Pinhole/Camera
Obscura
Perhaps the first
historical recored of the camera obscura is to be found in the writings of the Chinese philosopher,
Mozi (470-390 BCE). Mozi
described the image in a camera obscura as appearing upside down
because light travels outwards in straight lines from its source..
‘Upside
down’/’inverted’. The ‘world turned upside down’ as trope (whether read as
reported state passing ethical judgment or as subjunctive wish – either way an
ideological anamorphosis).
As symbol or symptom, cause or effect, we are offered two broad connotations:
as negative, indicative, critical, imputing chaos, implying things are ‘not
quite right’, ‘out of sync’, ‘out of kilter’, transgressing laws or Law; and…
(conversely) a positive reading, as it should be, subjunctive, but where the
ideal is not yet clear, is presented as inverted, distorted, a stage in the
process (a partial anamorphosis);
the new vision, or point of view is not yet completely crystalised.
A transvaluation of values not yet completed… The
‘world turned upside down’, but not yet righted.
Camera Obscura; Camera Lucida, both made from
light; a room of light – enlightening.
Made
from two complementary layers: with the (partial) occlusion of one surface
(rendered as the background), or the synthesis of both…
The Pinhole Technique and Meaning. Uses:
(from Abstraction to Representation: Inversion, Texture and Meaning).
Camera…
I Abstraction/Form (Camera Obscura as abstract art). Product
of the conflict of planes or layers; of the vertical and the inverted, of light
reflected and light projected. Background and superimposed
image in complementary contrast. So featuring a
special sense of texture – coming in part from the projection (incoming light)
and in part from the receiving surface (the back drop).
Project/projection. The Camera Obscura as a simulacrum. As an
allegory of human consciousness. Echoing the tension of subject and
object: made from the interaction of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ elements, from
ordering concepts (our past as the receiving surface) and perceived sense data
(the present ‘eternal’ of perception as the projection). The influence of the
back drop or background as ‘previously received’ or ‘shaping’ concepts,
including words/images on wall; projected… with ‘incoming’, as ambiguous
content manifesting different ‘definitions’ according to the terms or forms of
the ‘background’. The ‘back wall’ of the projection; our
forward wall of perception. Furthermore: If the Camera Obscura is in fact a room (with
the projection – either natural, as from ‘window’ pinhole, or as a copy coming
from a projector, onto a wall) then the sense of a room as an image of human
consciousness, our ‘room’, is reinforced. In Camera.
The room of the
self… caught in, caught by, the contradictions of the pinhole world… an image
in the ‘room of the self’ (so space of the subject with its object inverted
upon it…). Truth of our machinery of perception… The parts of the self… one
step back (as with the image prior to re-inversion…). Before
being recombined with selected data from our other senses to form our conscious
‘picture’ of reality. The theatricality of all
representation.
Likewise the frame
of the projection, the frame of the image, may be read as signaling the limits
of perception (the limits of our ‘room’) just as the presence of the projection
signals the eternal present as the frame of what is human, our experiential
meta-set (last word or final point of view).
Question: which
(kind of) image (content) is best to illustrate this parallel (to make it more
than a reading based upon the form); what would we need to go beyond
abstraction to a specific content? To pass from allegory to
illustration. The search for apposite imagery…
II
Meanings/Content (the twin layers of the Camera
Obscura as carrying conceptual force).
Essentially the search for the medium’s proper material, proper content; that
which suits it best, that which it suits
best, as giving reign to meanings better than in other forms of expression. Marriage of form, content and means of expression to offer the
possibility of meaning. In effect two approaches, as with the
application of form (true even of a ’lighter’ form, say of the Villanelle, etc):
either to search for a ‘suitable’ content or topic; in which case we have the
allegory of the topic as ‘related’ to the formal aspects of the image (the
image that suits the ‘frame’): or to rely on form to capture content and make
it its own – even at the cost of self-parody or irony (the ‘frame’ appropriates
the image/ a change of form changes the content).
Where
else do we find reversal: in nature, or by implication (in fact or in desire,
with the sense of the indicative or subjunctive in conflict or contrast)? In water. In reflections in water (as in landscapes,
buildings or people on the other side of a stretch of water… so reflected
before us, inverted…). Something perceived, or only perceivable, in reflection,
on the surface of water… or any other reflective surface that lies in between us and the image source… What
is added: the inversion (conceptual, political… product of reflection); and the
new texture of the reflective surface (symbolizing thought... reflection).
There would appear to be two clear formal
options…
(Project/projection
A) To show the inverted reality as such (as the pinhole image presents it,
inverted…): what content or bundle of meanings is best suited to this
treatment? To being shown upside-down? (The meaning, or content of expression,
must suit the means of expression, so short-circuiting shallow point-making or
opportunistic polemical effects…plainly put, simple inversion as statement is
insufficient). Potential content: any image that gains extra meanings from
being upside down.
For example: a
landscape in which an inverted skyscraper first appears as a pillar, then we
realize that the ‘sky’ is in fact a city… or the presentation of an institution
(heavy-handed?) or scene of an event…?
The reflection of
someone, something as if (inverted) across a glass table (possibly offering
additional or biographical, often ironic meanings - in effect a commentary).
