A new balance

A new balance; the aperceptual objectivity of architectural photography/ Un nuevo balance: la objetividad aperceptual de la fotografia de arquitectura

©By/Por Abdel Hernandez San Juan

   Con la critica del sujeto que ha caracterizado al posmodernismo toda nuestra atención en critica de la fotografía ha venido a recaer en como se las arregla el fotógrafo para tratar varias paradojas que la arquitectura supone para el discurso fotográfico. 

  Perse al hecho de que de por si en términos de estilo la arquitectura ha devenido después de ventury y el nuevo ecleptisismo en paradigma operacional de lenguajes propios a lo entendemos como "la obra posmoderna", se agregan otra variedad de preguntas que la arquitectura envuelve para la fotografía, aquellas relacionadas a discernir la cuestión del sujeto y la subjetividad tan crucial en general para el posmodernismo mas allá incluso de fotografía y arquitectura.

  Por un lado, siendo lenguaje bidimensional el quid de la fotografia estriba en que se apodera desde el angulo y la perspectiva visual del modo de comunicar la relaciones con los espacios perceptivamente, pero como la arquitectura es ella misma espacio la fotografia  desde su logica perspectivista no puede sustraerle el espacio a la arquitectura que al aparecer en la imagen es toda ella en si misma espacio y perspectiva, aquella parece obligada, en cambio, a asimilarse a las espacialidades que la arquitectura supone, algo que le significa un reto aperceptual.

   Lejos de reemplazar nuestros sentidos espaciales y corporales de la perspectiva tridimensional por su ilusión bidimensional super-subjetiva, encuentra la fotografía frente suyo captado por el lente referencialidades que son ellas mismas espacio y perspectiva, el usual dominio de la relación sujeto- objeto, mirada- cosas o un algo, ojo-mundo, "estuve allí" o "estoy aqui" propio al sujeto enunciativo de la fotografía como discurso, --su usual super-control en deliberar un balance sobre la relación subjetividad- objetividad es retado por su objeto denotado, la arquitectura siendo ella perspectiva y espacio trae consigo una deliberacion otra distinta y propia de esas relaciones.

   El signo en arquitectura, como decía eco, a diferencia de su usual referencia a un objeto externo denotado no tiene una referencia que le sea exterior, la referencia en ella es el signo mismo en tanto función, dado que la función útil connota mas que denota cosas como habitad, guarecerse, interior, exterior, subir o bajar, etc, el sujeto no se haya frente al objeto como es lo usual sino antes bien comprendido por este último en el espacio, en la arquitectura el objeto envuelve al sujeto y lo disemina en sus funciones espaciales, asi lo que usualmente es entendido como subjetivo u objetivo desde la perspectiva del sujeto aparece como de otra objetividad no relacionada al perspectivismo del sujeto sino antes bien a la objetividad espacial otra del objeto que lo envuelve.

  Aun en las fotografías de paisajes donde nada en ellas supone usualmente sujeto, la mirada inclusiva a la selección de la toma se impone por sobre lo demás, con la arquitectura en cambio la idea del sujeto queda diseminada por el signo funcion.

  Fotografiar arquitectura, hace algunos años de moda,  es trabajar con estas paradojas, nada hay mas relacionado a un sujeto en control de si mismo que la idea de cámara, encuadre y toma, pero frente a la arquitectura ya no es el fotógrafo quien establece que es objetivo y que subjetivo, la arquitectura establece ella misma un balance otro de esas relaciones

 En resumen. La fotografia, algo que la ha puesto en aprieto frente a la predilección de la critica al sujeto posmodernista, mas que ningún otro lenguaje, controla sobremanera la idea del sujeto omnisciente que decide todo, perspectiva, ángulo, toma, secuencia, signo- referente, como el cine y el cinema ella presupone detras suyo una especie de supersujeto, pero la arquitectura es lo contrario un superobjeto respecto al cual el sujeto debe ceder su control y entregarse a algo que lo sobrecoge, su cuerpo queda envuelto por el espacio funcion que lo sensorializa todo y frente a ese superobjeto el supersujeto fotografico tiende a quedar diseminado, es como si situada ante sus limites la arquitectura le dijera a la fotografia como lo subjetivo y lo objetivo deben quedar. 

