Writing a Life: Representation in Language and Image

Slavic Review, 2017

A contribution to the critical forum "The Afterlife of Photographs"

1977

2001

Tessera

Des rCcits photo-textuels Empruntant le terme "ricits photo-textuels" de Linda Hutcheon, ce texte analyse les doubles re'seaux de signes visuels et verbaux dans deux livres des tcrivaines canadiennes qui superposent u n re'cit verbal et des photographes. Double Exposures de Diane Schoemperlen met en relief l'inte'rruption dans les systtmes de repre'sentation double qui accentue la prolife'ration connotative ce qui les rendent ambigues comme "signes du re'el." Elle travaille avec des photos de famille qu'elle avance comme des "documents," comme des preuves des "e've'nements," pour ensuite miner les effets du re'el de cette iconicite' par u n re'cit qui souligne la necessite' de l'interpre'tation pour de'duire les "jaits" si concrttement "prouve's." Cette interpre'tation aprts les e've'nements se re'v2le hasardeuse, car les de'tours de la me'moire mtlange le re'el et lafiction. Still Sane par les artistes Sheila Gilhooly et Persimmon Blackridge commenqait avec des textes moulus dans des corps depldtre pour mimer les cicatrices produites par la douleur physique et psychique des pratiques me'dicales pour e'liminer le lesbianisme. Ensuite, ces graffitis e'taient photographic's et imprime's dans u n livre en face des textes e'crits sur le processus de "coming out," des lettres d des amies ou desfiagments d'un journal, e'crits d la main. La superposition retravaille les oppositions binaires entre prive'/publique, abnormale/normale, de'sir/douleur pour produire une critique et une r@onse 2 la symbolique re'gle'e par le phallus dans u n systtme unaire d u de'sir et de la repre'sentation. Both photography (as its name asserts) and poetry can be seen as different forms of writing, one with light, the other with words. Writing, in its root meaning, suggests a violent drawing to the attention: a tearing, a scratching, an effort to bring to notice some parts of the continuous body of the world we otherwise swallow as a whole, without question. (Marlatt 92

1997

Again I would prefer more distance. If a narrator chooses to downplay difference and to attempt to live in the hearing world, then again so be it. Individuals cope in distinct ways with their disabilities and their memoirs are part of their coping strategies. In a final chapter, Couser addresses the value of body stories. This book will provide provocative reading for anyone interested in life writing. It will also appeal to those interested in medical anthropology, medical sociology, and the general issue of the social and cultural construction of illness and disability.

2013

This thesis discusses the multifaceted status of the photograph, as a contribution to understanding the mechanics of the production of meaning within the photograph. In order to get a better view of how photographs function, I both revisit discourses that have dealt with medium specificity issues and use my own practice, designing an apprehension model which can assist in the achievement of a more rigorous conception of the photograph. An integrative literature review, based on Photography discourses and debates shaped by both theorists and practitioners, provides the tools needed for defining the medium’s unique and shared properties. Ontological synecdoches of the photograph, issues of representation, time, automatism, agency, the twofold nature –trace and picture- as well as depiction theories of the medium are put into scrutiny towards formulating an apprehension scheme. This body or knowledge, along with my visual practice’s research outcomes, informs the construction of an app...

Objektiv, 2015

Sara R. Yazdani is PhD Candidate in Media Aestethics at the University of Oslo and works as an art critic. Susanne M. Winterling is an artist and professor at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. This conversation can be found in our current issue.

This course explores how photographs can be used as a tool in the writing process. Many well-known writers such as Sigmund Freud kept photographs to help develop theoretical ideas; many more-including Arthur Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, and Lewis Carroll – were amateur photographers and used photos to render descriptions of places. Anthropologists, no less, have used photography from the colonial period to the present in order to capture, remember, and analyze aspects of human culture in their fieldsites. In this course we will: 1) acquire basic composition skills in photography; 2) explore how photographs can assist us in developing an anthropological writing practice; 3) examine how photographs interact with writing. A text may strive to "replicate" a photograph, but we will also explore other dynamics between these mediums. When does the analogy between photo and text collapse? What can one medium accomplish that the other cannot? Other themes to be covered will include: rendering a description versus forming an interpretation; the place of sensations and interiority in the creative process, and the role of time and reflection in drafting a photo-text. We will also discuss issues of care and ethics in photographing and describing people, places, and objects. Course Structure: The course will be project-based. You will be introduced to basic photographic composition skills using principles of geometry, framing, and emphasis, and you will use the principles to take photographs of your chosen fieldsite. We will then practice writing descriptions drawing from our fieldnotes. The class will examine particular texts in which visual imagery has been coupled with certain forms of writing; based on these readings, we will experiment with writing techniques. As time goes on, the earlier data and write-ups will be re-visited to see what aspects may have initially escaped our awareness. Thus we will learn to " re-visualize " image and text in an ongoing analytic process. Toward the end, we will work on producing a vision of our individual writing that carries a degree of consistency and a narrative arc. Class website: http://craftinganthropologicaltext.tumblr.com