wouldseemthatthepunctum/ couplenamesthe a cultural or historical canonand itsinterruption between or between opposition - a claimthat is irreducibly and what seemsto be supwhat is predictable singular that"the studium is ultimately coded, the always portedbyBarthes'assertion the that follows this is not" assertion 51/ CC, 84) {CL, parenthesis p. p. punctum I am notusingthesewords dissolves thispureantagonism in "(I trust abusively)" notonlytheopposition and reformulate between orderto complicate singularity and repetition, detailand totality, butalsobetween and predictability, contingency In Camera thepunctum/ studium and nonintentionality. Lucida, couple intentionality oftwoforces does notspeakto us ofantagonistic elements, opposedto one other, it namesthe "co-presence" to themselves; and identical rather, {CL,p. 42/CC,p. in transforof two forces 72)- in thehereand nowofthespaceofevery image eachother, without ever with one that tendtoward twostreams mation, coinciding a kind ofeducation, civilifthestudium names and Thisiswhy, another. knowledge, an average it does so in theform of a a general effect, interest, itythatproduces at cannot a simulacrum. (aim signify generality) except byassuming "Photography notes in relation to a portrait taken a mask" {CL,p. 34/CC,pp. 60-61),Barthes by that an a fiction of The studium Avedon. Richard generality designates imposture, thegreat are "Thisiswhy ofa myth. taketheform can only photographers portrait that are he 34/ CC, adds, 60-61), {CL, p. they p. explaining greatmythologists" ofpeculiarity) mark or a gesture a face(theabsolute (an act capableofcapturing itas ifitwere thefaceofa race,a nation, or a and presenting ofpurecontingency) is of but a that in thesameway class. Indeed, generalitynothing masquerade genera spaceofabsolute within to posit, it is impossible anyimage, transgression. ality, an objectcapableof interseeksa radicaldifference, amorous Barthes' language and itfinds itin thedetailthat ofthealways-the-same, theterrain captures rupting Butjust as chancebelongs to theamorous itsgaze and thathe callsthepunctum. its or puresingularity: is farfrom thepunctum beingpurecontingency repetition, the form of a rule in each enough" imageadopts "plausible regular appearance in as one of the two"themes {CL, p. 25/CC,p. 47) thatit can be systematized {CL,p. 27/CC,p. 49). Photography" between differand dissolves thisopposition bothpreserves That Barthes character ofthe that he seekstohaveitenacttheparadoxical enceand repetition, if in is more we trace the which it mobieven is legible way photograph, perhaps in morecarefully. Forexample, itis legible a little histext lizedwithin when, the Garden admits: "I gave theWinter he inwhich he confronts moment Photograph, I the Thus could understand to to the Image-Repertoire. my Image, myself up I escapedfrom it. In theMother, understood buthaving it,invincibly generality;
Brault and Michael "The DeathsofRolandBarthes," trans. Pascale-Anne 7. SeeJacques Derrida, Brault and MichaelNaas (Chicago:University of ed. Pascale-Anne Naas,in TheWork ofMourning, Press, 2001),p. 41. Chicago
14
OCTOBER
therewas a radiant,irreduciblecore: mymother"(CL, p. 75/CC, p. 117). thathisengagement with thisphotograph of hismother she (before Registering was his mother)is informed and shaped by the Image-Repertoire (perhaps another namefor thestudium), he nonetheless his that what suggests distinguishes from the of another in similar what circumstances, suffering suffering person evenincreases thathe has spenthiswholelifewith herand that his it,is thefact from who she was" in order to (CL,p. 75/CC, suffering "proceeds p. 117).Precisely articulate and maintain theparticularity ofhismourning, Barthes confesses that, "likethe Proustian Narrator at his grandmother's death: 'I did not insist only butuponrespecting theoriginality for ofmy this uponsuffering, suffering'; origiwasthereflection ofwhat wasabsolutely in her, lost irreducible and thereby nality forever" in But how is it to believe the (CL, p. 75/CC, pp. 117-18). possible origiof Barthes' ifhe himself tellsus thatit is "like"the suffering of nality suffering Proust after thedeathofhisgrandmother? How can we believe in theoriginality of someonewhois not an unprecedented in his lifebuta personwhois figure in the life of a as In sigalmost as themother? others, figure repeated archetypal the words of Barthes the another, nalingoriginality through stages paradoxical character of mourning. he suggests, thepain or grief that we experiEffectively, ence before a lossis always lose we go each time that we someone, contradictory: at least if in not the same series (even detail),exactly through, structurally every of experiences as someonewho has suffered a similar loss:we surrender to the samerituals, we reproduce thesamesetof sentences and formulas. At thesame and like we think that our is time, else, everyone suffering entirely unique.And we are notwrong what is each timethat we here, because, paradoxically, repeated fallin loveor that we lose someoneis precisely the radicaloriginality of loveor loss.Photography, likeloveor death,is the experience of the singularity thatis or of the that as repeated repetition appears something singular.8 This structural relationbetweensingularity and repetition reappearsin another form within Barthes' discussion ofthepunctum/ studium couple.The punctum and studium do notbelongentirely to theimageor to themodeofperceiving - they it are neither of the imagenor onlya projection of the onlyattributes but rather are of connection between the of the gaze points history imageand thehistory ofthegaze.Thisis why Barthes can saythat thepunctum is "what I add to the photograph and what is nonetheless there" (CL, p. 55/CC, p. 89). already Between what "I add"and what "isalready between what there," or,moreprecisely, "I add"andwhat "was there is always a temporal there," already dissymmetry: every is always a little behindor a little ahead.Thisis why the imageis likea clockthat truepunctum sometimes comes a littlelater.There is "[n]othingsurprising,"
8. As a means ofvisualizing this thefront cover oftheSpanish edition of Camera Lucida paradox, - a machine an image ofan antique camera that us ofthedaguerrotype reminds or ofa cerpresents tainauratic moment in theprocess ofcopying or taking a photograph. The camera is there, in the center ofthecover, between twolarge marks likecitation, or photogthat, love, quotation mourning, itsoriginality. raphy, infinitely reproduce
andPhotography Notes onLove
15
"ifsometimes, itsclarity, thepunctum shouldbe revealed Barthes admits, despite is no longer in front ofme and I think thefact, whenthephotograph after only I may know better a photograph I remembered thana that backon it.It happens visionorientedits languagewrongly, I am lookingat, as if direct photograph which will miss itspoint ofeffect, the ofdescription itin an effort always engaging is (CL, p. 53/CC,p. 87). As he suggests, every experience photographic punctum' is converted intoan experience, notin ofthepast,ofwhat an experience always clickor ofthegaze,but notin thenowofthecamera's oftheliving, thepresent - as happens to thefamily takenbyVan in Barthes' when later, response portrait - thisor thatphotoof thepunctum in hisdiscussion he analyzes der Zee, which me" (CL, within whenithas,as he putsit,"worked to haunt continues him, graph in and after first of a black this 1926, 53/ CC, 87). family Reading portrait p. p. " as of the and then the as the belt its pumps" standing strapped identifyingpunctum shewaswearwasthenecklace that the"realpunctum claims he later black woman, ribbon of braided same necklace slender it this was for (a doubt) (no gold) ing; she in own and once someone I had seenworn which died, which, my family, by never marof old sister of father box in a shut remained (this my jewelry family up been saddened as an old maid,and I had always ried,livedwithher mother ofherdreary I thought whenever life)"(CL,p. 53/CC,pp. 87-88).Thathe identievokehis associations and displacements that a series of this fies through punctum and a familwithin a a his and his culture, affections, inscription language, history, in relation to thatprecedehim,meansthatthe punctum ial network emerges if he this detail moves Ifthis ofthestudium. elements him, registers parparticular in his is inhim, somewhere wound itis becausethis ticular wound, history, already It is because thiswound and manner. evenifin a displaced, encrypted, illegible flash"(CL, p. 94/CC,p. likean "unexpected a periodof latency, appears,after this and his within Moreover, 148), memory. sequenceof associapsychic bodily - from from the the beltto thepumpsto the necklace, tionsand displacements in ofhisaunt,from thephotograph to thenecklace oftheblackwoman necklace from the sadfrom his and front ofhimto an earlier history, family's photograph - enacts within another one imageto thatinscribed nessor deathsealedwithin had associated thepunctum that he already with ofexpansion" the"power ( CL,p. in in its absolute the all its In other words, 45/CC,p. 74). singularity, punctum, of substitutions and an entirenetwork that,composing irreducibility, encrypts it from what it from ever ever at the same it is, time, being prevent decomposing howthisseriesofsubstitutions to itself. Whatmakes possible, beingself-identical - and Barthes here is and it is no accident time is entirely ever "itself," rigorous - thepuncmost with accident and contingency he associates theterm that closely - is anotherwordfortime.Indeed, as he tellsus, "thereexistsanother tum which is no thanthe 'detail.'This newpunctum, (another 'stigmatum') punctum is the of the noeme of but of form intensity, Time, lacerating emphasis longer itspurerepresentation" (CL, p. 96/CC,p. 148). If timelacerates (Hhat-has-been), the thiswoundedphotograph also interrupts of the photograph, the surface
