Over the past few days the New York Times has run three very different stories about visual images:
Tuesday's Science section featured a piece on British researchers who are scrutinizing early twentieth century films for clues to handedness. Early filmmakers tended to capture street scenes and the everyday activity of public life; researchers are looking for evidence of the historical prevalence of left-handedness in films that feature things like hand-waving.
A story in today's Styles section chronicles the creepy but growing practice of what we might call the "paparazzi proposal": men are hiring photographers to lurk in the shadows at restaurants or behind bushes in city parks to surreptitiously snap them as they drop to bended knee and propose. One would-be-fiance suggested he hired the photographer because he "wanted this day to be something we could tell people about." A few of the unsuspecting women are quoted as saying that although initially it seemed a bit "stalkerish," they were happy to email the photos to all their friends. Call it life chronicled for the Facebook generation: telling = showing.
The third story is far more significant -- historically, politically, and morally. Recently the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC received a donation of a photograph album featuring images made at Auschwitz before the liberation of the camp in 1945. The photographs depict senior SS officers and other Germans who worked at the camp. The images feature leisure -- SS men and women listening to music, eating fresh fruit, and soaking up the sun on deck chairs -- and they send chills up the spine. The photographs are haunted by the ghosts of what really happened at Auschwitz, and, as the article suggests, must be read in light of the terror that took place beyond the frame. Additional information about the images and links to The Holocaust Museum's online exhibits may be found here.
As windows onto the historical body. As the compulsion to turn experience into event. As cues to the tragic world beyond the frame. Three ways to "read" images.
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