She begins by asking “What (or how) do photographs mean in the context of autobiography?” She says, “photographs … simply supply a visual metaphor for the divided and multiple … self.” Also, photographs as physical evidence re-anchor the subject in the physical world.” (But see my comments on Duane Michals (2))
She talks about the “double awareness” of the autobiographer – awareness of the “autobiographical self as decentred, multiple, fragmented and divided against itself in the act of observing and being” and the self that is constructing the autobiography. Photographs are used to support both these views.
She compares the loss of control inherent in being photographed and that inherent i8n being published.
I’ve been preparing for Assignment 3 by keeping a diary for the last fortnight. A daily diary doesn’t involve much in the way of remembering. This is not Proust’s “life as it was remembered by the one who had lived it” (3), nor is it Barthes’ memory being jolted by a photograph of his mother. (4) It is more purposeful than that. I have always at the back of my mind that this diary is an exercise for an assignment. I plan ahead with the idea that there will eventually be photographs as a result. In my last assignment the mask slipped when I came out of character illustrating my images for ‘Photographing the Unseen’ with text. The memory and the passage of time were the things ‘unseen’. Referring to the process was a mistake in that piece of work.
For this self-absented portrait for Assignment 3 the process is as informative as the text and the accompanying photographs. The process reveals the thought, interpretation, and the attempt to control the outcome in the same way as Linda Haverty Rugg says Mark Twain and August Strindberg tried so hard to maintain control. Like them, and unlike Proust, I am reluctant to reveal too much when too much will prod the demons that lurk in memory. Even for Art, let alone for an assignment, I will not give these frightful things houseroom, let alone invite them in for a cup of tea.
(1) http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/731472.html
(2) https://christopherwlog.wordpress.com/2016/11/10/duane-michals-this-photograph-is-my-proof/
(3) Benjamin, W, (trans 1968) Illuminations. New York, Schocken Books. The Image of Proust
(4) Barthes, R. (2000) Camera Lucida. London. Vintage Books. chapter 25
Chris Whittle 