16
OCTOBER
movement of time,in a manner thathas,not the form of time, but rather the form of time's the of an form "intense 49/ CC, (CL, p. interruption, immobility" p. Itwounds theform oftime, and irrecuperably. This 81), ofan explosion. intensely disorder is introduced since from thevery however, bythephotograph beginning, is marked in it a the moment which was taken, every photograph by singular moment or repeated, because it is not that,because it cannotbe reproduced in thepresent, redeemable inhabits thepresent likea kindofghost. Thisis why return in "the of the dead" (CL,p. 9/CC, every photograph signals p. 23),a return which the photographed is to say, becomesa "Total-Image, which Death in person"(CL,p. 14/CC, p. 31). - it does not only The photograph therefore does not onlylook backward - butit also opensontoa future: evokelosttimeand melancholy it is in fact distoward the future. As of detail Barthes the force the notes, placed metonymic to "a kindof subtlebeyond" (CL, p. 59/CC,p. 93). This opens the photograph is not a or a or of the limits ofcodified beyond beyond knowledge spatial crossing cultural it is "blind coma field" a sentiments; that, (CL,p. 57/CC,p. 91), beyond is likethefuture, to which remain blind.It is we always posedoftime, something thefield ofthepossible, ofwhat, within thephotograph, cannot be saidto be simhere and but rather like a in relation thepastand to to now, evoked, ply promise, an unknown future which to come,buthas,as itshorizon, death. is still ourfuture Thisis why, bound together likethe copyand itsnegative, and the thepunctum studium are thetwofictional to reach each imagepretends polesofphotography: thembutnever succeeds. Punctum and studium are two threads the that, entirely constitute the materiality of photographic together, language:contingency, and difference, on theone hand,and necessity, chance, gratuitousness, singularity, and In thisway, on the other. predictability, composition, regularity, repetition, not it shows what exhibits not shows a relation every photograph only only between an observed and a on a subject subject observing captured pieceofphotobut also or whatphotography is. graphic paper says,exhibits, performs is an amorous and an Photography experience, magical paradoxical: objective a necessary "thetireless ofcontingency" chance, (CL,p. gratuitousness, repetition 5/CC,p.17). Ill - a forceof destabilizaThere is something in every uncanny photograph that in leaves us even as it fascinates us. Thisperhaps is tion, something suspense whenwe lookat an image, we encounter, in front ofus,and no because, directly matter howelusiveit mayremain, the first signof chance and contingency what Barthes calls the with again, punctumand,likeall encounters contingency, thisone also produces a certain terror and bedazzlement. Butperhaps itis someelse altogether: distances itself from all civilized and thing perhaps photography and directly becausewhat we sympathetic contemplation interrogates enjoyment
17
relation that a photograph mainwe lookat an imageis thepeculiar when notice thecamera. Within thephotographic before was(butis no longer) with what tains enables an experienceof pleasure worldof Camera Lucida,the photograph and perhaps even ofourbeingable to conjure, thepossibility becauseitpromises lostbody. Evenifthereferent is ofthereferent's remainder thematerial to touch, even or death is what wounds and this absence or no longer us, if, living present a certain without is neverexperienced as Barthesreminds us, thiswounding makes a to what trace of its the of "having-been-there" belongs degree pleasure as a form of the This is a always why appears photograph photograph photograph. traceofthepast,condenses, a material which, amongso many evoking haunting and thelivthe dead and the the relation between the other present, past things, survival. and and destruction ing, establishes Unlikeothermodesof representation, effectively photography "thepreswithin thephotograph, theobjectbecause, with relation an existential is never ence ofthething (CL, moment) (at a certain metaphoric" p. 78/CQ past remains. Thisnonmetaphorical, its encounter if can we even ghostly only p. 123), or to anything thatthe imagebears "testimony" real presencedoes not imply The relation of the or "faithful" an "objective" offers object. representation of the index is not a characteristic or testimony and truth between indexicality the photographic mode of readingor perceiving but a particular image that and repreof the a language, subject, together conception brings simultaneously between thisrelation from itself Lucidadistances Camera sentation. photography thatthe bodythatposesforthe camerais a whenit signals and truth precisely but itsrepresentation before does notexist that a subjectivity body, photographic ofthecamera. in front in theactofsitting itself constitutes instead that If,within of representation theprocess classical semiotics, beginsand endsin thestability he identifies moment at thevery undoesthiscertainty Barthes of the"referent," ita he renames when a arrival with and of this subjectivity, plural point departure the of the "little 9/CC, 22-23). {CL,p. simulacrum," "Spectrum pp. Photograph" of the the indexicalcharacter of reference, the truth Far from demonstrating and its absence in the its its past being, presence stages phantasmatic photograph in thesameway is an indexofthephotographed, The photograph in thepresent. he leavesin thesandare indices or thefootprints hisfingerprints, hissmell, that work as "a certifileft behindbya bodythat or fragments ofhim.Theyare traces that of as a cateofpresence" (CL, p. 87/CQ p. 135), sign something waspresent and and melancholy, to mourning thenbutnowis not.The indexis a signlinked was in which the or testimony. to truth never Indeed,recalling way photography confirm that the we nineteenth in the in its century, may beginnings perceived is preto visibility an occult"truth" has thepowerto bring idea thattechnology the confidence To put it differently: of a historical the result perception. cisely that is an of an or the referent we call what that image entity is stableand subject in thatstands exists before that a full to itself, identical representation, presence which the camera and of ofthephotographic front (or language)gives apparatus
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OCTOBER
us a "faithful" or "true" notto a characteristic proper representation, corresponds to photography, a butto a policing To naturalize use ofphotographic technology. use of of the and to convert this policial photographic reading phototechnology of a of it is, likeanyideological the result graphinto"the"reading operation, is dehistoricization ofthemultiple circumodesin which thephotographic image latedand read.Nevertheless, itis precisely to read becausethere is no single way that or a of an index for a lock indexicality example, photographic portrait - says hair different to a in a than to the detective something protagopolicestory ofa romance nist Thisiswhy novel. Bertillon and Francis Galton sought Alphonse a mode of ordering whatto theireyesseemed evident:the correspondence between Barthes cona subject and hisimage.In response, and to thecontrary, fesses that never coincides with "'myself my image"(CL,p. 12/CC,pp. 26-27).9 is notlinked or testimony, As an index, to truth butto thebody. Indexicality thephotograph to the ofthe to a material relation bears, body according Barthes, in the of which is he can that photographed, why suggest photography presence that in As he within a the can never be moment body metaphorical. unique past "I am delighted of the past,byits to knowthatthe thing notes, (or depressed) in its immediate which radiations has touched the surface, (itsluminances), really is a corturn will touch" The index {CL,p-81/CC,p. 126). mygaze photographic From the a luminous a chemical "emanation," porealtrace, captured by process. of its effect most absolute that as a chemical is, perspective materiality produced - photography its traits. The photographic indexdisplays bylight acquires magical its if as it were "a sort of umbilical cord" {CL, p. magic, alchemy, byjoining thatphotographic 81/CC,p. 126)- the bodythatearliermarked plateor film with itspresence and thebodythat holdstheimagein itshandsand looksitover withits eyes.Whatdelightsand, at the same time,depressesis the double character of thephotographic trace. On theone hand,theimageis a real (nona of that metaphorical) fragment body belongedto the past.This meansthat fromthe verybeginningthe indexicalcharacterof photography offers the of This of or time,of promise immortality. utopichope interrupting stopping thepresent and freezing it on a two-dimensional is legible surface, immobilizing - particularly in thefirst usesofphotography in thenineteenth-century custom of of the dead and it remains inscribed within thedesire ofall photaking portraits Thisis and,indeed,touches tographic technology every imagethecameratakes. a can an index, in thesamewaythata fossil or a why photograph be considered ruinare indices:a fragment thatcomesto us from the pastand permits us to dream that thetotality that itis still hereand,moreover, still to produced belongs - for us.On theother as a as an emanation ofa body, an index hand, trace, example,