  Situando lo anterior podemos preguntarnos cual es esa otra objetividad en que resulta la exploración fotografica de Lihié talmor, comprender que otro balance entre subjetividad y objetividad puede concluirse del reto a que se vio abocada aqui la fotografía ante la arquitectura.  

   En mi consideración lo peculiar de la exploración fotografica de Lihie talmor incluida en "ria" debe inferirse de la lectura misma de esa suerte de cuidado casi de inventario de lugares y sitios que la caracteriza,  esa especie de presentación casi catalogada de edificios, casas, lugares, entre espacios, que parecen fotografiarse para ser conservados, preservados, identificados.

  Es como si una lógica de inventario, restauracion, reconstruccion, etc, regulare el ademán, la manera, el para que del como, algo legible en la actitud con la cámara hacia las cosas, ademanes que comunican por su a la manera, algo de una fotografia que se pone al servicio tecnicamente meticuloso de una indexicacion, es decir de una función otra que la indexa, que le da ese sentido de cosas listadas.

   Ello es en "ria" literal pues se trata de una obra conformada por la relación entre un texto escrito, el de ruti, y de las imágenes de Lihie, pero tambien parece resultar de esta relación con la arquitectura, lugares y sitios a que me refiero, sobre todo por esa relacion que se da en la serie con las relaciones entre patrimonio, memoria, museo y turismo presupuesto en las casas, lugares y sitios de que se trata.

 De hecho, nociones como preservar, inventariar, restaurar, colectar, etc, propio a tales construcciones y lugares parecen explicitar la actitud de la cámara en toda la serie, su relación a esa objetividad otra propia a la arquitectura, a terrenos, hay en ello, implícito o explicito una suerte de intracomentario en el sentido del tipo de lugares de que se trata, como decía en otro ensayo, es por un lado la relación a lugares segun Elvis se relaciono a ellos, pero tambien de los cuales la cultura a hecho escenificaciones museologicas, recorridos turisticos, restauracion de patrimonio donde reconstruir, preservar el original o producir escénicamente sus efectos, turismo, museo, es el codigo de base. La serie de Lihie parece asi captar algo de este codigo y ello se trasluce o puede interpretarse de acuerdo al ademan de su discurso. 

  En vez de introducir codigos disrruptivos que extrañen, desfamiliaricen o sobrepongan maneras otras propias a la improvisación, los malabarismos, acrobacias o imaginaciones de una camara hipersubjetiva, muy permeada por intencionalidades internas del mundo del artista, la camara de lihie en esta serie, la forma en que el como de sus tomas trasluce un estar in situ, resulta adecuativa.

  El acento sobre los sitios se hace ya explicito-- como he apuntado antes-- en la fotografia del mapa en la valla, Mississippi, tupelo, tupelo fair grounds, pero se trata en general en esa perspectiva contigua que va todo el tiempo como de lugar en lugar presentando uno tras otro cual en un inventario de locaciones, un lugar, el otro, uno tras otro y el proximo y el proximo cada uno siempre indexado, su nombre, su ubicacion, sus relaciones con el sujeto o la subjetividad, terreno baldio de un antiguo hotel en venta, riachuello, avenida tal con sus indicaciones rotuladas, casa natal de presley, cadillac en el museo de sus autos, etc, etc

 Lihie pone a la cámara en una situación que recuerda las fotografías que se toman de un lugar en restauracion donde esta ultima, la fotografía, tiene que ser muy precisa tecnicamente poniéndose al servicio del trabajo hermenéutico de leer un estadio mas antiguo segun los indicios en capaz del signo en vestigios, donde se trata de averiguar como restaurar respecto al original.   

  No se trata aqui obviamente de restauracion propiamente en tanto sus fotografias no fueron hechas para restaurar, pero debido a que conglomerados de este tipo como la casa natal y graceland llevan usualmente e incluso sus lenguajes se basan en la posibilidad de restauracion recuperando el original, algo en los ademanes del modo se adecua al código hasta el punto de regir el modo de presentar.

