SNAPSHOT PHOTOGRAPHY: A PHATIC, SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED, MNEMONIC TECHNOLOGY Alistair Joseph Parker BA (Hons), MA Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA) Lancaster University This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2017 Dedication Dedications Dedicated to my wife Irene Thank you for your love, encouragement, and understanding. “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on until you come to the end: then stop.”– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland “Not to take photographs of one’s children, particularly when small, is a sign of parental indifference.” Susan Sontag, On Photography i Dedication Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work. It has not been previously submitted, in part or whole, to any university or institution for any degree, diploma, or other qualification. Signed:______________________________________________________________ Date:_________________________________________________________________ Alistair Joseph Parker BA (Hons), MA Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA) Lancaster University Copyright: Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) ii Alistair Joseph Parker BA Hons, MA Snapshot Photography: A Phatic, Socially Constructed Mnemonic Technology This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2016 Abstract This practice related research study explores my cognitive response to a biographical snapshot photograph celebrating my first day at school.
The experience triggered an exploration of the relationship between snapshot photographs and memory. The finding of a second almost identical snapshot photograph of my son taken twenty years later by me prompted me to question why my father and I should take almost identical snapshots. I argue that the invention of photography was driven by the desire to capture the images created by the camera obscura by mark-making with the pencil of light as an aid memoir. I argue that the desire to externalise memory using mnemonic technology is innate with primal origins in parietal art and lithic technologies.
The discourse explores the cultural evolution of technology through Jaques Derrida’s theory of originary technicity and Bernard Stiegler’s concept of the cultural evolution of technology by epiphylogenesis and the notion of the externalisation of memory as prosthesis. I explore the emergence of snapshot photography from the canon of photography through the theories of cultural evolution, technological momentum, and social constructivism, together with psycho-social notions of desire, ritual, performativity and intentionality in the establishment of snapshot photography as a ubiquitous ingrained social practice. The research is informed by a studio practice element that uses the adventures of Lewis Carroll’s, Alice as a conceptual framework to explore a journey of agency, self and auto didactical knowledge acquisition. I discuss the search for an appropriate methodological framework for art practice based research My practice is a catalyst for enquiry; a project usually starts with an artefact that forms the locus of a question, the search for the answer to those questions, often iii Alistair Joseph Parker BA Hons, MA Snapshot Photography: A Phatic, Socially Constructed Mnemonic Technology This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2016 leading epistemically, to unexpected places and relationships.
The mode and manner of my enquiry are rhizomatous, pragmatic and serendipitous; the relationship between practice and theory is flexible, one informing the other. Through practice, I explore the deconstruction and textualisation of the visual metaphor of memory through the rhetorical devices of ekphrasis and memory texts and a visualisation of the nature and originary technicity of snapshot photography and an exploration of self and place. The thesis for this study is founded on the premise that snapshot photography is a socially constructed, phatic, mnemonic mark-making technology with origins in parietal forms of visual expression. iv Acknowledgements Acknowledgements I am indebted to my supervisors Andrew Quick, and Charlie Gere for their guidance, encouragement, and forbearance.
Thank you to the staff at LICA and the new friends at Lancaster University I met on my journey of self-discovery. I am indebted to for your friendship, help, advice and words of encouragement. Thank you to Myra Boyle for proof reading my words, I am obliged. The design and layout of this Thesis are based on a Word template design by Kayla Friedman and Malcolm Morgan of University of Cambridge, UK.com/jzwl5zs v Contents Contents PREFACE .3 AIMS AND APPROACH.2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY - THE BIRTH OF THE SNAPSHOT .3 ORIGINARY TECHNICITY - PHOTOGRAPHY AS A TECHNOLOGY .4 THE SNAPSHOT, DESIRE AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION .2 CHOOSING A METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK .3 THE ROLE OF PRACTICE.
51 4 PRACTICE: SHADOWS ON THE WALL: RHIZOMATOUS THOUGHTS .3 FRAGMENTS OF MEMORY – NEGATIVE SPACES .4 MEMORY - MAPS, TEXTS AND EKPHRASIS .5 REPETITION: THE HANDPRINTS ON THE WALL. 73 5 A BRIEF HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY.1 1839 AND ALL THAT .2 WILLIAM HENRY FOX-TALBOT .3 THE CAMERA OBSCURA .4 THE RACE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY. 92 6 THE BIRTH OF SNAPSHOT PHOTOGRAPHY .1 WHAT IS A SNAPSHOT? .2 THE EMERGENCE OF SNAPSHOT PHOTOGRAPHY .3 THE KODAK: JUST PRESS THE BUTTON… .4 THE BROWNIE: AND THE PROLETARIANIZATION OF PHOTOGRAPHY .5 THOUGHTS ON MEMORY .6 THE SNAPSHOT PARADOX. 124 7 READING THE PHOTOGRAPH .1 READING THE PHOTOGRAPH.
144 8 ORIGINARY TECHNICITY: MEMORY, PROSTHESIS, HOMO PICTOR .2 ORIGINARY TECHNICITY AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF TECHNOLOGY .3 HOMO PICTOR - THE FIRST SNAPSHOT MAKER.4 THE QUESTION OF MEMORY .6 THE MEDIUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY AS TECHNOLOGY. 186 9 THE SNAPSHOT: A PHATIC GESTURE .4 TEMPORALITY AND THE POSE .6 PERFORMANCE AND PERFORMATIVITY .1 Snapshot Photography as Theatre .2 The Performance of Looking at Photographs. 255 vii Contents 13 APPENDIX .2 Memory Text - Created 22nd November 2016.2 APPENDIX 2 – PERFORMATIVE EKPHRASIS .3 Performative Ekphrasis – Monologue - 20th March 2016 .3 APPENDIX 3 - POEM - FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL. 274 viii List of Images List of Images FIGURE 1 - FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL SNAPSHOT AND VERSO.