9. For earlydiscussions of the concept of indexicality, see RosalindKrauss,"Noteson the Index,"in The Originality and Other Modernist oftheAvant-Garde Myths (Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), pp. Du dispositif 196-219; and Jean-Marie Schaeffer, (Paris, Editionsdu Seuil, Limageprecaire. photographique we also have sought,following 1987). Whilewe have evoked manyaspectsof thesediscussions, Barthes, to indicateour distancefromthem.
19
- nevergivesus preciseinformation or a footprint on the beach a photograph about the bodythatposed forthe camera or thatsank its feetin the sand. whatcannotbe neglectedhere is thatwe are leftonlywithan Nevertheless, - before thecameraand on thesand.An indexmaintains an existential absence with thephotographed with an unforeseen relation bodyonlybecauseit signals, thewakeofitsdisappearance. "prick," Iftheindex'sdoublecharacter and depresses, then, simultaneously delights it is becauseit saysthatthe bodythatwastherewastherein sucha convincing of itself, a fragment thatit was able to leave a smallfragment thatwe manner Butevery our gaze as ifwe weretouching thisbody. indexis also the touchwith an irrecov(CL,p. 6/CC,p. 18),becauseitsimultaneously signals signofa fatality is why evokes a greater erabletimeand a lostobject.Thisperhaps photography "in thanother indexical has senseofmelancholy objects: photography, something in front of the and this has not 78/ camera, CC, 123) (CL, something p. p. posed" if onlyforan appears to have stayedthere,arrested, slippedawaybut rather ofsurrender that the immobile the instant. Thispromise objectbefore produces what returns this absence most It is the camera is hole of mournfully. perhaps tiny it also the senseof stability when, time, embalming producedbyphotography a photographic that we are as we contemplate movesus to imagine, portrait, an embalmed before body. itsname;itis sharp itdoes notfind itssign, butunlocatable, is certain its"effect it criesout in it is acuteyetmuffled, and yetlandsin a vaguezone of myself; is a mark: oftheindex It the force of the force silence" 51, 53/ CC, 87). {CL,pp. p. an as its the force ofthepuncthat has existence or ofthat trace, only image past The in its force of the resides wounds or chancethat tum image. every photograph us defenseless because us and to leave which fascinate to photography capacity - does nothing thefield oftheImaginary else than with hasbeenassociated often toward that where we remain withcenter of the toward the Real, place very point ofan a gaze.Thisis why we so often remain mutein front or without outwords what be named. This we areviewing cannot itis as if, for a fleeting second, image: in we order to drive them out that Kafka's alsoiswhy things "photograph phrase - connects to photograph not to the necessity of the compulsion of our minds" of not but to the and this the or world, it, possibility seeing registering possessing - photography - or at thelimit toward theRealitself, is because, points ultimately what we do notwish to see: thepuncto name,toward what wedo notwish toward death.Nevertheless, whether we seal our lips,close theindex,contingency, tum, the"floating flash" willnotfadeaway ofeverything, or takephotographs oureyes, do not need to see a we to or disappear. open oureyesto its Perhaps photograph - or at the but neither do we need to close them.Ultimately literalbrutality, - perhaps bestwhenwe look at it with our eyes limit we can viewa photograph the look at sun. as when we half-closed,
- a force in every is something This is whythere uncanny photograph ofdestabilizaas it us. Like a us in even that leaves flash," tion, fascinates "floating suspense something
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OCTOBER
IV Asan index, ofa body from thepastthat, every disapimageis an emanation no and has of itself. nonetheless left behind a pearing longerhere, fragment Whenwe contemplate this that we lookat itquickly remnant, is,this photograph, in orderto arrest the gaze in a newfragment, callsthe in a detailthatBarthes In this index and are two names for the punctum. way, punctum designating experienceofthefragment orthefragmentation ofexperience that wecall"photography." As a fragment, a photograph or offers itself to be read as a kindof remnant it is what remains of a now is as a new it that absent. But, corpse; totality totality, the lanviolence enacted in and in act, signals every photographic photographic After is a cutthattheeyeor thecamerarealizes in all,a photograph guageitself. theworld, evenifonly in this Barthes while As way. looking fragmentary suggests, at a seriesof photographs of his mother and trying to discover her essencein them: to thesephotographs, I recognized a region ofher sometimes "According a certain of her relation of nose and the moment her hands. face, arms, forehead, I neverrecognized her exceptin fragments, whichis to saythatI missedher and thattherefore I missed heraltogether" (CL, p. 66/CC,p. 103). These being, her" enable him to "dream about butnotto "dream her," photographic fragments her Or if dream as "dream can her," (CL,p. 66/CC,p. 104). rather, they they only as as in the Barthes absence that fragmented, shattered, onlypresent insistently and passionately wishes to overcome. The result of thisfragmented dreamis the and without we call an image,a fragment that objectthat,ungrateful memory, before our as a and as (CL,p. 91/CC,p. 142), appears eyes only "counter-memory" ifitwere a matter ofan autonomous whole. Camera Lucida identifies theontological violence that characterizes perfectly and it into a translates kind of that photographic technology grammar namesthe effects oftheimageon thebody oftheobserved and observsubject ofthesubject it and tears a hole. Barthes readsthis scans, Nevertheless, ing: pierces, pricks, - perhaps violence another namefortheforce of decontextualizaphotographic - in relation tionthattakesplace in anyphotograph not onlyto melancholy or but also to The then,to the haiku.It tragedy enjoyment. imageis comparable, shares with thispoeticform the "essence(of a wound)," thisfeature of thefragment inwhich is missing because"everything is given," which neither asks nothing for norprovokes "even thepossibility ofa rhetorical development (CL, expansion" between the photographic p. 49/CC,p. 81). This identification imageand the haikuis pervasive within Barthes' and can be tracedin his essay"The writings ThirdMeaning," in his book on Japan,Empire and in his otherquasiofSigns, Roland Barthes Roland Barthes.10 In each instance, the text, autobiographical by
10. See Roland Barthes,"The Third Meaning,"in TheResponsibility Critical ofForms: Essayson Music, trans.Richard Howard (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1991), p. 56; Art,and Representation, trans.RichardHoward (New York:Hill and Wang, 1982), p. 83; and RolandBarthes ofSigns, Empire by RolandBarthes, trans.RichardHoward (Berkeley: of California Press,1977), pp. 54-55. University
21
is a kindof "anaphoric where is only a liketheimage, haiku, gesture," "meaning inwhich what is developed a slashoflight," is,as he putsit,"undevelopable" flash, seemsto have (CL, p. 49/CC,p. 81), and in which"thewakeof the signwhich within the photographic Somewhat different been traced" image"is erased."11 and as a fragment that a newtotality and tragedy, becomes and from melancholy and does not ask to be expanded,the imagetherefore acquiresthe brilliance ofthefetish.12 ofthehaiku context, and,in this splendor thatinitially receives is thatfragment Indeed,the fetish specialattention itsplace. to an absentobjectin orderto hide it and to occupy becauseit refers it to theobjectis cutand whenthethincordtying The imagebecomesa fetish minuscule detailwhose"mere intoit in searchof an increasingly the gaze sinks Before the imagesof 42/ CC, (CL, 71). p. p. presencechangesmyreading" the that and is unmoved Barthes offers, by spectacle photography Mapplethorpe, closerangein order takenat very focuses on theimageoftheunderwear instead of thematerial" "thetexture to register (CL, p. 42/CC,p. 71). Likethedetective mostpertinent to theresolution of those details himself with whoconcerns only that conduct him to the minute will who investigates the analyst the crime, slip or feature in relation to a particular trait and the loverwho isolates the truth, the himself to the belovedobject,the close-up whichhe surrenders fragments at one time makeus forget thewholetowhich that details and gathers world they belonged. likean infinite and itfunctions The photographic blowup, gazeis fetishistic; a search for "a in order to the 'detail/ i.e., (CL, object" partial p. enlarges image film orJulio Cortazar's Antonioni's confirms, 43/CC,p. 73). AsMichelangelo story is perhaps to go in itsdetails, to enlarge an image,to approach however, always ofpunctum," Barthes of our ownimage."To giveexamples searchof themystery to in a certain 43/ CC, fashion, confesses, "is, givemyself p. 73). In up" (CL, p. Barthes' with insists and captures is one detailthat Lucida there Camera gaze great attracts himto it.Atfirst, werea kindofmagnet that as ifeach portrait regularity, ofthemenphotographed or historical" as a "cultural itemerges question: "many howlongwerenails an have Nadar question: longfingernails: ethnographical by this But detailappears worn in a certain 30/ later, CC, 52, 54). (CL,p. pp. period?" a Barthes oftheyoung when with another and tone, contemplatesportrait again, is notthefaceofthephotographed holdshisattention Tzara.What Tristan Tzara, a monocle;rather, Barthes "the nor even the factthathe is wearing suggests, door frame." He hand on the then is Tzara's of the proresting punctum grace on something evensmaller, the truepunctum of thatfocuses ceeds to a close-up
