HERMENEUTICAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIO-SEMIOTIC MODEL FOR A PHOTOGRAPHIC CRITIQUE. CASE ANALYSIS: MAX SIEDENTOPF, HOW TO SURVIVE A DEADLY GLOBAL VIRUS, 2020

Abstract

The objective of this essay is to propose a hermeneutic socio-semiotic model that helps build an interdisciplinary photographic critique based on theoretical foundations. How to carry out a photographic review? How to use and map theoretical-methodological perspectives about photography? The contemporary socio-technical context of images has placed photography in a complex sociocultural, technological and discursive scenario, which requires an epistemological map to help guide the construction of a critical-theoretical discourse for it to be understood. In this way, a model with two purposes is suggested, to serve as a chart for navigating the ocean of perspectives and theoretical references of the critical discourses of photography; and to serve as a starting point to build a hermeneutic and interdisciplinary socio-semiotic critique. The application of the model is exemplified by the analysis of Max Siedentopf’s production, How to Survive a Deadly Global Virus, 2020. The proposed experimental model has a hermeneutic, flexible, open, non-exclusive or limiting character, which contributes to the construction of a theoretically grounded critique of photographic images.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Marien, Photography and its Critics a Cultural History.

2. The following authors have made comprehensive reviews of the main critics and theorists of modern, postmodern and digital age photography: Wells, Photography: A Critical Introduction; Gattinoni and Vigouroux, Histoire de la critique photographique; Linfield, S. A Little History of Photography Criticism; La Grange, Basic Critical Theory for Photographers; Ribalta, Jorge, Efecto real [Real Effect].

3. Ribalta, Efecto real [Real Effect], 13; Wells, Photography: A Critical Introduction.

4. Some prominent pioneering authors of modern European and Anglo-Saxon criticism of photography are represented by photographers such as Daguerre, Niépce, Fox Talbot, Peach Robinson and Le Gay; writers such as Poe, Baudelaire and Mumford; historians such as Eastlake, Wey, Root, Cecil, Ruskin, Meyer, Person, Newhall and Szarkowski; philosophers and art critics such as Benjamin, Barthes, Berger and Sontag; and writers like Guibert, Scott, Singh and Russell. The most influential modern photography theorists are Berger, Sontag, Barthes and Didi-Huberman, influenced by Benjamin, Kracauer, Brecht and the theorists of the Frankfurt School.

5. Ribalta, Efecto Real [Real Effect], 11.

6. Some of the most influential authors of postmodern photography criticism are Rosler, Solomon-Godeau, Crimp, Tagg, Grundberg, Squiers, Sekula, Buchloh, Burgin, Phillips, Wall, Spence, Coleman, Krauss, Michelson and Owens, who built a fierce critique against the modern conceptualization of formalist and documentary photography begun by Newhall in 1937 and continued by Szarkovsky around 1966.

7. Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

8. The following authors delve into issues related to the post-human image, non-human vision and computational image: Zylinska, Joanna. Nonhuman Photography; Raskar and Tumblin. Computational photography; Celis, Economía de la atención … [Economy of attention …]; Celis, Notas sobre el estatuto político de la imagen [Notes on the political status of the image].

9. Lotman, La semiosfera I. [The semiosphere]; Verón, La semiosis social.

10. Gadamer, Truth and Method.

11. Lizarazo, Trazos para una hermenéutica comunicativa [Strokes for a communicative hermeneutic.

12. Greimas and Courtés, Semiótica. Diccionario razonado [Semiotics. Reasoned]; Greimas and Courtés, En torno al sentido. Ensayos semióticos [Around the meaning. Semiotic essays]; Abbagnano, Diccionario de filosofía. [Philosophy Dictionary]; Lyons, John. Semántica [Semantics]; Morris, Fundamentos de la teoría de los signos [Theory of signs fundamentals]; Gadamer, Truth and Method.

