Fotograf Magazine #31 body

introduction
The Photography of the Body as Reference Existence
The imaging of the body and corporeality cannot be normalized. The body itself is the carrier of visual
communication, information and mediation, an impulse for comparison and confrontation, and a means
of shocking provocation in the reflection of life styles, fates and transformations. The body infiltrates
the very essence of human beings and their environment. The body visualisation requires the synergy
of intentions, assumptions and relations put into social contexts, the perception of the problem from a
distance, and the elimination of prejudices. To discover new values, to fully understand the cognitive
potential of the awareness of the power of images and to be able to acknowledge this power, we have to
liberate ourselves from perceptual preconception and understand these aspects. This also applies to our
approach to the body and corporeality in photography that this issue is about.

Both old and new approaches are based on the idea that “the thought content is inseparable from the
concepts and metaphors it is expressed by“.1 So, what does the body and corporeality, captured by the
camera, mean, say, tell, and accentuate? How differently is the body treated? What else does the body
evoke when it ceases to be an aesthetic object examined with our senses? Where are the limits of the
body and corporeality visualisation? How do we perceive the body fragments – the body gestures?
How do photographic documentaries, art photography, or arts using photographic records as a means of
expression treat the body? The body has always been a tool, a means, an object for the imprint of the
author’s vision. When we perceive the body as a support in the physical sense of the word (in an effort
to appropriate its spirituality and materiality), it is the foundation, the base and the matter for other
interactions, a means of communication, an object of an experiment.

In our attempts to capture the interpretative visions in photography, we have to deal with social
contexts and the naturalization of the situation. Carefully chosen contexts can create new meanings
and shift our perception. Jonathan Culler does not distinguish the context from text, saying that “the
context is not given, but created, and only interpretation strategies determine what belongs to the
context“.1 Let us add the body to the context and let us redefine the concept of context with the concept
of frame. Suddenly, our view leaves the positivist connotations of definiteness, moving rather towards
the more scientific understanding of the issue in the process, towards the search for and formation of an
active approach to the examined subject we put in a certain situation. The archaeological approach to
photography uses the context and the frame to let us monitor the time event of the examined
phenomenon or situation, in our case the approaches, forms and ways of imaging the body and
corporeality. We focus on the most accurate reflections of what has happened in the given context of
the depicted body, how and why. On the one hand, we need to pay attention to the fact that the context
limits the meaning of words and images. On the other hand, their combinations update and shift the
boundaries of perception not only in photography, arts and visual culture, but also in the social cultural
environment.

The social and historical dimension of the body perception in photography is studied across all
historical periods, relationships, genres, and styles. The imaging practices of photography have served
to highlight social conventions, the level of realism, artistic aspects, and experiments defying mass
trends. The sequence of various visualized details reveals the layers of exceptionality and uniqueness of
the portrayal of human beings. In their entirety, unconventional, subjectively created meaning and
aesthetic relations gain objective values, pointing to the presence of general meaning relations. The
most important thing is to target the subjective expression of the message. Through the camera, the
body, removed from its usual context of use, becomes the object of a new vision and perception. It
shows the clear laws of nature and the aspect of our ability to be aware of our own power and
vulnerability. The relations to the body are formed on the basis of the society codes that carry
biological dispositions. According to Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, gender identity becomes a social
construct that is not strictly defined by physical predispositions, but rather by constructs based on
power relations, the society codes, the principles of male and female roles, and the gender categories of
the continuum.

The human body is the central theme of visual culture in general. It communicates through its own
speech, gestures, grimaces, clothes, hair, make-up, and smells to spread the message about itself. The
theme captured by photographic images naturally shifts the possible readings to other layers of
perception, such as the presence of being, identity, gender, sexuality, pain, feelings, and emotional
relationships. There is also a question of the body perception in relation to gender, social, ethical, and
political problems. It is not only through photographic images of corporeality that many other themes
are opened, such as disguise, identity transformation, physical experience, and unconsciousness. The
discussion also involves the research of physiological states, the records of presence, evanescence, the
body processes, the meanings of emotions, and the psychological factors on the private and social level.
Attention must be also paid to the triggers of doubts, conflicts and manipulations defying conventions
at various levels. The body is not only perceived as a skeleton with muscles, fat and skin, but mainly a
being between birth and death, and the sense of the body itself carries something “between the body
and the other”, which is the main meaning and value of life.2

Pavlína Vogelová

Culler, Jonathan. Framing the Sign: Criticism and Its Institutions. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988.
ISBN 0631158960.

Foucault, Michael. Dějiny sexuality. Prague: Herrmann & synové 1999. Kesner, Ladislav. Vizuální
teorie. Prague: H+H, 2005. ISBN 80-7319-054-0.

Rezek, Petr. Tělo věc a skutečnost v současném umění. Prague: Jazzová sekce 1982. Sturken, Marita
and Cartwright, Lisa. Studia vizuální kultury. Prague: Portál, 2009.ISBN 978-80-7367-556-1.

1
Culler, Jonathan. Framing the sign: criticism and its institutions. Oxford: Basil Black- well, 1988.
ISBN 0631158960.

2
Rezek, Petr. Tělo věc a skutečnost v současném umění. Prague: Jazzová sekce 1982, p. 16.