thefirst thecitation from Camera citedphrase is 11. In thissentence Lucida), (and notincluding cited arefrom from "TheThird of pp. 83 and84, phrases Empire Signs, Meaning," p. 56;andthelasttwo respectively. see Christian Metz's character ofthephotograph, ofthefetishistic 12. Fora discussion "Disavowal,
and theCinema, trans.Ben Brewster et al. (Indiana: in TheImaginary Fetishism," Psychoanalysis Signifier:
in October 34 (Fall1985), andFetish," Indiana Press, 1986),pp. 69-80,andhis"Photography University pp.81-91.
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OCTOBER
thephotograph: butclean"(CL, p. here,"a largehandwhosenailsare anything itis that 45/CC,pp. 74) wouldseemto be themostadequateanalogto whatever seducesus within an image. Whatdazzlesus,what we look at a wounds when us, a is and of a kind of emanation the detail photograph marginal unexpected - which unconscious within thebodyor in theimage is excluded from theintenofthephotographer or thephotographed or object, and thereby tionality subject the door for chance to enter. The a detail is a opens punctum fetish, fulgurating its does not of the but nevertheless makes the rest that, occult, irradiating light, This is what seems to in Duane of Michals's imageopaque. happen portrait Andy in which Warhol covers hisfacewith hishandsbutnevertheless Warhol, manages tohidenothing. Warhol "offers hishandstoread,quiteopenly; and thepunctum is notthegesture," as in the earlier "the subbut, happens slightly repellent image, ofthosespatulate stance at oncesoft and hard-edged" nails, (CL,p. 45/CC,p. 77). The punctum is thissoftand spatulate detailthatcaptures us; it is, at the same this the left an remains behind time, substance," "slightly repellent bya body, or instant that we love a as an If as or this attenfetish, index, photograph. object, tiontonailsis a kindofpermanent for in "The interest Barthes (italready appears ThirdMeaning"), the itis perhaps becausefingernails seemto embody thefetish: factthattheycontinueto groweven after the bodyto whichtheybelonghas - we couldevensaythat died that most they represent bodythat partoftheliving resembles dead matter like and like the means the that, closely photograph, shatter the border between life and and and absence. fetish, death, they presence of the body, Barthes'attention and desirebecause, Fragments they magnetize so other to his meditation on thecontradictory among many things, they belong character ofphotography. Ifa photograph is a fragment from that steals theshow thetotality thatat one timehad housedit,it is becausewhat dazzlesus within a like Barthes' a a detail is, nails, marginal that, photograph fragment, fulgurating within theimage, leaves elsein shadows. Thismobile and elusive detail everything is charged with a metonymic force. It condenses theimageand displaces itlikea itcan be seenhereand thenthere, itappearsnowand reappears later. The ghost, we call a and the thatilluminates it have the fragment photograph fragment to tearbothtimeand ourgaze:"itis phantasmatic, from a kindof power deriving secondsight which seemsto bear me forward to a Utopian or to carry me time, backto somewhere in myself{CL,p. 40/CC,p. 68). Photography is theamorous fetish a fragment of thepresent liketherelation between two that, parexcellence, links and realizes boththepastand thefuture lovers, and,in doingso, deranges time altogether. V In his discussion of thequestion of resemblance, Barthes claims thatwhen he getsclose to a photograph, whenhe feelshe almostcan touchhis "desired hisbeloved's he finds himself CC,p. 157),as object, (CL,p. 100/ body," "burning"
23
Thisexperience ifconsumed of burning notonlythe bya kindof fire. registers of his desireand lovebutalso,at thevery the edge of thisextremity, extremity ofhisidentity. discussion ofresemblance Indeed,theentire conflagration belongs in general. If a photograph a resemto Barthes' identity against implies polemic thisidentity is always he suggests, and "even blance to an identity, "imprecise" it is onlyan "absurd,purelylegal, even penal affair"(CL, pp. imaginary"; a photographic "looks like 100-101/ CC,pp. 157,160). Thisis why always portrait andwhy the"splendor" itrepresents," he can find ofhis theperson anyone except in theWinter Garden mother's truth CC,p. 160).In (CL,pp. 102-03/ Photograph in the he never which little the little remote this"lost, knew, girl photograph" "like" his nevertheless evokes the nor looks resembles neither who mother, girl - Barthes encounters a photographic truth ofhismother's "lineaments" principle: "I tellmyself: mother as a child," he writes, she ofmy "In front ofthephotograph a over which likeWinnicott's is going todie: I shudder, catastrophe psychotic patient, is already or notthesubject occurred. Whether hasalready dead,every photograph ofhismother as a is thiscatastrophe" (CL, p. 96/CC,p. 150). If thephotograph bearsthe traceof her future childalready because,at the death,it is certainly "has finds it and views in which Barthes moment it,she is dead (the catastrophe the lens of this view the can and he occurred" through photograph only already moment it was at the the also because it is but taken, death), very photograph, "hadalready itssubject(the catastrophe and immobilized had mortified already hisbirth or thephotograph butalsobefore before he views and notonly occurred" "is already or not the mother his mother's dead,"then,literally death).Whether haveexperienced will of) death. dead,shealready (a kind becausedeathis death to the The photograph brings photographed, always 13 in a photograph, What survives "eidos" thephotograph's \b/CC, 32). (CL, p. p. the the also the survival of in it,is therefore returns what dead, appearance always thedead thespaceofthephotograph, within Thisis why, or phantom. ofa ghost dead dead. This axiom are without alive and the are alive, being always always GardenPhotograph of theWinter his experience to generalize enablesBarthes in general, butitalsoleadshimtoreadhisown intoa claimaboutthephotograph to thedeaththat butin relation is ofhismother, in relation to that deathnotonly contains as he announced it, "always puts every photograph photograph: byevery a photofuture death"(CL,p. 91/CC,p. 151).Observing this signofmy imperious in relation to a death an himself viewer the that, through spectralizes graph, now haunts now of and phantasmatic uncertain him, process identification, a deaththat is thelife hislife, nowcomestobe seenas "his": and inhabits touches
in themortality ofthe and as a kind ofanalog, deathis alsolegible, 13. The mother's proleptically, "The photograph wasvery material Garden Winter old,"Barthes writes, "[t]he support. Photograph's hadfaded" into an album, thesepiaprint beenpasted blunted from were corners CC, {CL,p. 67/ having "fate of paper (perishable)" thecommon it shares and, "evenifit is p. 106). Likeall photographs, likea living itis bornon thelevel ofthe itis still mortal: tomore attached organism, lasting supports, thenages.. . . Attacked itfades, a moment, itflourishes silver bylight, byhumidity, grains, sprouting vanishes" weakens, {CL,p. 93/CC,pp. 145-46).
24
OCTOBER
