Well, why not?
Oprah Winfrey. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.
Well, why not?
You probably didn’t think I had a picture of Oprah Winfrey. True, this morning I didn’t, but now I do. Just to remind you that absence can be turned into precence if you work on it. Please read this post and stay alert for more 
.
As I told you, Oprah Winfrey is in Copenhagen for the last push for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Chicago. Here leaving the lunch at the Royal Palace Amalienborg in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Yes, the Danish Queen was there too. In pink.
Go here for more images moving into precence .
Phenomenology: The Larger Picture.
Presence and Absence. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven
Following this blog you will agree with me that it stills needs a more practical approach to phenomenology. We need some tools that can be applied when doing, understanding and analyzing pieces of communication. Being it text or pictures or other.
Aspects of gestalt psychology have been pretty well covered in a number of posts. So have certain practical aspects of semiology. And there are plenty of useful information on both advertising efficiency and human behaviour, for readers that seek that kind information. (To be linked later).
The next series of posts will deal with a more practical approach to phenomenology. This is important since we have stated several times, already, that phenomenology takes up a special position within the barebones universe being both the basic of reflection as well as a particular area of investigation. Normally you refer to phenomenology as the method of phenomenology. The phenomenological method has been randomly covered by a series of posts taking it offset in the big book on phenomenology by late philosopher Herbert Spiegelberg. The big book being his The Phenomenological Movement. This however is by far not enough. Spiegelberg’s steps of phenomenology may be good, but not very practical.
Making the whole area more practical shall be very interesting since a similar effort had never been done before. Correct me if I am wrong here, but in my humble opinion this is the case. I am pretty sure that this effort have never been tried in anything that resembles a communication theory. So, it will be interesting to see what develops in the course of the future posts on barebones.
It is all in the photograph above. I call it Presence and Absence. There may be some presence, but there are certainly more absence. Let’s see, then, if we can get more absence present.
Please take a note that this post is written the day before President Obama arrives for the IOC conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Michelle Obama arrived early yesterday and so did the Spanish King, The Brazilian President, and Oprah Winfrey. And many more celebrities doing a warm up of for the 2016 Olympics. Chicago Tribune calls it The Big Push. Friday all will be settled since the voter’s votes will have been cast. And all the presidents will leave.
What this last information has to do will phenomenology? Well, the facts are certainly there, aren’t they? And the celebrity information around IOC’s meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, is likewise missing from the picture above, right? That is precisely why this information belong to the photograph.
Confused? Just wait till you read the next post on phenomenology. That post will deal with presence and absence and everything will become clear to you .
Have a good morning.
………………………..
Brief Tribute To A Red Car
- Brief Tribute To A Red Car. Copyright 2008: Knut Skjærven.
Brief tribute to a red car.
Just to remind you of Roland Barthes’ connotation procedures. His article from 1961 The Photographic Message tells the story. All but one, of his 6 procedures, have so far been treated on barebones. It you want to read the posts, you can start right at this page. Just follow the links.
2. Pose
3. Objects
4. Photogenia
5. Aestheticism
6. Syntax
Which reminds me that I have to write a post on his ”syntax”, as well. Not forgotten.
And while you are here: Don’t forget to listen to U2’s No Line On The Horizon. The reviews haven’t been all that good, but listen to it a couple of times and I am sure you’ll get over it. Let you cruise over the horizon, indeed. In a red car. In a masterpiece.
Best cruiser from the album is Moment of Surrender.
Good luck with it.
Library Thing. (Roland Barthes: Image, Music, Text, pages 15-31, Fontana Press 1977, UK. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath)
Obvious Obtuse
Obvious Obtuse. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.
Roland Barthes had another flamboyant idea. Analysing stills from another great master, the Russian Serge Eisenstein, he lacked a word for the meaning that was bluntly there. So he invented a label for that kind of meaning. He called it obtuse: the blunt meaning. You can read all about it in his essay “The Third Meaning”, or you can read a bit about how others interpret it, by following this link. The article on obtuse meaning was originally written in the French magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 1970.
As you clearly can see, the photograph above are embedded with obtuse meanings. Well, bluntly …. . You need to take a good look at the photograph, because as Barthes says, the obtuse meaning cannot be described. Good luck with it.
Picture shot at Lousiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark 2008.
Barebones or Barthes
It seems that barebones communication has turned out a good substitute for Roland Barthes. On the the net anyway, and according to Patrick Cooper at his www.patrickcooper.com.
Patrick Cooper writes, talking about Roland Barthes and his famous punctum: “And the source itself is a good read as well”. Try hitting that link and see what happens.
Well, I really don’t mind, but I am sure Barthes would have . By the way, it is a quite impressive blog Patrick Cooper runs. Go see it.
And while we are at it, I could ask you if you find any punctums in the photograph of the street musician below? I “was hit” by a punctum in this shot: it is the staring face of the girl left hand side behind the musician. You can hardly see the person, but the distant face has obviously observed the situation between the shooter and the shot. Or is the face only looking in the same direction?
Street Musician, Prague 2008.
phenomenology and photography
I have to admit that I had no clear idea of this from the beginning.