Further: the
showing of an object AND its reflection together; again as if over water, or a
glass table – as if a horizontal fold, a horizon as fold, constituted their
possibility. Conceptual or mainly aesthetic (like ‘B’ below…). So ‘naturalising’ the inversion (lessening its defamiliarising effect) but not necessarily diminishing its
conceptual, interrogative force…
(Project/projection
B) Conversely, we might wish to show the inversion, re-inverted (right way up)
– so an appropriation of the texture of the pinhole image (pinhole technique as
means to a texture); which is either used as such or else projected onto
another surface - this ‘righting’ is after-all what our brain does with our
image perceptions. Or… an inversion of the image of the pinhole image (its
righting) as projected onto a recognizable surface (say the wall of a room,
with doors, wardrobe, etc) such that it is the surface that supports the image that is
inverted, and the pinhole image (of something that is projected onto that
surface) that is righted. In which case it is the background,
the recording surface and its texture that becomes the ‘ghost’ – inverted
source of the uncanny effect.
If
using reflections on water in order to right
the image… The major effect here is the apparition of the image with its accompanying texture gained from
water, in fact a third layer, including the image’s background or site of
projection/reception (assuming this is not plain). An interesting piece of
illusionism; with a potentially destabilizing result (the beauty of the texture
undermined by the sublime impact of the image, as the brain (half) realizes
that the image content should be
upside-down, if it is a reflection…).
Finally there is the choice of end product as projection, slide or film loop
(good for capturing movement, if any) or photograph/light-box transparency -
both of these, projection or light-box, as a mimesis of the original conditions
of making - or just a plain photograph…
Content: any
attractive waterside scene or structure… (practicable
as an outside to be caught in an ‘inside’) or the reflection of person or thing
on a glass table (much more difficult to set up as a Camera Obscura).
Less attractive but with a formally distinct frame: the surface of water in a
container (bowl, barrel, pool or puddle) as ‘containing’ the image.
Or show both
together… side by side - for example if they complement each other in meaning,
or better in form, forming a larger whole or overall pattern… (a bit like showing the construction of an image as part of
its presentation).
In both of these
cases (A + B), the showing of the reflection (only) as inverted or righted,
also implies the absent (un-representable) ‘original’ image source - but
perhaps especially in (A) where the inverted image immediately suggests or
points to the absent opposite, the image right-way-up.
In all cases the
background can or should be used to alter (to ironise
or put into question) the meaning of the projected image (or vice versa)…
Optics and Openings/Gender. Finding
‘project’ and ‘projection’ as subverted by the hole of ‘pinhole’; what makes
the projection (the visual element) possible… is prior. Projection of light as
secondary; an effect of physis,
and an effect of ‘absence’ – an effect of the form of the body in its relation
to light.
…Obscura/Lucida…
Four aspects of meaning.
If using a
‘reflection’, or reflective surface, as a method of righting the pinhole image’s
inversion; then the meaning is as if corrected, as of a corrected sense of
vision…
I
Reflection (from where…?). The uses of reflection. As
if seen on the surface of water (or glass or metallic surface) reflected… (origin invisible). Or… from under water…
Meaning; as if from inside somewhere (and as an ‘impossible’, so unnerving
combination, a reflection that is ‘right-side-up’, destabilizing us even more
than the grosser inversion of the image would). Suggesting: rooms; interiors…
the self; lyrical subjectivity. Plus the usual sense of remove/dness or semi-presence, of pastness
or memory - or future fantasy. (Or is it the background which is thrown into
semi-presence… so suggestive of a ‘room’ elsewhere - especially if the image so
projected contains movement…).
II
Superimposition (onto…?). A question of backdrop or
background. The effect of the background as being underwater… (as if seen through gauze or silk, or otherwise distanced
from us). Objects on/in background (receiving surface) + texture of surface of
background + surface of water (or other surface used to re-invert projected
image) + projection/reflection… Also the effect of a ‘natural’ or ‘neutral’
room – yet in meaning making nothing is neutral. Just a less suggestive (or
less fore-grounded) room versus prepared surface and objects…
III
In Desire. In subjunctive mode, where hope or wish
become read as critique or satire; the projected image as the realization of a
desire, as the showing of a desired state - positive or negative. So what is
shown upside-down is desired as such… as to
be upturned… or (the opposite) desired as re-inverted…as ‘righted’ (as in
the introductory comment).
IV Temporal. Potentially the
present and past/future (presence and semi-presence) together; one overlaying the other; but which is dominant? Ambiguity…
Other sense: the absence of temporality (as outside of time, or universal).
Eternal: none. Yet some such reading, if not effect, should be possible…? Some
degree of ‘ghostliness’ usually ‘means’ the past/future, memory or wish; but
‘outside’…? One example: a heaven
or a hell; but probably only if obvious (if there is a content reference, only
if accompanied by a past meaning learnt as such (a specific cultural notion of
heaven, hell or eternity). Universal: the outside as foundation; that which we
wish to put outside of history as no longer contingent, as beyond historical or
cultural relativism (values and beliefs, axioms, the a priori, first principles). Otherwise than other: the Surreal;
suggesting the world of dream (also based upon past memory, the experience of
dreams). Or alternatively with the projected layer suggesting
the future as a kind of vision. Dream vision?
If
interpretation is open to a number of options then perhaps more important is
the search for apposite or ‘natural’, appropriate material; that which brings
out the most interesting effects (as for example in the case of an inverted
pinhole image shown right-side-up, with
waves… to show that it was once upside-down as a reflection); or meanings
linked to upside-down-ness (as if a reflection… in water). The double layer
also provides potential for irony…
Practicality:
It may be necessary to take the pinhole image on site, then project its recorded
image on to the required setting/wall, and only then record the resulting,
composite image. In the case of a ‘staged’ photograph, slide or film
projection, if there is movement included in either of the two images/layers
involved in the superimposition (inversion and texture being the two important
new aspects of this kind of superimposition) and if blank spaces (sky) are
found in opposite parts of the composite image, then a complementary filling of
space and even movement, preferably in contrary motion, might be employed.
Copyright Peter Nesteruk, 2013