Inspired
by photographic messages from the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, I wanted
to acquire first-hand knowledge of documentary through hands-on experience. The
natural impulse of anyone who sees a photograph of an individual in pain or in
need is to reach out and help. Robert Capa , the legendary photographer always
understood, he famously declared, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re
not close enough.” He recognised that only by recording individual gestures and
facial expressions could he convey a sense of actuality (Whelan, 2005, p. 12). On
October 15th the Occupy movement, which had been protesting in New York for the
past month, arrived in the UK with a march on the London Stock Exchange. I
attended the demonstration, with the objective to observe, record and apply the
basis of Walter Benjamin’s concept of Aktualität,
the theory of thinking and acting in images (Weigel, 1996, p. 4). This study
will explore the basic idea of dialectical materialism, and whether art, in the
age of mechanical reproduction, can be employed for revolutionary potential.
Roland Barthes’ theory of semiotics is of particular salience in reading the photograph, not as an image
but as a text.
The
photographic paradox ‘establishes a
relation of immediacy to the material of the social or the symbolic. This is
not materialism avant la lettre, but
a re-reading of the material.’ The
most important problem facing the semiology of images, is whether the ‘copy’
can produce true systems of signs and not just a construction of symbols.
Barthes declares that ‘naturally, signification is only possible to the extent
that there is a stock of signs, the beginning of code’ (Barthes, 1977, p. 34).
The connotation of the photograph is produced through a modification of the
reality, created by artificially bringing the main characters together. The
obvious signifiers are the gesture shown by the man and the boy, the V sign,
which has various connotations of “peace” and “defiance”, which are dependent
on the cultural context and presentation; and the Guy Fawkes mask from the film
V for Vendetta (2006) which has
become an icon of popular culture. This political sign of the times provides a
collective identification and simultaneous anonymity, an emblem for
anti-establishment groups against corporate greed. The Anonymous group use the
mask as a symbol of radical transparency online, becoming popular during their
campaign against the Scientology movement and more recently as a display of
solidarity against corporate greed.
[The mask] is worn by an
enigmatic lone anarchist who, in the graphic novel on which it is based, uses
Fawkes as a role model in his quest to end the rule of a fictional fascist
party in the UK. Early in the book V destroys the Houses of Parliament by
blowing it up, something Fawkes had planned and failed to do in 1605 (BBC,
2011).
The pose of the subjects, which isn’t natural,
and the mask, prepares the reading and how it’s received by the viewer. Without
knowledge of the Occupy movement, the evidence indicates a protest; the crowd; the
banners; the Guy Fawkes mask; and the hand gesture, which was adopted by the
1960s counterculture movement as a sign for peace (Wikipedia, 2011).
When considering the historical formation, parallels can be drawn with the
French Revolution (1789 – 1799), a period of radical social and political
upheaval which corroborate and constitute elements of signification with the
contemporary demonstrations. Even further back to the 16th Century,
on the site where the photograph was taken, the fourth St Paul's, known when
architectural history arose in the 19th century as Old St Paul's also encountered political demonstrations. Crowds
were drawn to the northeast corner of the Churchyard, St Paul's Cross, where
open-air preaching took place. It was there in the Cross Yard in 1549 that
radical Protestant preachers incited a mob to destroy many of the cathedral's
interior decorations (Wikipedia, 2011). Seen in this context, we
can understand that the image is a statement about corporate greed. That ‘Formerly,
the image illustrated the text; today, the text loads the image, burdening it
with culture, a moral, an imagination (Barthes, 1977, p. 26). For Walter Benjamin,
art must be evaluated both in terms of its depiction of the social reality of
class antagonisms and in terms of its technique and position within the
literary production relations of a given era. The photograph doesn’t depict
class structure, other than the assumption that the protesters are the working
class and are protesting for the best interests of the 99%. Members of the
Anonymous group are regarded as the ‘disenfranchised youth who fall somewhere
between the mid-to-lower income bracket’ (Colter, 2011). Instead the
images deconstruct the stereotype that all protesters are students, as the man
and the boy are not included in this bracket. We also have to consider the
mechanical reproduction, especially through contemporary media. The resolution
of the photograph isn’t high quality, captured using an iPhone and hasn’t been
treated to enhance the detail. Potentially the photograph could have been
uploaded to the Internet immediately through the devices 3G connection. In the
background, a woman is taking a photograph of the man and the boy, which
occurred frequently as many photographers who had attended the demonstration to
document the events, were interested in his enthusiasm. Through contemporary
media, anything has the potential to go viral; anyone can become a political
activist and assist in launching a political campaign, especially when broadcasting
through social media channels. This was the eventual outcome for the boy, as he
was featured on the Ten O’Clock News that evening.
