The Image in Question: Further Notes on the Directorial Mode

The author discusses Douglas Crimp's re-interpretation of
Coleman's concept of ""the directorial mode''. Crimp coined the
substitute concept of ""auteur photography'', taken from
""auteur theory'' in film criticism. Coleman attempts to clarify
his concept of ""the directorial mode'' as a photographic
praxis, a praxis that has gained wide legitimation in the last
decade or so, and which seems to have abandoned the idea that a
""photograph is a neutral, uninflected image, which has NO
maker, no 'author'''. The principle photographic agents,
according to Coleman, are: 1. the medium, made by inventors,
manufacturers etc.; 2. the photographer and 3. the subject
(matter). ""The photographer is the actor in the construction of
a photograph.'' But not every photographer works directorially.
The author introduces Brecht's concept of ""construed
realities'', the fact that simple photographs of industry, for
example, do not give information regarding those institutions,
especially as regards human relationships. It is therefore
necessary to ""construct'' something, to set up something
artificial to reveal the hidden information. In this sense,
photographs by those who choose to function directorially do not
merely mirror ""the way things look like'' but rather ""encode a
perspective, a viewpoint, an opinion - even, possibly, a
fiction.'' Discussing (USA-based) photographers using the
directorial mode, the author pinpoints another concept: Erving
Goffman's ""theatrical frame''. Directorial photographers refer
to the visual illusion of three-dimensionality and spatial
structure. Others use dolls, masks and other simulacra of the
human. Special attention is paid to recent still life
photography depicting objects that are intended to function on a
metaphorical level. Another hallmark of the directorial impulse
is the transformation of a place into a space (the photographic
equivalent of the stage set). (Danish/English)


Citaten:
Barthes, R.: Camera Lucida (1981)
Benjamin, W.: Kleine Geschichte der Photographie (1932)
Barthes, R.: The Photographic Message (tr. 1977)
Coleman, A.D.: The directorial Mode (Artforum v15,i1,Sep 1976)
Van Deren Coke: Fabricated to be Photographed (1979)
Hoy, Anne H.: Fabrications (1987)
Crimp, D.: Appropriating Appropriations (1982)
Kuhn, Th.: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970)
Coleman, A.D.: The Grotesque in Photography (1977)
Goffman, E(?).: Frame Analysis (1974)