The Photography of the Body as Reference Existence

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

Culler, Jonathan. Framing the Sign: Criticism and Its Institutions. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. ISBN 0631158960.
Foucault, Michael. The History of Sexuality. Vintage; Reissue edition, 1990. ISBN: 978-0679724698.
Kesner, Ladislav. Vizuální teorie (The Visual Theory). Prague: H+H, 2005. ISBN 80-7319-054-0.
Rezek, Petr. Tělo věc a skutečnost v současném umění (Body, Thing and Reality in Contemporary Art). Prague: Jazzová sekce 1982. 
Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN: 978-0195314403.

Text | Pavlína Vogelová