 Es cierto que en ese ir presentando cual inventariando lihie va intercalando no ya solo arquitecturas que son a la vez patrimonio, museos y conglomerados turisticos, sino adicionalmente terrenos baldios, riachuelos, entre lugares, calles, etc pero ello nos conduce ya a la perspectiva diagonal discutida en mis ensayos anteriores relativa a ese entre banbalinas o por sus margenes a que me referia, esta vez sin embargo acentuamos no los sentidos que contribuyen a los desvios que complejizan la interpretacion sino a la generalidad expositiva que a travez de ademanes regulan la relacion general de la fotografia en esta serie al codigo al cual se adecuan, es esa relación a casa-patrimonio-museo-inventario-reconstruction del original, etc, etc en su relacion al turismo.

Es ello pues lo que parece estar como por detras del porque son como son las imagenes, una casa en vista frontal, es tambien el modo de tratar la camara, el gesto leible del estar insitu con la imagen, en tanto intracomentario de la fotografia sobre la fotografia, una camara no solo muy respetuosa sino tambien muy al tanto del gesto reconstructivo de algo que se esta haciendo como inventariando pues debe ser cuidadosamente devuelto a un estadio anterior a la vez que debe ser preservado.

  Lihie retiene ese ademan en el modo de hacer las fotos que se trasluce, es ese a la manera como si su camara estuviere al servicio tecnico de un trabajo que forma parte de la reconstruccion de ese patrimonio y sin embargo a la vez no para ser instrumentalizado por la puesta en escena turistica y espectacular, es como si ella hiciera un trabajo paralelo del mismo tipo pero recuperando lo afectivo y lo aural de una mirada que ve desde una cultura que esta ahi mismo viva y habitando de ahi ese acento sobre lo residual, sobre lo dejado de lado por la escenificacion, los terrenos baldios y en venta, los arroyuelos, los carteles que indican el nombre de la calle, Mississippi, mud creek, tupelo, swimming hole/arroyuelo, Alabama, fowlriver, belle fontained, cedar point road, carretera de cedar, Alabama, the cause way, batleship parkway, mobile, empty lot, the old pink hotel, terreno baldio, Alabama, fowlriver, belle fontained, pelican reef restaurant

   Se trata aqui pues de ls conceptos y nociones de patrimonio y museo los cuales no siempre se unen, en realidad mayormente no, pero cuando se unen sobre todo si interviene el turismo el resultado es fascinante como he analizado y discutido en mi ensayo "performatividad en el research" sobre relaciones entre patrimonio, restauración y turismo segun mis experiencias en pueblitos en las afueras de Texas, en México y en la restauración de la habana vieja. 

   Esta fascinación, sin embargo, en si misma es paradojica pues tiende a ser conservadora, preservar a toda costa un patrimonio tanto que algunas de sus expresiones llegan a ser museos, ha venido a reflejar con el paso del tiempo un polo de mutuas tentaciones entre conservadurismo y vanguardia. 

  El posmodernismo, con su interés en la memoria y el pasado, con su giro retro, ha venido a mediar esta relación tendiendo a articular posibilidades experimentales de la neovanguardia respecto a la memoria, el punto de relación por supuesto es la cultura, la relación patrimonio, museo, turismo es una intersección privilegiada para la teorizacion y comprensión posmodernista de la cultura.

   Con lo anterior intento situar los puntos de referencia axiologicos en este tercera interpretacion de "ria" esta vez enfocada exclusivamente en las 37 fotografias que fueron impresas dentro del libro.

De nuevo se trata aqui tambien de la casa natal de Elvis presley, museo de objetos domésticos, el sillón columpio y la fachada, unas esculturas junto a las que se retratan los visitantes es tambien graceland en melphis mansión de 1939 que presley adquirió en 1957 para sus padres, abierta al publico como museo en 1982, o el museo de sus autos.

   Tambien es Tupelo el fairgrounds conglomerado urbano fairpark donde en el 2003 se construyo el Stax Museum of American soul music y porque no en tanto locaciones mas o menos abandonadas otras como el radio Ranch club, el Pelican reef restaurant, la Estación radial wmob 1360, el Edificio del old Pink hotel, o Estadio de mobile Ernesto f. Ladd memorial stadium show hank snow al starts jamboree, el Ladd peebles stadium.