I have thousands of pictures and I have hundreds of books. So, my idea was initially to use both sources in combination on this blog.I started using pictures, because I thought they would brighten, and breaking up the blog a bit, and maybe, in some cases, make good illustrations for the points made in the individual posts. Particularly in illustrating some of the gestalt factors the pictures came in handy, since some of them seemed to have been shot for the particular blog post.
Not so. The pictures you find on the blog are in some cases many years before a blog on barebones communication came to my mind about a year ago. My favourite post, in this respect, is the one on gestalt direction. Go look it up. The post “Wertheimer would have loved”. This post, by the way, is one of the posts with the most hits. So, I must have done something right.
As I am the photographer of all the pictures posted, so far, I don’t have to worry about copyrights, since I hold copyrights to all the pictures. It makes life much easier that way, since I am allowed to quote from texts, but I am not allowed to quote from visual material in the same way. I can’t just post somebody else’s pictures.
However, lately, the thought grew on me that maybe my pictures had another role to play, as well. You are probably aware that, for instance, Roland Barthes have written with passion about photography. I am referring to his last book: La Chambre Claire, first published in France in 1980, the year of his untimely death.
I will return to that book in later post, since I fully agree with those stating that this book is one of the most important statements ever made on photography.
But what is more, it constitutes a cross section between semiology and phenomenology (Barthes explicitly refers to Edmund Hussels. Barthes states on page 20 in my copy of the English translation: Camera Lucida, that “In this investigation of Photography, I borrowed something from phenomenology’s project and something from its language”.
Barthes is talking about Edmund Husserl as his inpiration.
There is, however, even a much more important issue at stake here. You know that the phenomenological method includes a “freezing”, a “bracketing” of the natural attitude to be able to describe, and to study it more closely. Maybe you also are aware that one of the key methodological notions within phenomenology is the notion “perspective”.
Question: What is it I do, what is it that every photographer does, when taking or shooting pictures? Answer: Could be phrased this way: I/they/we, as photographers, freeze parts of the world from a certain perspective. That is the very nature of photography.
So, the cross over from photography to phenomenology, is rather obvious to make.
As the blog progressed, it slowly dawned on me, that here is a story that never has been told. I will try to tell it, bit by bit, as the blog unfolds. That was the general idea, anyway.
Think about this idea, and take a look at the picture submitted below: A moment, frozen in time, from a certain perspective. Phenomenological investigation illustrated. Photography on phenomenology. Feel free to re-read the posts on the phenomenological method already posted.
Gassin, France, 2002.
All the best to you as well
For more on the books mentioned, please go here: Library Thing: Roland Barthes: La Chambre Claire, and Library Thing: Roland Barthes: Camera Lucida (translated by Richard Howard).
For more posts on Barthes on this blog, go here, or use the tag cloud for navigation.
Barthes’ Connotation Procedures: 3. Objects.
As mentioned in a recent post I will elaborate on Barthes’ connotation procedures in separate posts. Here comes the first one starting with Barthes’ third procedure: objects. There are, according to Barthes in his article, 6 areas for procedures in total.
3. Objects
Objects in themselves have connotative content. Barthes uses an example with a book case that might connote intellectualism. He states that “The interest lies in the fact that the objects are accepted inducers of associations of ideas (book-case = intellectual).. ” They can also work as symbols, he argues.
Some other examples; when you see an image of a big man in a close up, such a shot might connote power or dominance. When you have an image of a tiny woman that might connote fragility or fright. Obviously all object have second meaning connotations moving from neutral (in a neutral shot) to excessive in a more deliberately composed photograph.
Take a look at the “object” below. It is the rear of a car, but not any other car. It is the rear of a Bugatti Veyron at display in Berlin. Depending on the degree of car enthusiast you may or may not be, this picture will connote extreme wealth, extreme speed and excessive luxury to you. If you are not into cars at all, you might accept that this is indeed a stylish object of some class.
It is pretty clear from this picture (to me anyway), that images indeed contain second level contents; read connotations. This image does not only denote: rear of a car, but it strongly connote things like wealth and luxury, as well.
For more on connotations (and denotations) you could go here.
Copyright 2008: Knut Skjærven.
Library Thing. (Roland Barthes: Image, Music, Text, pages 15-31, Fontana Press 1977, UK. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath).
Buy the English translation of Barthes’ work. Follow the link and support the site:
Image-Music-Text
Barthes’ Connotation Procedures in Photography.
It is, according to Barthes, “possible to separate out various connotation procedures”. I will use Barthes’ “headlines” from his article, but bring in my own elaboration and examples. And pictures.
Barthes works with 6 procedures in his scheme. I will treat each one separately in forthcoming posts.
2. Pose
3. Objects
4. Photogenia
5. Aestheticism
6. Syntax
Stay tuned for a short separate treatment of each of Barthes’ connotation procedures. For a shortcut to some of his famous articles, please see the book referred to in Library Link below.
When I post on the individual procedures, I will link the separate posts from this introductory post. So, eventually you will be able to reach all posts from this post. Look for the links above, and you will notice that the post on 3. Objects is already there.
Good luck with it.
Library Thing. (Roland Barthes: Image, Music, Text, pages 15-31, Fontana Press 1977, UK. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath)
Buy the English translation of Barthes’ work. Follow the link and support the site:
Image-Music-Text
-
Recent Comments
-
barebones light photostream
More Photos -
