[Personal_archives] personal archives

Wed Oct 29 08:30:40 EDT 2008

Hello Everyone,

I would like to challenge some recurring assumptions in the articles and
discussion regarding snapshots, archives, and albums -- specifically the
notions that "it is only the positive aspects life" that are "typically"
documented in personal photography; that these "present a world with no
pain"; and that these depictions are universally "celebratory."

The philosopher of mathematics Imre Lakatos introduced the concept of
"monster barring" to characterize a common technique for defending a theory
against problematic counter-examples by dismissing the latter as "monsters",
i.e. as somehow disqualified from fitting the relevant category or
definition (Alison's "family photograph") and, hence, not really admissible
as a counter-example.

The 'monster' I would like to unleash into our tidy discussion is the
post-mortem commemorative photograph. I should divulge that this is my area
of research -- and yes, Judith, Martha is correct: I will want to know more
about your stash!

Post-mortem photographs constitute a paradigm instance of Rodney Carter's
criteria of documenting a "momentous life occasion" but otherwise bust up
the mould. And while they may mainly seem "creepy" to contemporary viewers,
they were common in the 19th century -- and not as hidden away taboo objects
but prominently displayed in the parlor (often with elaborate framing and
decoration), included in family albums, and even sent as post cards to
friends and family. The Notman Photographic Archive contains hundreds of
them. Although the post-mortem photograph became uncommon *as a publicly
displayed* photographic practice around the First World War, sociologists,
anthropologist, social workers, and therapists attest to the fact that it
has continued to the present, probably with equal ubiquity, as a
*private*photographic practice, shown only to a close circle of
intimates.

This raises several issues. Much of the discussion so far has tended to
generalise completely ahistorically. While there are many photographic
practices and tropes that seem very widespread and consistent over time, we
should not gloss over important historical changes in the cultural context
that affect how different kinds of photographs were received and the complex
nexus of cultural and social attitudes and practices into which they entered
-- in this case, changing attitudes toward death, including drastic changes
in the acceptability of talking about death and in the private/public nature
of institutions dealing with illness and death (sick bed/hospital,
home/funeral parlor). These changes have affected the extent to which these
photographs are discussed and shown (acknowledged) but not necessarily the
extent to which they are made -- in fact, I hazard to guess that, with
discrete digital cameras and cellphones, even more post-mortem photographs
are made now than ever before.

Given this, our notion of personal photography, family photograph, and
archive, needs to include such a practice. So, for instance, perhaps
"commemorative" would be a broader, more neutral and useful term than
"celebratory" for discussing family photographs.

This brings me to Michael's point about the "encounter". This is crucial I
think -- yes, it applies! And I'm glad he mentioned Derrida's reading of
Barthes's punctum: Derrida's point (sorry) is that it is a mistake to read
Barthes as positing the studium and the punctum as two independently
subsisting things -- each can only exist as offset by the other, like the
contrapuntal structure of a musical composition. Barthes refers to
photographs as "laminated objects": just as iconicity and indexicality are
laminated together by the photograph, so are the studium and the punctum,
presence and absence, preservation and loss, celebration and mourning. What
the post-mortem photograph forces us to acknowledge is that we turn to
photography for much more than celebrating the positive moments -- we also
turn to it in our greatest moments of pain and anguish. Like the studium and
punctum, these needs and uses are inseparable -- post-mortem photographs
also comfort, affirm, and celebrate and, similarly, the positive, affirming
family photographs contain pain and anguish.

What we owe to the photographic object in the archive is to exert our
receptive imagination to tease out these complex interminglings -- between
the poles of transformation and contextualization is *interpretation*. In
the absence of other "complementing" documents, we need to attend to what
the photograph itself can tell us -- and perhaps even *more* so in the
presence of such documents: perhaps it is the photographs that should guide
how we interpret *them*. In the marvelous photograph that Jeremy shows us,
is that a First World War uniform the father is wearing? Which regiment? Do
format and process and edge trimming of the photograph itself allow us to
date it to the war period? A "positive milestone" but also much worry and
anxiety. The richness of an entire album, even when anonymous, will usually
reveal to the attentive spectator, in the interstices between happy garden
parties and graduations, plenty of real loss and regret among the
"mythology."