 O el plato del carnaval, Alabama, dog river, belle fontained, carnival glass, from the collection of Beverly and George hall, el vaso de licor de Elvis, Alabama, mobile, Elvis shot glass, from the collection of Dennys and wanda howard, Las vitrinas de la tienda escenografiadas con motivos de Elvis, Mississippi, tupelo, main street, asi como las distintas hermozas escenas que dedica a la casa natal de elvis, la panoramica en que se ve la silla de bebe de Elvis entre otras objetos domesticos, la de la humilde cortina en que tambien se ve la pared empapelada de la anterior, o los detalles del tapete tejido y la lampara frente a la ventana, o el portal y la fachada de la casa con el columpio, Mississippi, tupelo, the Elvis Presley birth place.

Bibliografia

Barthes Roland, The photographic message, Pp, The Responsibility of Forms, Critical Essays on Art, Music and Representation, The University of California Press, 1985 

Barthes Roland, rethoric of the image, Pp, The Responsibility of Forms, Critical Essays on Art, Music and Representation, The University of California Press, 1985 

Barthes Roland, right in the eyes, Pp, The Responsibility of Forms, Critical Essays on Art, Music and Representation, The University of California Press, 1985 

Eco Umberto, arquitectura y comunicación, pp 285-284, el signo y la función, La Estructura Ausente, Lumen

Eco Umberto, el signo arquitectonico, pp 279-295, el signo y la función, La Estructura Ausente, Lumen

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, The Posmodern Work, paper, transart Foundation of houston, Houston, Texas

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, teorizando arquitectura, conferencia impartidas en el panel arte y arquitectura: un dialogo posible/pasado, presente y futuro, fundación consolidado, Caracas, 1991

 

A new balance; the aperceptual objectivity of architectural photography/ A new balance: the aperceptual objectivity of architectural photography

©By/Por Abdel Hernandez San Juan

   With the criticism of the subject that has characterized postmodernism, all our attention in the criticism of photography has come to fall on how the photographer manages to deal with various paradoxes that architecture supposes for photographic discourse.

  Despite the fact that, in terms of style, architecture has become after Ventury and the new ecleptisism an operational paradigm of its own languages ​​that we understand as "postmodern work", another variety of questions are added that architecture involves to photography, those related to discerning the question of the subject and subjectivity so crucial in general for postmodernism even beyond photography and architecture.

  On the one hand, being a two-dimensional language, the crux of photography is that it takes over, from the angle and the visual perspective, the way of communicating relationships with spaces perceptually, but since architecture is itself a space, photography from its perspectivist logic does not can subtract space from architecture, which when appearing in the image is all space and perspective in itself, it seems forced, on the other hand, to assimilate to the spatialities that architecture supposes, something that represents an aperceptual challenge.

   Far from replacing our spatial and bodily senses of three-dimensional perspective with its super-subjective two-dimensional illusion, photography finds in front of it captured by the lens referentialities that are themselves space and perspective, the usual domain of the subject-object relationship, gaze- things or something, eye-world, "I was there" or "I am here" typical of the enunciative subject of photography as discourse, --its usual super-control in deliberating a balance on the subjectivity-objectivity relationship is challenged by its object denoted, architecture being perspective and space brings with it a deliberation that is different and typical of those relationships.

   The sign in architecture, as Eco said, unlike its usual reference to an external denoted object, does not have a reference that is external to it, the reference in it is the sign itself as a function, given that the useful function connotes more than it denotes. things like habitation, shelter, interior, exterior, going up or down, etc., the subject is not in front of the object as is usual but rather well understood by the latter in space, in architecture the object surrounds the subject and spreads it in its spatial functions, thus what is usually understood as subjective or objective from the perspective of the subject appears as another objectivity not related to the perspectivism of the subject but rather to the other spatial objectivity of the object that surrounds it.

  Even in landscape photographs where nothing in them usually assumes a subject, the inclusive look at the selection of the shot is imposed above everything else, with architecture on the other hand the idea of ​​the subject is disseminated by the sign function.