of hislife, and in which he exists and lives, He exists, notas dead, butas dying. likethefirst actors who"separated themselves from the thecommunity byplaying roleof the Dead,"in "a bodysimultaneously and dead" (CL, p. 31/CC,p. living of living at the threshold of deathand lifeis another 56). Thatthisexperience - forwhat namefortheexperience oflove takesplace in our relation to theone - is confirmed we love in A "I Lover's Barthes confesses: haveprowhen, Discourse, into the other I with such that when the am without otherI jected myself power cannot recover I am forever."14 While he that myself, regain myself: lost, suggests thisloss of selfoccursespecially in relation he also implies to the absentother, thatit happens evenwhentheotheris presumably relasincethevery "present," tionbetween a selfand an othermeansthat, inhabits the becauseeach already neither the self nor his the other can return to himself in the case of other, (or, to self in the and the other deconstitute one another mother, "herself): precisely their relation. If neitherBarthesnor his mothercan remainsimply it is themselves, the trace of the each can become identified with the because,bearing other, other. The possibility ofthis oftheone intotheother transformation is confirmed in an extraordinary in whichBarthes moment in an extreme claims, temporal to have birth to his and therefore to have become a reversal, mother, given mother himself. After thatthe Greeks intoDeath backward," "entered recalling Barthes on the Winter ofhis"mother as a Garden claims, discovering Photograph to have "worked back" in not relation to this a child," "through life, photograph but the life of I someone love." He on to while that, myown, goes taking suggest careofhisailing mother "attheend ofherlife," he is able toexperience theback- its capacityto take him back to the ward "movement of the Photograph" childhood ofhismother-in "reality" herill(CL,p. 71/CC,pp. 111-12)."During he explains, "I nursedher,held the bowlof tea she likedbecauseit was ness," easierto drink from thanfrom a cup; she had becomemylittle for girl, uniting mewith that essential childshewasin herfirst I experiphotograph Ultimately encedher, as she had been,my inner as my feminine child. Which was law, strong of Death... ifafter been reproduced as otherthanhimmy way resolving having the individual deniedand transcended I who self, dies,having himself, thereby had not procreated, I had, in hervery illness, ( CL, p. engendered mymother" thathis mother had been his "inner 72/CC,pp. 112-13).Acknowledging always Barthes thatshe wasalready in himbefore he washimself; law," she was suggests or moreforceful thanhe: from thevery she had left already stronger beginning, an imprint on himand therefore birth to him,reproduced him,"as other given - likea thanhimself." As a mechanism forreproduction, themother reproduces - notthesamething, camera butsomething else:she therefore kills(Barthes says he "dies")at thesame timethatshe engenders, to birth, produces, gives brings - this the light of day,and givessomething to be seen. He confirms thisdeath
14. Roland Barthes,A Lover's Discourse: trans.RichardHoward (New York:Farrar, Straus, Fragments, and Giroux,1978), p. 49.
25
- when, in this birth as happens he encounters deaththat attends himself passage, In experiencing themother's in experiencing in thefigure ofthemother. alterity, "in him"thatinfinitely in the mother, he experiences the alteration disalterity his singularity. This is why, from the moment of his birth, places and delimits - a a kindof deathin relation to thematernal Barthes body already experiences residueliveson in his bodyand therefore retrospectively bodywhosematerial her bodybut also his capacity to not onlyhis body'spassagethrough confirms evenafter herdeath.Embodying boththe a relation to themother's retain body, Barthes' of theplace deathand life, bodybearsthe traces pastand thepresent, hismother's darkwomb he once lived(and livedin orderto begindying): where ofthe As he "Freud his mother's notes, it, "darkroom"). (or,as we might says put with so much cerof which one can 'there is no other that maternal say place body The condition of been there'" has that one 40/ CC, 68). (CL, p. already p. tainty to be the that of a for seen, givessomething process reproduction possibility darkroom. and photographic mother's Giving developer, bodyis at once camera, This bond birthto an image,the motheris anothername forphotography. Barthes' and itis is legible and themother between text, throughout photography to the mother he in which he refers to thosemoments notrestricted explicitly: of his dead mother thathe does textarounda photograph his entire structures all photography, and he conto derive which he wishes butfrom notreproduce, of reproduction like as a process in maternal ceivesof photography that, terms, means which chemical a of birth to series the mother, images through gives arejoined to theobserving and which their and destroy create, subjects, preserve, themother of Camera cord. Within the world of umbilical a kind Lucida, by subject ofimages. is an incunabulum herdeath, evenafter shehas "inhim," evenafter mother remains IfBarthes' material the is the this and traces, because, beyond passed away, disappeared him in memoin a series of left on she remains her has material his, imprint body ries and scenes thatare nothingelse than images:she leaves "in him"only can we his mother(but whatelse, otherthanthe mother, Recalling images.15 a of but related associates her with series Barthes different, remember?), images whensheis herillness, thentheimageshebecomes theimageofherduring first and thenthe imageof the one whomhe child"or "little his "feminine girl," withthe mother, thathe identifies is not an It accident, however, "engenders." not yeta moment when his at the withthe maternal "mother," function, very mother in "first Like the who child" her the "essential is mother, photograph." his mother as an other Barthes self as an the other, (as a reproduces reproduces he dead mother into his own his ofothers). series identity, spectral Incorporating another and enablesa kindof "resurrection" "birth," (CL, p. 82/CC,p. 129), his"own"), buta life an element oflife(perhaps herdeathwith counters thereby If the a in the mother's death. there was that photograph bespeaks living already
Brault and trans. Pascale-Anne see Jacques 15. On thispoint, Derrida, "ByForceof Mourning," Work Michael Naas,in The of Mourning, p. 159.
26
OCTOBER
certain Barthes it is because"itcertifies thatthecorpseis alive,as notes, horror, is the it of a dead CC,p. 123);itisbecause, (CL,pp. 78-79/ corpse: living image thing" inother within the the dead and the become undead.16 words, photograph, living The generalrelay thatthe between and the mother suggests photography in son this the we know as the who instance, photograph and, photograph - is endowed becomesthe mother to with a magical and uncanny power procrein one of the mostremarkable ate, and thisis confirmed passagesin Camera a passagethat thegaze,theself, thereferthebody, Lucida, brings together light, and the is an maternal Barthes writes: "The ent, body. photograph literally emanation ofthereferent. Froma realbody, wasthere, radiations which proceed is whichultimately touchme, who am here; the durationof the transmission the the of the touches me like insignificant; photograph delayed being missing ofa star. A sort ofumbilical to cordlinks thebody ofthephotographed rays thing I skin share with is here a carnal a medium, mygaze: light, though impalpable, 17Evoking whohas been photographed" (CL,pp. 80-81/CQ pp. 126-27). anyone
16. IfBarthes toresurrect ifhewishes weshould not desires hismother, torecover andrevivify herbody, be surprised toreverse thetrajectory tobring herbacktolife, andperhaps ofherlife, byhiseffort beginfrom herdeath. Thiseffort in itsmost in thevery of is legible, and hidden structure secret form, ning - andwebelieve - that Camera andwriting of at least insofar as wecanclaim wecan thestructure Lucida, thetext thetext is composed of embodies hisdesire. Wecanbegin toreadthis effort that byfirst noting two Itwas written with eachpart oftwenty-four for a total offorty-eight parts, consisting chapters, chapters. between 15 andJune itwaswritten inforty-eight There aretwentywhich means that 3, 1979, April days. five within thebook, since thefirst Boudinet's 1979 color one,Daniel but, photographs reproduced photoofthetext, within outside there aretwenty-four thetext Polaroid, is,strictly graph speaking, photographs The number seemsparticularly within thecontext ofthebook,sinceit proper. twenty-four significant - thenumber - that evokes thenumber ofstill frames ofphotograms a film passthrough projector every secondas wellas thenumber ofhoursin a day, that ofhoursthat constitute thecycle is,thenumber between andnight andlight anddarkness. Thenumber becomes more day forty-eight perhaps significant, ifwe recall that Barthes' mother diedat theage ofeighty-four, readbackward, is fortyhowever, which, Thisreversed identification would seemtobe only andperhaps a gameofnumcoincidental, eight. only bersand chance, butitbecomes lessso when we remember that Barthes claims to havediscovered the Winter Garden thephotograph he associates most the"essence" with ofhismother, Photograph, closely "by backthrough Time." he seems toreinforce this ofreversal that Moreover, "[t]he moving gesture bynoting Greeks entered into Deathbackward: what hadbefore them wastheir In thesameway I worked they past. backthrough a life, notmy butthelife ofsomeone I love" there would own, (CL,p. 71/CC, p. 111).While be much tosay about these theleast wecansay isthat, ina very realsense, what Barthes correspondences, seems towant because ofhislove for hismother, because ofhisdesire tohave heralive andbeside him istohave histext thetrajectory ofhismother's indoing butinreverse, as if, so,itmight, embody lifespan, themovement ofherlife from life to deathand thereby itfrom deathto life, byreversing transforming restore hertohim. In thesame that he claims tohave started with hismother's "latest magically way image, taken thesummer before herdeath" and then tohave"arrived, ofa century, at traversing three-quarters theimage ofa child" intaking careofhismother when shewasill, in (CL,p. 71/CC, that, p. Ill), he states careofheras ifshehadbecome hischild, he experienced this backward movement in reality. Itis taking this ofthedisplacement andreversal oftime that him toseektoconjure hismothexperience encourages erthrough an actofwriting that isas much an actofdesire andlove as itisan actofcounting. 17. Thisplay between andskin, between thephotograph andemanations, canbe registered in light theFrench word for"film": From theskin, and "film" havethesame pellicule. pellis, pellicule originally a small or thin a kindofmembrane. in thispassage, Barthes usestheword skin, meaning: Although, he demonstrates hisawareness ofthis connection between film and peauand notpellicule, etymological - a connection - in skin that therelation between this"carnal medium" and thephotogram suggests