15 FIGURE 2 -FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL SNAPSHOTS 20 YEARS APART. 16 FIGURE 3 - SELECTION OF SNAPSHOTS FROM BELLE VALE PREFABS PROJECT ARCHIVE. 20 FIGURE 4 -TYPICAL HOLIDAY GROUP SNAPSHOT. 21 FIGURE 5 - DECONSTRUCTED FDAS SNAPSHOT FOR ANIMATION.
70 FIGURE 6 -HUMAN HANDPRINTS ~40K YEARS OLD CUEVAS DE LAS MANOS UPON RIO PINTURAS, ARGENTINA. 74 FIGURE 7 - SNAPSHOTS - NEGATIVE SPACE CUT-OUTS - EXAMPLES. 75 FIGURE 8 - DISPLAY OF SNAPSHOTS AND NEGATIVE CUT-OUTS. 76 FIGURE 9 – A PHILOSOPHER LECTURING ON THE ORRERY BY JOSEPH WRIGHT OF DERBY CA 1766 - DERBY MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY.
82 FIGURE 10 - PHOTOGRAPH OF HENRY FOX-TALBOT’S HAND CA 1841. 165 FIGURE 11 – PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM COVER AND SAMPLE PAGE. 255 FIGURE 12 - MEMORY MAP. 256 FIGURE 13 - MOCK-UP OF EXHIBITION WITH CUSTOM BUILT CAMERA OBSCURA (PROOF OF CONCEPT ONLY).
257 FIGURE 14 - VIEW OF CAMERA OBSCURA SCREEN. 258 FIGURE 15: - ICAMERA OBSCURA. 259 IMAGE COPYRIGHT INFORMATION Figure 6 -Human Handprints ~40k Years Old Cuevas De Las Manos Upon Rio Pinturas, Argentina - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3. Figure 9 – A Philosopher Lecturing On the Orrery By Joseph Wright Of Derby Ca 1766 - Derby Museum And Art Gallery - Public Domain Figure 10 - Photograph of Henry Fox-Talbot’s Hand Ca 1841 - Public Domain ix Preface PREFACE Of Memory - Why, again, in old age should its grasp of childhood events seem firmest? William James (James, 1890, p.3) As one grows older, the past becomes increasingly blurred and forgotten and there is a tendency to seek reassurance and comfort from images of the past and the nostalgic memories they evoke.
Occasionally the blur is brought into sharp focus when an image conjures a long lost memory out of the ether, as if by magic. At the sight of a familiar place, vivid memories flood the mind, and I am transported back in time. One memory begets another, they feed off each other as the imagination recompiles the past, like flicking through a pile of photographs. The euphoria of the moment is tempered by the realisation that there are things that are not remembered, there are memories that do not appear, there are things that have been forgotten.
William James’s quotation was chosen as an epigraph because it embraces the essence of the research that unfolds within these pages. This study is born out of a familiar aspect of growing old, the search for comfort in nostalgia, through pictures and memories of childhood and the past. Sadly, such behaviour is inclined to remind one of the frailties of memory, forgetfulness being a constant bedfellow as years advance and aides’ memoir become ever more important. I was asked when I embarked on this study why I had chosen to undertake a practice Alistair J Parker – December 2016 10 Preface related PhD.
At the time I was not really sure, although I think it may have been for all the wrong reasons, the main one being that I could not write. Being mildly dyslexic, my approach to written English is slightly bizarre; bizarre is a word I cannot even spell. The prospect of a forty percent reduction in words was an attractive prospect, in itself. However, the outcome was something of a surprise.
In the early days of my studio practice, as an undergraduate, one of my tutors confided; look upon your practice as a journey of personal discovery and think of each piece of work as a step along the way that marks your progress in the search for knowledge. The writing of this thesis represents a giant; (possibly last) step, along the road of that journey, in terms of both knowledge acquisition and personal discovery. One of the most important discoveries has been the realisation of the role and purpose of practice and the understanding of why I really chose to pursue my research as practice related. The finding of the `first day at school’ (FDAS) snapshot was a serendipitous event that has proved cathartic.
It proved to be the first step along the road to discovering who I really am, and why I am, who I am. I now realise that the photograph represents an important turning point in my life, and is the embodiment of my life both before, and since. It represents the start of my journey through life as an individual and the start of a search for knowledge; I feel the clutching of the book is symbolic. As a conceptual framework for my practice I have drawn upon Lewis Carroll’s adventures of Alice.
Carroll, an early adopter of photography wrote his books Alistair J Parker – December 2016 11 Preface around the turn of the nineteenth century, during the heydey of early photography, amid the excitement of the emergence of personal photography and the snapshot. Much has been written about the allegorical and metaphorical meanings of Carroll’s adventures with Alice. I am particularly interested in Carroll’s references to and philosophical reflections on memory, temporality, the struggle with the vagaries of memory and the implications of dementia. I enjoyed her adventures as a child and I suspect the fact that they were also journeys of discovery rubbed off, ever so slightly.
My practice is driven by responding to experiences and events. On this occasion, I was moved to react to the experience of finding the biographical snapshot and the curiosity of my response to it. The enquiry that developed resulted in an epistemic experience that brought together the creation of artefacts and the generation of new knowledge through the transformative performance of writing as action research. The study started as an enquiry into autobiographical memory and the role of the snapshot as a mnemonic device in relation to remembering and forgetting.
The study progressed to a search for the primal origins of our desire to remember and to communicate phatically and visually. As I near the end of the journey, I realise that the enquiry has become a performance of agency in search of self.