Objectively,
reproduction of any work of art is lacking its presence in time and space, the
environmental setting, framing and lighting aren’t the same but the meanings
can be discovered by profound thought and analysis. If I hadn’t indicated that
the photograph was constructed, would the receiver have presumed that the man
and boy were related? The boy in the photograph has a broken arm; on the cast
the name ‘Kes’ is visible. This relates to the film Kes (1969), which focuses on 15-year old Billy Casper, who has
little hope in life and is bullied (IMDB). The tagline for the
film is ‘They beat him. They deprived him. They ridiculed him. They broke his
heart. But they couldn’t break his spirit.’ In relation to the other signs,
this takes on added significance, especially given the political symbolism. The
boy’s name in the photograph is Lennon, named after the English musician and
singer-songwriter John Lennon, one of the founding members of The Beatles and
an active revolutionary when he was alive. These examples imply contemporary documentary
photography, whereby photographers work converges more with social science,
like anthropologists they justify their relations to the people they
photograph. Documentary photography is tied, historically, to both exploration
and social reform. Both are evident in the photograph.
..a picture, to represent an
object, must be a symbol for it, stand for it, refer to it… almost anything can
stand for anything else… [it] depends not upon imitation or illusion or
information, but inculcation. (Goodman, 1968:5, 38)
In
viewing a photographic image we engage in a complex reading process which
relate to our own expectations and the assumptions we make as to the subject
itself. I chose the documentary theoretical approach because I believe the
message is formed by a true source of emission and the point of reception is
neither ‘natural’ nor ‘artificial’ but historical or cultural. I agree with
Walter Benjamin, ‘that ideas are structured as images, and that what is at
stake is therefore a praxis that can operate with images – a politics of images, not a figurative or
metaphorical politics’ (Weigel, 1996, p. 10). Howard S. Becker refers to documentary
photography as being ‘used to expose evil and promote change, ‘supposed to dig
deep, ‘play an active role in social change, be socially responsible, worry
about its effects on society in which its work is distributed.
If our reading is satisfactory,
the photograph analysed offers us three messages: a linguistic message, a coded
iconic message, and a non-coded iconic message. The linguistic message can be
readily separated from the other two, but since the latter share the same
(iconic) substance, to what extent have we the right to separate them?! (
Barthes, 1977, p. 36)
Howard
S. Becker, is one of the founders of the visual sociology movement, in his
essay on Visual Sociology, he outlines the three social constructions whose
meanings arise in the contexts, organisational and historical worlds of
photographic work. In his essay on Visual Sociology he describes how to read a
documentary picture using the other social constructions; photojournalism and
visual sociology. Taking a photojournalism approach; set on the front page of a
newspaper, the photograph would have definitely provoked a reaction. However,
the mainstream media would be reluctant to portray a photograph that was
politically coded with the intention to promote change. Admittedly a photograph
was featured on the Ten O’Clock News that evening but the image had been
framed, the signifier of the man wearing the mask wasn’t visible and neither
was the hand gesture. To support this, Becker implies that ‘newspapers seldom
print photographs of anonymous people,’ and that it’s unlikely that the picture
would have appeared in the daily newspaper, ‘because it (the photograph) is
grainy [and] not in sharp focus.’ The only instance this would be excused is
‘during an expose of political corruption’ and more recently to provide
contemporary examples, those photographs that depict a criminal act or
celebrity scandal. The visual sociology approach would want to know much more
about what we were seeing. Who the people were, what they were actually doing
and more importantly what I was telling them about the image. This appears much
more invasive than the photojournalist approach, but Becker goes on to state
that the visual sociology social construction is correctly based on the
assumption that photographs are easily manipulated. Although, they would not
construct the meanings and neither would they see the problems associated with
social science data.
To
conclude, the photograph that I chose was a contemporary documentary photograph
that I took during the Occupy London demonstration. The photograph was part of
an amateur series that attempted to document the events at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
The objective was to explore and raise awareness through photography, the
subjects used were children, primarily to conflict with the stereotype that
protesters are students and to highlight that this is their future too. I
understood that there would be various political banners, signifiers and
connotations displayed around the London Stock Exchange and that photographs
would be coded with various meanings and historical context. I expected that
there would be minimal mainstream press exposure of events and wanted to
formulate my own opinion. I have applied a basic grasp of dialectical
materialism to this study, which is essentially a prerequisite in understanding
the doctrine of Marxism. These connected notions surrounding truth, history and
validation, assisted in the construction of the texts epistemology.
Word count: 1,835
Bibliography
Barthes, Roland.
(1977). Image Music Text. Translated
by Stephen Heath. London: Fontana Press. pp. 16 – 22, 34.
Becker, Howard. (1995).
Visual Sociology, Documentary
Photography, and Photojournalism: It’s (Almost) All a Matter of Context. pp. 84 – 86.
Goodman, N. (1968). The Languages of Art. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. p. 38
Weigel, Sigrid. (1996). Body-and Image-Space. Re-reading Walter Benjamin. London:
Routledge. p. 4.
Whelan, Richard.
(1996). Robert Capa: Photographs.
Aperture. p. 12
Internet Movie Database.
(1969) Kes (film). [Internet] < http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064541/ > [Accessed
04 November 2011]