RolandBarthes RolandBarthes. See RolandBarthes RolandBarthes, by by p. 54.
27
- in which ofeidolas bodiesgiveoff and histheory materDemocritus emanations, travel themedium oflight to theeyesofa that ial vestiges ofthesubject, through - Barthes thatthephotograph a distant brings together suggests past spectator18 that the"delayed ofa star" in thesameway is moment and a present rays join what at hand,and that itis also boundto thespectator's is closest towhat most distant oflight. As ElissaMarder in cordcomposed suggests gaze bya kindofumbilical ofthis herreading passage, means "light whoseetymology writing," alchemically photography, In flesh. this transformation, into transforms photography light reconnects thebodyofthe medium that a maternal becomes magically an umbilical cord.This of the referent to the by body viewing subject that boththe in creates a new umbilical cord, turn, envelops corpus In under a common skin. and the object photographed subject viewing into transubstantiates theact of transforming skin, photography light itthrough time and space.19 and transports ofthereferent thebody - ifit dead the living and the dead intothe living transforms If thephotograph at the or funereal in a kind of "amorous dead to the bindstheliving immobility, limb if are and death life heartof the moving world"; by "gluedtogether, very tortures" manand thecorpsein certain likethecondemned (CL, p. 6/CC, limb, kills at thesametime thephotograph likethemother, p. 17)- itis also because, I observed As Barthes thatit givesbirth. bythe lens, putsit, "once feelmyself or creates it, my body mortifies changes I feelthatthePhotograph everything thephototo itscaprice"(CL, pp. 10-11/CC, p. 25). Likethemother, according and lifeand death,the pastand the present, interiority graphexistsbetween whose and image.It opensontoa future and subject bodyand image, exteriority, enablesus to delineate can be known evenifwhat are notyetknown, lineaments - Barthes' themother ofdeath.Thisis why and limit ofthehorizon thecontours morenorlessthana figure forthebirth butalso all mothers is nothing mother, and deathofphotography. VI of If the WinterGarden Photographis indeed the "invisible punctum" - even thoughit does not belongto the seriesof phoBarthes'elegiacbook20 itnevertheless haunts theentire and analyzes, he exhibits book;wecould tographs is no sentence in thebook thebook,there that as thewound evensaythat, "signs" - he soonsuggests in thinking ofthephotograph, we is nottouched that that, byit
to photography in general, in relation see 's theory of eidolas of Democritus 18. For a discussion in Cities ed. EduardoCadavaand AaronLevy Without "The Home of Shame," Branka Citizens, Arsic, andLibrary, Museum Rosenbach Books; 2003),p. 36. Slought (Philadelphia: inthe on theMother toSay: 19. Marder, "Nothing Fragments AgeofMechanical Reproduction," p. 32. "TheDeaths ofRoland isfrom 20. The phrase Barthes," Derrida, p. 43.
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OCTOBER
think of wemust or photography: other thansimply must think ofsomething light her his at and of grief thesongofhismother he callsthe"last what death, music," As he notes:"The Winter a kindof accordor correspondence. and, in general, before wrote Schumann Garden wasfor melikethelastmusic collapsPhotograph bothmymother's der Friihe thataccords with beingand my ing,thatfirst Gesang seriesof thisaccordexceptbyan infinite at herdeath:I could notexpress grief the relation had stressed {CL, p. 70/CC,p. 110).2iWhilehe already adjectives" and punctum of the studium and musicin his discussion between photography he writes, two themesin Photography," "(forin "Havingthusdistinguished in the manner of a classical I likedwereconstructed generalthe photographs one after theother" I couldoccupy with {CL,p. 27/CC,p. 49)- his sonata), myself resonant reference lastmusicis particularly to Schumann's here,since,among and an earlieressay Schumann" it evokeshis 1979 essay"Loving otherthings, "The Romantic entitled 1976on Schumann and Schubert from Song."In thelatto the Schumannian whilelistening tertext, he explains lied,he addresses that, and from I lose myself himself to "an Image:the imageof thebelovedin which an image," with comesbackto me.""I struggle which abandoned, myownimage, of his relationto the his laterunderstanding he goes on to say,anticipating lostother, "which is boththe imageof the desired, Winter GardenPhotograph, hismother's After and my and abandoned."22 ownimage, however, death, desiring assomusic becomes evoked thefigure ofthe"desired, lostother" bySchumann's towhich andwith thelossofself hismother and herdeath, ciatedspecifically with thisrelationand death give birth.He makes thispoint explicitin "Loving of"solitary thatSchumann is themusician whenhe claims Schumann," intimacy, . . in short, of thechild of the amorous toitself. and imprisoned soul thatspeaks thatSchumann's whohas no otherlinkthanto theMother," and whenhe states in theluminous musicis "atonce dispersed and unary, continually taking refuge shadow oftheMother is ... theexpression work, (thelied,copiousin Schumann's
can only this accordby"an infinite series ofadjectives" is critical 21. ThatBarthes here, "express" and especially in relation in to whathe understands as thephotographic character of theadjective He draws this in theseries oflectures between and photography general. "correspondence" adjectives he delivered in 1978at theCollege de France on "TheNeutral," notlongafter thedeathofhismother the lectures) andjust twoyearsbefore his death.As a (a deaththatleavesits tracesthroughout counter to thepetrifying, in thediseffects of theadjective, Barthes that, death-bringing explains courseofthelover, thelover's to cover hisbeloved with leadsthelover tendency adjectives eventually to experience thewounding lack"from which suffers" and he comes"toseeka linguistic predication this:thatthe totality of imaginable the willneverreachor exhaust wayof addressing predicates absolute of the objectof his desire." Whenhe claimsthathe cannotexpress theaccord specificity "last hismother's and hisgrief at herdeath"except music," amongSchumann's being, byan infinite series ofadjectives," he implies all efforts that to fixor arrest is thisaccordinevitably willfail, which this effort has to beginagainan infinite number oftimes. Thathisdiscussion oftheadjective is why resonant with hisconcerns in Camera in a waythat Lucida is reinforced whenhe claims, particularly evokes hismother and herdeath, that "inlinguistic culture" the"two that are understood to objects" be "beyond either in horror or in desire" are "thecorpseand the desiredbody." See predication
Roland Barthes,TheNeutral: Lecture Course at theCollege deFrance (1977-1978), trans.Rosalind E. Krauss and Denis Hollier (NewYork:Columbia University Press,2005), pp. 52, 58. Roland Barthes,"The RomanticSong,"in TheResponsibility 22. Forms, of p. 290.
29
that of thismaternal we havea relation to theMother even unity)."23 Suggesting to this when wearealoneand speaking ourselves because we internalize (and only thetrace ofthemusic wehear),Schumann's hertrace music, justas weinternalize love to a force of and the likephotography, "Mother" tophotography. arrest, joins and darkness within whichphotography Associated withthe light the emerges, outtobe linked to therhythms and scansions ofmusic Mother also turns "itself." - among mostremarkable aboutthisseriesof associations Whatis perhaps it and the mother is that transcribes music ontoa love,death, music, mourning, and finitude. This relation of between music shadowy representation mortality and deathis evokedin AndreMalraux's1933 accountof the earlydaysof the Malrauxnotesthat"music TheHumanCondition. ChineseRevolution, onlycan he that of all arts on the one the music of death."24 If, hand, suggests only speak he tells us that music can on other of the can speak death, hand, onlyspeakof music in but death. What makes of can speak nothing music, other words, death, what is about tovanish. Thisis of we encounter in ourexperience it, is that, always in within linked to Camera musicis forBarthes, and, particular, mourning, why, latthis between loveand mourning. to therelation Indeed,itis precisely Lucida, and that draws him the Winter Garden is evoked that terrelation Photograph by to thisparticular thathe sinceit is in relation toward photograph Photography, ofPhotography ... in theevidence that he must to understand claims "interrogate call loveand death"(CL,p. 73/CC,p. 115).Like we romantically towhat relation in theimpossibilin itsfugitive, music loveand death, character, transitory begins has been understood as it.Thisis why music often ofourevercomprehending ity In theexperience of music, we always encounter "an artbeyond signification."25 We might even an aleatory audible,evocative) (butsonorous, oversignification. matter. Like the otherwho saythatmusicis, as it were,the leastincorporated - as we know, this ourcomprehension remains is, incomprehension beyond always - music evenafter ofloveand itsmany a condition forBarthes, remains, enigmas
