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34 Dagnostaw Demski at that time. Periods of relative closeness between the sides are interwoven with periods of polarization. Local conflicts and war find their expression in visual representations. It appears that the new type of total war (World Wars I and II) changed the way in which distance was been shown. Distance can be shown through demonization, dehumanization, of the Others. Dehumanization legitimizes the use of violence.’ Greater or smaller distance may be recognized in various ways, for instance, as disparate (and sometimes recognized as “dark”) elements of the common social field. The use of humour, irony, and sometimes satire testifies to the existence of a certain hierarchy of values and, by the same token, to the divisions. The distance between two represented sides expresses the position and the ideas of the author and points out to the separation resulting from the author’s notions. ‘This differs from what we would call direct contact with reality. The degree of contact with (separation from) reality may be evaluated on the basis of the importance attributed to the details of the presented side. Lack of a sufficient number of details may result from the authors intentions, from lack of information, or from lack of direct contact. In the case of photography, this process takes place when the object transcends the original context of creation (e.g. family photographs) and becomes a representation. In this manner the representation of something new displaces the original image resulting from the initial context. The new comes into being in the new system and replaces the time of creation of the image.* The context change results in the image being placed within a new order. We encounter different types of distance. In the first type, the distance between the two sides as seen from the position of the author is presented. In the second type, the distance of the image itself from the reality is presented. Both depict relationships; in the first, the picture is drawn from one side, and in the second, it sheds light more on the production of subsequent alternative forms of relationship. We recognize both of these types on the basis of different elements—the first, on how the Other is presented, the second, on how and in what way the relationship between the sides is presented. If the context were changed, then it would be important to pay attention to the medium itself, to the use of a specific tool in specific circumstances and with a specific intention, and, later, to the manner in which the object is preserved—the archive (i.e., the modification of context). Particular significance is gained by the very medium, the technique employed, the so-called human factor, and the strategies of immediacy resulting from them. 7” The works of Alexander Laban Hinton present extreme cases in which the distance is taken to its utmost (2002a, 2002b). 8 Developing the notion of the archive, Van Alphen writes that the collection replaces history with classification, with order beyond the realm of temporality. In the collection, time is not something to be restored to an origin; rather, all time is made simultaneous, or synchronous, within the collection’s world (2014: 60).