13. From a historical-techno-aesthetic perspective (art history, aesthetics), the contributions of Szarkowski (1966), Ades (1976), Gernsheim (1983), Newhall (1983), Freund (1993), Debray (1994), Krauss (2002), Fontcuberta (2003), Cartier-Bresson (2003), Ribalta (2004), Debrois (2005), Chevrier (2007), Chéraux (2009), Frizot (2009a, 2009c, 2009b, 1999), López (2008, 2005b, 2005a), Dyer (2010), Sougez (2011, 2009), Casanova (2005), Mraz (2018, 2009), Durand (2012) are fundamental.

14. From a philosophical-sociocultural perspective (philosophy, structuralism, sociology), the contributions of Benjamin (2007b), Barthes (1980), Flusser (2004, 2011), Sontag (1973, 2003), Berger (1972 and Berger 2015), Debord (1967), Mitchell (1992), Chalfen (1997), Bourdieu (2004), Mirzoeff (2003), Lipkin (2005), Latour (2005), Marzo (2006), Green (2007), Bauman (2007), Rancière (2009, 2007, 2009), Azoulay (2008), Ritchin (2009), Fontcuberta (1997, 2008, 2010, 2016), Didi-Huberman (2012), Farocki (2014), Gunthert (2015) are essential.

15. From a media-technological perspective, it is possible to find the concepts and theories developed by Jenkins (2008); Scolari (2013), Manovich (2005, 2009), Lister (1997, 2007), Kember (1995, 1998), Hayles (1999), Kemp and Wallace (2000), Bate (2016), Larsen and Sandbye (2020) Zylinska (2017), Celis (2017, 2019).

16. From an anthropological perspective we find foundations and contributions in Lévi-Strauss (1995), Durand (2012), Belting (2007), Naranjo (2006), Pink (2011), Horst and Daniel Miller (2012), Mignolo (2012), Palermo (2009), Gómez Moreno (2015).

17. From a semiotic perspective of image and photography, the fundamentals lie in the contributions of Saussure (1945), Peirce (1931, 1986), Barthes and de la Imagen (1986), Lotman (1976, 1979, 1998), Panofsky (1989), Morris (1985), Dubois (1986), Eco (2014), Grupo µ (1993), Floch (1986), Zunzunegui (1992), Joly (1994), Greimas (1973, 1982), Gauthier (1996), Merrel (1998), Marzal (2008a, 2008b, 2007, 2001).

18. We can know the profile and production of the author in Max Siedentopf, as well as the complete series of How to Survive a Deadly Global Virus, in: http://maxsiedentopf.com/how-to-survive-a-deadly-global-virus/.

19. The UN published a detailed chronology on Covid19, it can be consulted here: https://www.who.int/es/news/item/27-04-2020-who-timeline—covid-19.

20. Dynel, “COVID-19 memes going viral.

21. Latour, Reassembling the Social.

22. Barthes. La cámara lúcida [The Lucid Camera].

23. Flusser, Hacia una filosofía de la fotografía [Towards a philosophy of photography]; Flusser, Hacia el universo de las imágenes técnicas. [Towards the universe of technical images].

24. Gunthert, L´ímage partagée [The Shared Image]; Azoulay, Ariella. The Civil Contract of Photography.

25. Rancière, El reparto de lo sensible. Estética y política. [The distribution of the sensible. Aesthetics and politics].

26. Jenkins, Convergence Culture; Scolari, Carlos. Narrativas transmedia..

27. Fontcuberta, Por un manifiesto postfotográfico [For a post-photographic manifesto].

28. Belting, Antropología de la imagen [Anthropology of the image], 19–31.

29. Foucault, Naissance de la biopolitique; Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer; Esposito, Bíos. Biopolítica y filosofía..

30. Barthes, Retórica de la imagen. Lo obvio y lo obtuso. Imágenes, Gestos, Voces. [Rhetoric of the image], 36.

31. Peirce, La ciencia de la semiótica [The science of semiotics]; Merrel, Floyd. Semiótica de C. S. Peirce.