in The 23. Roland Forms, Schumann," Barthes, "Loving Responsibility of pp. 293-94. Editions Barthes humaine La condition 24. Malraux, Gallimard, 1946), (Paris: p. 334.Although rarely butrichtext from bothin a brief 1975entihe addresses Chinaand itsrevolutionary evokes history, - written in response tothenegative reactions histext elicited In a two-page coda la Chine? tledAlors he wouldliketo readitas the"feminine Chinaas an object, he suggests that, (mater"hallucinating" he explains, and itis meant to Thishallucination is not"gratuitous," itself." oftheobject nal?)infinite and dogmatic discourse. At hallucination ofChina's Western thepopular "directly political" go against linksthe thought of Chinato statement he makesa remarkable thismoment, that,likeMalraux, moves he notes that theaimofhis orwriter that theintellectual music. always byindirection, Claiming totheindirectness would bejust(and "musically" a discourse that text wastooffer little so) in relation can be "just" to theindecipherability of thatonlya certain of Chinese musicality Claiming politics. and "theChinesealso."In this to love music," that"itis necessary he concludes Chinesepolitics, - music - and in keeping in Camera Lucida and loveare on the with what he suggests then instance, and evenon thesideof our on thesideofwhat sideofindirection, escapes comprehension, perhaps as the"maternal." See Roland Alors evenifin themodeofa question, he darestoevoke, what Barthes, Christian la Chine? Editeur, 1975), (Paris: Bourgois pp. 8, 13-14. ofAdorno on music. makes thispointin his reading s writings See Lacoue-Labarthe 25. Philippe Ficta trans. Felicia McCarren Stanford Musica Lacoue-Labarthe, (Stanford: {Figures ofWagner), Philippe Press, 1994), University p. 144.
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OCTOBER
we hearit,evenafter we incorporate itstrace, somewhere us,resonating beyond and that we experiat a distance, in an exteriority extends in every direction that evenwhenit ence as the openingof the world.Musichas no hiddensurface, or hidremains either it appears"without unseen;likeBarthes' mother, showing and Like love itself It and evanescent. is (CL, p. 69/CC,p. 107). ing" fugitive us it since it determines has the to its death, and, by capacity dispossess subjects, we to ourselves, us inaccessible us, bydisappropriating us, bymaking displacing likephotography To saythat music ofdeath," is tosaythat, then, "only speaks death. and love,music from our our ourselves, imminent always signals departure of a form Itisalsotosaythat music beena means ofexperiencing hasalways traces, or has the to leave an or Like it imprint inscription writing. photography, power - and ithasthis When itis rhythm itself. trace other because, things, power among recalls a he Mallarme in Music Letters that soul is and knot,"26 rhythmic says "every "characmeant thearchaic senseoftheword "music": which "letter," "type," rhythm, ofa violent and "scheme." This is music the even ter," why always implies imposition for in or certain malleable material it is the some that, form; (wax vinyl, impression To an not unlike produces effigy. designate example) and,again, photography from themark, an operation of thiskind, theGreeks used theverbtupein, tupos: often conBarthes Emile whom theimprint, characters. Benveniste (for engraved Notion "The in his 1966 fessed hisadmiration and love)27 confirms this essay point meansoriginally of 'Rhythm' in Its Linguistic thatrhuthmos noting Expression," skhema and that it also characterizes to) a gen(form, schema) (and belongs figure, eralized the letters of differentiation and distinction often process exemplified by ofthealphabet.^ Thisrelation between and inscription, and letters, between rhythm rhythm evokes thequestion ofwriting in general, a question on thebasisofwhich itseems the works of to think the about Barthes, possible, passing through subject's preinwithin Lacoue-Labarthe notesin hisanalysis of But,as Philippe scription writing. Benveniste'sessay,we should not move too quicklythroughthe steps of Benveniste'sargument.29 Benvenistein fact insiststhat skhema is only an
26. Stephane La musique etUslettres, in Oeuvres Mallarme, Gallimard, (Paris: 1945), completes p. 644. 27. See, forexample, Barthes' 1974essay, I LoveBenveniste" he explicitly situates (in which "Why Benveniste within thecontext ofa discussion oftherelation between loveand music), in The Rustle of trans. Richard Howard ofCalifornia Press, Language, 1989), (Berkeley: University p. 167. 28. See Benveniste, "La notion de 'rhythme' dansson expression in Problemes delinlinguistique," vol.1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), guistiques generate, p. 330. 29. See Lacoue-Labarthe 's "TheEchooftheSubject," trans. Barbara in Typography: Harlow, Mimesis, ed. Christopher MA.: Harvard Politics, Press, Philosophy, 1989), Fynsk (Cambridge, University pp. 196-203. - and of thenotion - is a In many our reading ofBenveniste's of "rhythm" in general respects, essay miniaturized of Lacoue-Labarthe 's argument, an argument he repeats somewhat telephotograph in Musica on pp. 77-83.We wouldsuggest herethat, Barthes Ficta, graphically especially although refers to Lacoue-Labarthe 's essay, "Caesura oftheSpeculative," in Camera Lucida(see CC,p. 141),itis this "TheEchooftheSubject," that hasthemost resonance with hisbook.A reading of perhaps essay, Theodor Reik'sThe thelatter other a meditation on therelais,among Haunting Melody, essay things, tions andautobiography. music, among mourning,
could even saythatit means the subject. vanishing ofthe
onLove Notes andPhotography
31
of rhuthmos. If skhema "a fixed, realized form as designates approximation posited rhuthmos is "theform at themoment an object," itis taken is in movement, bywhat the form thathas no organic It is, he adds,"impromobile, fluid, consistency." modifiable" form.30 Thismeans, that vised, momentaneous, amongotherthings, ofrhythm is traversed to it theform time is its conditime, or, by put differently, tionofpossibility. we can saythattheword"rhythm" Lacoue-Labarthe, Following - at thevery to figure or represent already implies edge of thesubject's capacity theimprint itself themark, thestamp, us within its that, movement, inscribing from ever to sends us back us to the and chaos ourselves, returning prevents night that,neverorderedbyus, enablesus to appearas whatwe are, as whatwe are - ourselves.31 Thisprocess ofinscription and impression alsocharacterizes not the in a as Barthes we which, suggests, always space, space experience photographic In this ofourselves as an other. soulis a rhyththe"advent" sense, "every perhaps, ofstasis and movement, ofstability a bringing and instability, micknot," together - which Weare rhythmed, therefore32 is to saythat we ofsingularity and repetition. in particular, a photographic Barthes confirms becomean impression, impression. ofhisrelation to thebeloved's voiceand thistransformation (and in thecontext "in Discourse he writes the in The Lover's when that, fascinating image,what body) of its sensitized is not the accumulation details butthisor me a paper) impresses(like to touch me in the otheris Whatsuddenly thatinflection. (ravish me) manages ofthesilhouette, theslenderness thewarmth thevoice,thelineoftheshoulders, Likethedetailor punctum ofa smile, and so forth."33 that ofthehand,thecurve his the details of beloved's enter him and that wounds him, body pierceshim, theimprint, of a seriesof impressions himintotheregister, like transform that, his that records the other's confirm the "sensitized trace, photographic paper" within a photographic The bodyhe lovesis not hisinscription character, process. hisownbodyand,in entering he loves, sincebothenter themusic unlike it,preas he "he"and hisbody even become itfrom vent if, remaining suggests, just"his," thismusic from somewhere else as ifitwere a kindofmusical organthat"plays" is "him" the the music added to his evenas it from (like punctum, body, emerging music much farther than "Schumann's the is already ear,"Barthes there). goes into the muscles the beats of its "it into the and by body, rhythm, explains, goes the of its as if on each intotheviscera somehow melos; by pleasure voluptuous the one whoplays it.""The occasionthepiece waswritten onlyforone person, him: moi"34 he is "c'est him and trueSchumannian Entering pianist," adds, piercand animates of a photograph, musictransforms him ing himlikethepunctum of he becomes the one who can in the this and, only rhythm process, experience in a waythatremains themusicin a particular faithful to the and interpret way,
