In these online gatherings, we will explore three brief (canonical) texts on the nature of photography by Eco, Kracauer and Flusser. A key question that we will be able to identify in all these texts is: What is a photograph? However, the aim of our engagement with these texts will be to think the layer beyond an ontological consideration in order to examine what are the ethics of the relationship between photography and written [con]texts. How can our understanding of what a photograph is or isn’t help us reconsider the ethically strained relationship between image and word? This question will be explored both through discussions of the set readings and ad hoc close looking of visual case studies, but also through the application of ‘blackout poetry’ as a creative method that can further problematise image-text frictions.
The gatherings will take place online (via Zoom). They will start with a reading group discussion, while they will then offer an opportunity for a hands-on engagement with the texts by applying a blackout-poetry methodology. No previous knowledge of creative methods is required; guidance will be provided, but participants will need access to Microsoft PowerPoint. Copies of the texts will be provided after signing up.
These sessions are organised by the Visual Ethics Network (Centre for Modern Studies Research Strand, University of York) and the Found Poetry Experimental Workshops (Centre for Modern Studies, University of York; School of the Arts, York St John University; Cultural Relations and Comparative Arts Lab, University of Thessaly). Organised and facilitated by Dr Kyveli Lignou-Tsamantani, in collaboration with Dr Elena Anastasaki and Dr Tilo Reifenstein.
Sign up: Please sign up via the form here.
Dates and Readings
Gathering #1: Thinking with Vilém Flusser
Tuesday 1 April, 17:00-18:30 BST, Online
Text: Vilém Flusser, ([1983] 2000) “Image”, in Towards a Philosophy of Photography, London: Reaktion Books, pp. 8-13.
Gathering #2: Thinking with Umberto Eco
Thursday 3 April, 17:00-18:30 BST, Online
Text: Umberto Eco, (1982) “Chapter 2: Critique of the Image”, in Thinking Photography, edited by Victor Burgin, Hampshire: Macmillan, pp. 32-38.
Gathering #3: Thinking with Siegfried Kracauer
Tuesday 8 April, 17:00-18:30 BST, Online
Text: Kracauer, S., & Levin, T. Y. (1993). “Photography”. Critical Inquiry, 19(3), 421–436. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343959