https://doi.org/10.31261/errgo.7787
The paper explores the anthropological meanings of photography and its connections with other visual media representing the human being. Complementing a long tradition of anthropological conceptualizations of the mask, Hans Belting’s theory of photography – treating it as a new form of a death mask – allows one to identify additional senses and paradoxes of this particular art form. By adopting Belting’s perspective, the author seeks to demonstrate how this medium manifests itself as unique by allowing one to trace historical transformations in our approach to the human body and its finitude. Also, by simultaneously defying death and acknowledging it, photography surfaces as an exceptional testimony to the twentieth-century drive to conceal death as well as to the universal desire to preserve life. Thus, Belting’s concept of photography may be argued to offer a point of departure for an analysis of photography as a life simulation strategy.
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No. 41 (2020)
Published: 2021-02-06
10.31261/errgo
English
Język Polski