The Collected Visions website attests to this ambivalent complexity in the
photographic encounter -- on the part of both makers and spectators.
Patrick, "age 20," compiles a small history and ethnography of post-mortem
and funerary photography from the archive. He comments on it with great
insight and has sensitively recognized a series of jovial group poses as
situated at a visitation or wake. The punctum of this collection is the
inclusion of a seemingly unrelated photograph of people relaxing on benches
on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade -- somehow, it fits:

http://cvisions.nyu.edu/gallery/essays19/deathvoid.html

Chris responds to a lovely, Christmas-time family photo by noting the
absence of a generation and projects himself readily into the anguish of an
orphaned son -- yes, a Christmas letter, but one with plenty of evocative
substance:

http://cvisions.nyu.edu/gallery/essays19/myfamily.html

In the cool, bright-but-diffuse-light of photographic day, my monster is
everywhere. Take, for instance, the complex spacial and temporal
contextualization (and ongoing re-contextualization) of the concise but
poignantly loquacious archive of "celebratory" photographs in a contemporary
crypt in Montreal's Notre-Dame Cemetery -- these are milestones that are
hard and trip us up and yet do celebrate (so many real things):

http://picasaweb.google.com/aurele.parisien/NotreDameCemetery2007?authkey=aVK3r40btJg#5262504688798654402

As well as the scope of family photography, I think we need to both enlarge
and take more seriously the notions of context -- and, while we're at it,
also our notions of who is constantly using photographs in transformative
ways.

Aurèle Parisien
Doctoral Student
Concordia University

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 3:04 PM, Judith Colwell <ucarchiv at nb.sympatico.ca>wrote:

> The photos that we have in a church archvies, amid personal papers, are
> often taken to back up a report or to put a face on a church -- hence
> alumninum souvenir plates  and postcards showing the image of the minister
> and of the church exterior.  In some circles these would be art forms --
> after all the engraving on the aluminum or tin took some skill.  Then the
> question arises asking whether the church was as stern as the minister, or
> was the minister pushing an image that he thought the church wanted.
>
> As to pictures of funerals, etc. -- depends on the geographic area in
> question.  I have some photos of people laid out in their caskets which
> appear to be part of a culture.  And I vividly recall, from back in the
> late
> 1950's a schoolmate with her album of photos of her mother in casket and
> the
> funeral.  Creepy to me, but ....
>
> Judith Colwell
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Archives" <archives at trinity.utoronto.ca>
> To: <Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 3:07 PM
> Subject: [Personal_archives] personal archives
>
>
> Hello all,
>
> Reading the articles I have been struck by the universality of the
> 'snapshot' experience, how we all know the rules of picture-taking and
> viewing. First we know that although the picture captures a real moment,
> it is also a projection of an idealized life. Secondly, we know that
> much is hidden - hence the sadness that Barthes refers to and which I
> would argue goes beyond the realization that the subject may be dead.
>
> Chambers refers to the feminine character of snapshot taking and album
> making, and points out that despite this female perspective there are no
> pictures of housework. Taking this one step further, there are also no
> pictures of screaming infants, two-year-olds having a tantrum, sullen
> teen-agers screaming "I hate you!". There are no pictures of sick-beds
> or funerals. The family album or photo collection presents a world
> without pain. Since most of us have personal experience with the
> phenomenon of family albums, we instinctively do not buy into this, and
> realize that the mythology created is unrealistic and to some extent,
> banal. Could the family album be seen as the visual equivalent of the
> Christmas letter?
>
> In an archival context, we find the pictures complemented and completed
> by other elements in a fonds: a file of condolence cards, doctor's
> bills, diaries recording private anguish, letters containing an
> outpouring of emotion. And they are certainly useful, as Catherine
> points out, for identification purposes.
>
> Martha asks the fundamental question: "is everyday photographic
> experience transferrable to art?" I'd argue that it is and that the
> artist has the same mandate as the archivist. The historic photograph on
> its own is nearly meaningless, and thus it requires either
> transformation (by an artist) or contextualization (by an archivist) to
> make it 'real'. It's function during the lifetime of its subjects, and
> perhaps for a generation after, is to follow a path that has been
> tacitly approved by its viewing public. After that, it's fair game for us!
>
> Thanks, Catherine, Martha et al. for making this happen.
>
> Sylvia
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Alison Nordstrom <anordstrom at geh.org>
> To: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 9:40:51 AM
> Subject: [Personal_archives] (re-sent) first thoughts of the morning
>
> I'm curious about who's lurking here. I suspect we have archivists,
> curators and students who may do any number of things in the future.
> Strikes me that we might have very different notions and working
> definitions of "family photograph." Can we share?
>
> I tend to say various things like "a photograph used in the family as a
> metaphor for that family, an ideological device that defines family, a
> statement both internally directed and externally directed that
> manifests an ideal, a record of a family."
>
> How do these past uses cling to a photograph ( or group of photographs)
> as it/they moves away from original use?
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-- 
Aurèle Parisien
4868 Hutchison Street
Montreal, Quebec
H2V 4A3

Tel . : 514-273-3274
Cell: 514-774-6133
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