![]() What is at stake in the articulation of the individual and the mass body is that by processes of archiving photographs, we as humans are in control of now organizing the representations of the body and the experience into preservation for our disposals. Galton's photographs, then, succeed in giving visual form to Quetelet's ideal average man. In his composite portraits, Galton manages to superimpose the faces of several criminals to produce what Sekula calls an "improved impression of l'homme moyen." (48). Sekula remarks that while Bertillon tries to "tame" the photograph, Galton is ambitious and scientistic about the photograph in wanting it to do more. Though Bertillon and Galton's archival practices differ, they both ultimately have the goals of preserving photographs for history, social truth and social control. Galton sought to embed the archive in the photograph" (pg.55 III) Bertillon sought to embed the photograph in the archive. Bertillon's nominalist system of identification and Galton's essentialist system of typology constitute not only the two poles of positivist attempts to regulate social deviance by means of photography, but also the two poles of these attempts to regulate the semantic traffic in photographs. "The first rigorous system of archival cataloguing and retrieval of photographs was that invented by Bertillon. This apparatus, thus, seeks to accomplish the double task of producing subjects while adopting a visual means of establishing the truth about their 'invisible' nature through means of their visible physical traits. The fact that problematic experiments can be conducted to "characterize" and "categorize" the criminals and their bodies in the visuals speaks to the fact that we are attempting to put into order the physical traits of individuals in order to make an exposable pattern for the betterment of society. Every portrait implicitly took its place with a social and moral hierarchy." (10) But in a more general, dispersed fashion, in serving to introduce the panoptic principle into daily life, photography welded the honorific and repressive functions together. Nor did all police photography simply function repressively, although it is foolish to argue that the immediate function of police photographs was somehow more ideological or positively instrumental than negatively instrumental. "The new medium [did not simply inherit and 'democratize' the honorific functions of bourgeois portraiture. ![]() A drive "to professionalize and standardize police and penal procedures" (4), he argues, played a crucial role in the development of material objects of a "truth apparatus", those technologies of "optical empiricism" (16).ĭrawing upon Foucault's notions of a truth-power capable of producing subjects, Sekula investigates the perceived potential of photographs to play 'honorific' and 'repressive' functions, regulating the behavior of the masses. Thomas Poulsen shares the story of his performance career as a dancer and actor and his life as a person with disabilities.Allan Sekula's "The Body and the Archive" positions the potentiality ascribed to the photographic medium within a historico-discursive moment, understanding the camera to be "a technological outpacing of already expanding cultural institutions" (4). Our Canada, My Story: Thomas Poulsen (Canada, 2016) 5:04 The individual artists dance out of the photos and across table tops until the whole company meet and perform in unison. Photographs of performers in a disabled and non-disabled dance company come to life. Stopgap in Stop Motion (United Kingdom, 2016) 4:40 Germany | 2016 | 48:58 | Director: Michael MaurissensĬhoreographer Allison Brown, Fabrice Mazliah, Jone San Martin, Michael Schumacher, Ildikó Tóth | Lead Dancers Allison Brown, Fabrice Mazliah, Jone San Martin, Michael Schumacher, Ildikó Tóth | Producer CARRÉ BLANC PRODUCTIONS | Director of Photography Alexander Basile | Composer Gregor Schwellenbach | Writer Michael Maurissens, Darko Dragičević | First Assistant Director Darko Dragičević | Editor Alexander Basile Friday, October 20 | 4:30 pmīrava Theater Center, 2781 24th Street, San Francisco The Body as Archive explores the role of dancer in the preservation of collective knowledge, it’s transmission and it’s accessibility. The research is framed by a few hypotheses, e.g., is the body of a dancer only a repository of forms of usage? A fascinating and focused debate, illustrated with dancers in motion and presenting views from neurologists, choreographers, dancers and archivists in beautifully composed interviews. The Body as Archive is a documentary film based on research into ways the dancer’s body can be regarded as an archive.
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