  To photograph architecture, which has been fashionable for a few years, is to work with these paradoxes, there is nothing more related to a subject in control of himself than the idea of ​​camera, framing and shooting, but when faced with architecture it is no longer the photographer who establishes that is objective and subjective, architecture itself establishes another balance of those relationships

 In summary. Photography, something that has put it in trouble in the face of criticism's predilection for the postmodernist subject, more than any other language, greatly controls the idea of ​​the omniscient subject that decides everything, perspective, angle, shot, sequence, sign-referent, Like cinema and cinema, it presupposes behind it a kind of supersubject, but architecture is the opposite, a superobject with respect to which the subject must give up his control and surrender to something that overwhelms him, his body is enveloped by the functional space that surrounds him. it sensorializes everything and in front of that superobject the photographic supersubject tends to remain scattered, it is as if, placed before its limits, the architecture told the photography how the subjective and the objective should remain.

  Situating the above, we can ask ourselves what is this other objectivity that results in the photographic exploration of Lihié talmor, understanding that another balance between subjectivity and objectivity can be concluded from the challenge that photography was faced with here in the face of architecture.

   In my opinion, the peculiarity of the photographic exploration of Lihie talmor included in "ria" must be inferred from the very reading of that kind of almost inventory-like care of places and sites that characterizes it, that kind of almost cataloged presentation of buildings, houses, places, between spaces, that seem to be photographed to be conserved, preserved, identified.

  It is as if a logic of inventory, restoration, reconstruction, etc., regulates the gesture, the manner, the why of the how, something legible in the attitude with the camera towards things, gestures that communicate through their manner, something of a photograph that is put at the technically meticulous service of an indexing, that is, of another function that indexes it, that gives it that sense of listed things.

   This is in literal "ria" since it is a work made up of the relationship between a written text, Ruti's, and Lihie's images, but it also seems to result from this relationship with the architecture, places and sites that I I mean, especially because of that relationship that occurs in the series with the relationships between heritage, memory, museum and budget tourism in the houses, places and sites in question.

 In fact, notions such as preserving, inventorying, restoring, collecting, etc., typical of such constructions and places, seem to explain the attitude of the camera throughout the series, its relationship to that objectivity, another characteristic of architecture, of land, there is in it , implicit or explicit, a kind of intra-commentary in the sense of the type of places in question, as I said in another essay, it is on the one hand the relationship to places according to how Elvis related to them, but also of which the culture has made museological stagings, tourist tours, heritage restoration where rebuilding, preserving the original or producing its effects scenically, tourism, museum, is the basic code. Lihie's series thus seems to capture something of this code and this comes through or can be interpreted according to the gesture of his speech.

  Instead of introducing disruptive codes that strange, defamiliarize or superimpose other ways typical of improvisation, juggling, acrobatics or imaginations of a hypersubjective camera, highly permeated by internal intentions of the artist's world, the lihie camera in this series, the form in that the way of his shots reveals being in situ, it is appropriate.

  The emphasis on the sites is already made explicit-- as I have pointed out before-- in the photograph of the map on the fence, Mississippi, Tupelo, Tupelo fair grounds, but it is generally treated in that contiguous perspective that goes all the time as if from place in place presenting one after another as in an inventory of locations, one place, the other, one after the other and the next and the next each always indexed, its name, its location, its relations with the subject or subjectivity, terrain vacant lot of an old hotel for sale, riachuello, avenue tal with its labeled directions, Presley's birthplace, cadillac in the museum of its cars, etc., etc.

 Lihie puts the camera in a situation that recalls the photographs taken of a place under restoration where the latter, the photograph, has to be very technically precise, putting itself at the service of the hermeneutical work of reading an older stage according to the indications in capable of the sign in vestiges, where it is about finding out how to restore the original.

  This is obviously not about restoration per se since his photographs were not made to restore, but since conglomerates of this type such as Casa Natal and Graceland usually carry and even their languages ​​are based on the possibility of restoration recovering the original, something In the gestures of the manner it adapts to the code to the point of governing the way of presenting.

 It is true that in this process of presenting which lihie inventory is interspersed not only architectures that are at the same time heritage, museums and tourist conglomerates, but also vacant lands, streams, between places, streets, etc. but this already leads us to the diagonal perspective discussed in my previous essays regarding that between scenes or by its margins to which I referred, this time however we emphasize not the senses that contribute to the deviations that complicate the interpretation but the expository generality that through gestures regulate the general relationship From the photography in this series to the code to which they adapt, it is that relationship to house-heritage-museum-inventory-reconstruction of the original, etc., etc. in its relationship to tourism.

