Oldal 601 [601]
Historical Reenactment in Photography: Familiarizing with the Otherness of the Past?
pessimistic about it, claiming that we currently deal with an irreconcilable other¬
ness of photographs of the past (Ibid.: 83). Thus, according to Berger, nowadays we
have to produce a special context for photographs—using other pictures and words
(Ibid.: 84). If we succeed, we can place a picture in time again—not its original
but in the time of narration (Ibid.: 89). That is, in my opinion, what reenactors—
photographers are doing when they re-create war pictures and offer their narration
about the past.
Susan Sontag, drawing widely on Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas (1963), shows
that in war photographs themselves there is no meaning, but instead they come
with a caption or a picture interpretation. As Roma Sendyka, who compiles the
works of Woolf, Sontag, and Butler put it, “Photographs have no cognitive value—
they are cognitively empty and that is why they evoke indignation—war erases
everything that is human. Hence, for Woolf the image of war does not show any¬
thing” (2012: 97). Sontag follows this by arguing that we inscribe in photographs
what should be seen on them (2010: 39). She also points out that the truth about
war can be felt only by its participants (Ibid.: 145), for others, war images are just
empty containers that can be filled with meaning (Sendyka 2012: 100).
Discussion undertaken by Woolf and continued by Sontag was later criticised
by Butler. Butler claims that photography cannot be semantically empty, because,
as Sendyka explains Butler’s standpoint “the act of making it is human, placed
within meaningful practices” (Ibid.: 101). Although Sontag is aware that photos
themselves constitute a kind of interpretation of photographed reality (2010: 58),
Butler bases her argument on this particular practice of interpretation: “It seems
important to consider that the photograph, in framing reality, is already interpret¬
ing what will count within the frame” (2005: 823). Pictures therefore seem to be
an interpretation in the very moment of taking them. In the same time, however,
Butler admits that it does not necessarily mean that they have a narrative coher¬
ence, since there are also other types of interpretation (Ibid.: 823). For Butler the
“framing” of a photograph is therefore particularly important, since in her opinion,
it evokes reactions and emotions (Ibid.: 827).
Sontag also points to emotions triggered by photographs, but in her book
Regarding the Pain of Others (2010), she describes their influence as “haunting”,
which does not necessarily constitute a reflexive process. Moreover, she states that
this potential of photographs to “haunt” viewers decreases in time: there are too
many shocking images; therefore they cannot influence us deeply anymore. Rep¬
resentations of humans’ suffering in particular according to Sontag are just clichés
with no power to affect the viewers. Reenacted photos are thus also clichés, there¬
fore we should reflect on whether they have the potential to influence the audience
and complement the imagery of the past. As I mentioned earlier, with regard to
reenacted pictures we have to be aware that, although posted on the internet and
accessible to everyone, they are targeted rather at members of a reenactment move¬
ment. They present battles, military equipment, and soldiers’ gatherings but also
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