30. 31. 32. 34.
33.
danssonexpression "La notion de 'rhythme' Benveniste, linguistique," p. 333. "EchooftheSubject," See Lacoue-Labarthe, p. 202. this identical inibid., Lacoue-Labarthe makes point p. 202. Barthes, Schumann," p. 295. "Loving
A Lover's Discourse, Barthes, p. 191.
32
OCTOBER
of its movement. in thisway, madness he isjostled backand forth "Rhythmed" off theseveral suruntilhe appearsto becomea kindof light that, rebounding more than what he faces itencounters, ensures that his"identity" remains nothing diselsewhere callsa "fleeting As he putsit in hisanalysis of thelover's index."35 hisinterest from a musical interest to a photographic course, one, "in displacing theamorous I am I encounter,keeprebounding light."36 In an unpublished from 1977entitled lecture "Music, Voice,and Language," - in music that Barthes reinforces this between music and love relay bysuggesting the composer's often with than with more associated light in imaginary, night he fact"derives" from the discourse of love."Every 'successful' relation," writes, "successful in thatit managesto saythe implicit without it,to pass articulating overarticulation into of or the sublimation without the desire falling censorship - sucha relation of oftheunspeakable can rightly be calledmusical."37 The music articulalovetherefore without to a of relation and silence a belongs space space - but one whose silence is linkedto the "affect tion of the lost,abandoned in an exquisite Barthes reinforces thisclaimin Camera Lucida subject." passageon the relations the and, again,a certain silence,blindness, night, amongmusic, a certain can accord.Immediately after that the "accommodate noting punctum he that it can he is not at a when latency," looking photograph, writes: appear it is bestto look or in order to at the limit see a well, "Ultimately photograph is or close The condition for an Janouch away eyes. necessary image sight,' your todrive in order toldKafka; and Kafka smiled and replied: 'Wephotograph things them outofourminds. are a The ofshutting Mystories eyes.' way my photograph must be silent . . . this is nota question ofdiscretion, Absolute butofmusic. subjecis achieved in a state, an effort, ofsilence(shutting tivity your eyesis to makethe The photograph itsusual touches me ifI withdraw itfrom speakin silence). image blah-blah: etc.:to saynothing, toshut 'Art,' 'Technique,' 'Reality,' 'Reportage,' my to allow the detail to riseofitsownaccordintoaffective consciousness" ( CL, eyes, - likeencountering a photograph music, pp. 53,55/CC,pp. 88-89). Encountering Barthes a certainsilenceand blindness, this and, together, suggests requires and blindness silence a kind ofwithdrawal from moreconventional (or less suggest ofphotography. If he likens thesilenceof thephotosurprising) understandings to theexperience ofshutting hiseyestowhat we do notwish to see or wish graph toname, and tomusic itself remember that as he says, nonethesilence, (weshould lessstill itis becausemusic never to sight: itsays it speaks), gives anything nothing, cannot be immobilized, itis,in Marie-Louise Mallet's a "'rebel'object," and words, thisbecause,before becomean object.38 Like love, else,it can never everything and photography, it escapesthetheoretical it remains in thedark. death, regard; Thisis why Nietzsche callsmusicthe "artof the night," and why he associates it
35. 36. 37. 38. in Responsibility ofForms, Barthes, "Listening," p. 248. A Lover's Barthes, Discourse, p. 199. Barthes, "Music,Voice, and Language,"in TheResponsibility Forms, of p. 284. en respect Mallet,La musique (Paris: EditionsGalilee, 2002), p. 11.
33
In Barthes' with the "night" of philosophy itself.39 whilemusicmaybe of terms, likethephotographic theorderofan "event," or subject objectitappearsonlyto is it and this at a work ofmourning. This moment, why requires, every disappear, to saythat music if it is simply names at a loss without names, return; anything all, itrecalls deathto us,and,sincethenight wecouldevensay death, always suggests thereis no musicwithout the night or death.As he that,in Barthesian terms, in relation to hisloveofSchumann, Schumann is in a way states ... ... to "Loving a or Nietzschean to risk this time the most word,Untimeliness, again, adopt wordthereis: Night."40 This means,amongotherthings, Schumannian thatto on therelation between music and thenight, between musicand death,is focus since this focus menaces theprojects of to something "untimely," already suggest and truth. Like the Barthes who claims that can he knowledge, philosophy, "all knowledge, all culture," and by onlybydismissing respondto photographs from than inherit another own" "to [his] (CL,p. 51/CC,p. eye anything refusing does so "against theage,"which, as he sugwholovesSchumann 82), theBarthes Love the of means: since is the only way loving. going against age, responsible gests, so and so to himself in his the who does time "itinevitably leads says subject posit and not to of his to theinjunctions ofhisdesire socialaccording those according the onlywayto haveeventhe slightest chanceof and thisis, he suggests, ity,"41 thebeloved's cherished thebeloved's body. singularity, addressing oureyesmeetwhat canas Barthes What however, when, asks, they happens, - whether it be encounter whatcannotbe encountered not see, or whenthey or eventhe beloved's Whatmight love,death,photography, music, singularity? haveto do with whatmakesphotograand shadows of blindness thisexperience linkedto an experienceof In whatwayis sightessentially phyphotography? that mourns notonly butsight an experience ofmourning experience mourning, can becomemusic? is themost itself? is itthat mourning Why only profound Why in thesilenceofthenight? As Barthes would is mostexpressive itthat music only oftheimageexists, is already touched haveit:as soonas a technology sight bythe It radiates a light in a body whose secrets It is inscribed belongto thenight. night. us that thenight falls on us. "Butevenifitwerenotto fallon It tells ofthenight. Derrida arein thenight," us,wealready explains, instruments that haveno needfor as soonas wearecaptured byoptical ... In the nocturnal of day.We are already the light ghosts. space in we are in the processof having whichthisimageof us, thispicture it is already is described, becausewe know Moreover, "taken," night. an in once once such can be reproduced taken, that, captured, image this we that are ourabsence, becauseweknow know we already, already
on thePrejudices trans.R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: 39. Nietzsche,Daybreak: Thoughts ofMorality, Press,1982), p. 143. CambridgeUniversity 40. Barthes, "LovingSchumann," p. 298. 41. Ibid.
34
OCTOBER
haunted that bearsourdeath.Our disappearance is already bya future there.42 Camera Lucida in theshadowy in thisrhythofthisrelation to death, begins night micplay between life and death, and and As and absence, presence light darkness. - butin accordance Barthes works to demonstrate ofwhathe withthe madness - theentire callsa "stupid" (CL,p. 85/CC,p. 133) metaphysics logicofourrelation to theworld can be readhere,and itcan be readas thelogicofthephotograph. Liketheworld, thephotograph itself to be experienced allows as a fragment, only - and ifit as a of what withdraws from This remnant, only experience. experience - is an experience were different itwouldnotbe an experience at all oftheimposofexperience. Thisis why, after thedeathofhismother, after thedeathof sibility in relation himself to hismother death as he tells did not havetowait that, us, (a untilhis mother's or even Barthes that we remain death, his), entirely suggests in a world for inwhich wemust survive theimpossibility ofexperience, unprovided - thephotograph in which thephotograph as we generally understand it,butalso - tells thephotograph that wenowcan call"Barthes" if it tells us at all, us, anything that itiswith lossand deaththat wehaveto live, what cannot and love, experience be experienced. Thismusic ofloveand death(and there can be no other)can be for lackofa better called, name, "photography."
42.
dela television. Entretiens JacquesDerrida,Echographies (Paris:EditionsGalilee,1996),p. 131. filmes

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Notes on Love and Photography Author(s): Eduardo Cadava and Paola Corts-Rocca Reviewed work(s): Source: October, Vol.

Noteson Loveand Photography*

onLove andPhotography Notes

onLove andPhotography Notes

onLove andPhotography Notes

onLove andPhotography Notes

Notes onLove andPhotography

andPhotography Notes onLove

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andPhotography Notes onLove

Notes onLove andPhotography

in October 34 (Fall1985), andFetish," Indiana Press, 1986),pp. 69-80,andhis"Photography University pp.81-91.

andPhotography Notes onLove

andPhotography Notes onLove

andPhotography Notes onLove

Notes onLove andPhotography

could even saythatit means the subject. vanishing ofthe

onLove Notes andPhotography

onLove andPhotography Notes

dela television. Entretiens JacquesDerrida,Echographies (Paris:EditionsGalilee,1996),p. 131. filmes

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