This is what seems to be behind why the images are what they are, a house in front view, it is also the way of treating the camera, the readable gesture of being in situ with the image, as an intra-commentary of the photograph on photography, a camera not only very respectful but also very aware of the reconstructive gesture of something that is being done as an inventory since it must be carefully returned to a previous stage at the same time as it must be preserved.

  Lihie retains that gesture in the way he takes the photos that comes through, it is that in the way as if his camera were at the technical service of a work that is part of the reconstruction of that heritage and yet at the same time not to be instrumentalized for the touristic and spectacular staging, it is as if she were doing a parallel work of the same type but recovering the affective and the aural of a look that sees from a culture that is alive there and inhabiting from there that accent on the residual, about what's left out by staging, vacant and for-sale land, creeks, street signs, Mississippi, mud creek, tupelo, swimming hole/creek, Alabama, fowlriver, belle fontained, cedar point road, cedar highway, Alabama, the cause way, batleship parkway, mobile, empty lot, the old pink hotel, vacant lot, Alabama, fowlriver, belle fontained, pelican reef restaurant

   Here we are dealing with the concepts and notions of heritage and museum which are not always united, in fact mostly not, but when they are united, especially if tourism intervenes, the result is fascinating as I have analyzed and discussed in my essay "performativity in the research" on relationships between heritage, restoration and tourism according to my experiences in small towns on the outskirts of Texas, in Mexico and in the restoration of Old Havana.

   This fascination, however, in itself is paradoxical since it tends to be conservative, preserving at all costs a heritage so much so that some of its expressions become museums, has come to reflect over time a pole of mutual temptations between conservatism and avant-garde.

  Postmodernism, with its interest in memory and the past, with its retro turn, has come to mediate this relationship, tending to articulate experimental possibilities of the neo-avant-garde with respect to memory, the point of relationship of course is culture, the heritage relationship , museum, tourism is a privileged intersection for postmodern theorization and understanding of culture.

   With the above I try to place the axiological reference points in this third interpretation of "ria" this time focused exclusively on the 37 photographs that were printed within the book.

Again, this is also the birthplace of Elvis Presley, a museum of domestic objects, the swing chair and the façade, some sculptures next to which visitors are photographed. It is also Graceland in Melphis mansion from 1939 that Presley acquired in 1957 to his parents, opened to the public as a museum in 1982, or the museum of his cars.

   Tupelo is also the fairgrounds urban conglomerate fairpark where the Stax Museum of American soul music was built in 2003 and why not as well as more or less abandoned locations such as the Ranch radio club, the Pelican reef restaurant, the wmob 1360 radio station, the Building of the old Pink hotel, or Mobile Stadium Ernesto f. Ladd memorial stadium show hank snow al starts jamboree, ladd peebles stadium.

 Or the carnival plate, Alabama, dog river, belle fontained, carnival glass, from the collection of Beverly and George hall, the Elvis liquor glass, Alabama, mobile, Elvis shot glass, from the collection of Dennys and wanda howard, The store's display cases decorated with motifs of Elvis, Mississippi, Tupelo, Main Street, as well as the different beautiful scenes dedicated to Elvis's birthplace, the panoramic view in which Elvis's baby chair is seen among other domestic objects, that of the humble curtain in which you can also see the wallpapered wall of the previous one, or the details of the woven rug and the lamp in front of the window, or the portal and the facade of the house with the swing, Mississippi, tupelo, the Elvis Presley birthplace.

Bibliography

Barthes Roland, The photographic message, Pp, The Responsibility of Forms, Critical Essays on Art, Music and Representation, The University of California Press, 1985 

Barthes Roland, rethoric of the image, Pp, The Responsibility of Forms, Critical Essays on Art, Music and Representation, The University of California Press, 1985 

Barthes Roland, right in the eyes, Pp, The Responsibility of Forms, Critical Essays on Art, Music and Representation, The University of California Press, 1985 

Eco Umberto, architecture and communication, pp 285-284, sign and function, The Absent Structure, Lumen

Eco Umberto, the architectural sign, pp 279-295, the sign and the function, The Absent Structure, Lumen

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, The Posmodern Work, paper, transart Foundation of houston, Houston, Texas

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, theorizing architecture, lecture given in the art and architecture panel: a possible dialogue/past, present and future, consolidated foundation, Caracas, 1991