Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma [Paperback]

Ulrich Baer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 23, 2005

In this remarkable contribution to photographic criticism and psychoanalytic literature, Ulrich Baer traces the hitherto overlooked connection between the experience of trauma and the photographic image. Instead of treating trauma as a photographic "theme," Baer examines the striking parallel between those moments arrested mechanically by photography and those arrested experientially by the traumatized psyche -- moments that bypass normal cognition and memory. Taking as points of departure Charcot's images of hysteria and Freud's suggestion that the unconscious is structured like a camera, Baer shows how the invention of photography and the emergence of the modern category of "trauma" intersect. Drawing on recent work in the field of trauma studies, he shows how experiences that are inherently split between their occurrence and their remembrance might register in and as photographic images.In light of contemporary discussions of recovered memories and the limits of representing such catastrophes as the Holocaust, Baer examines photographs of artistic, medical, and historical subjects from the perspective of witnessing rather than merely viewing. He shows how historicist approaches to photography paradoxically overlook precisely those cataclysmic experiences that define our age. The photograph's apparent immunity to time is seen as a call for a future response--a response that is prompted by the ghostly afterlife of every photograph's subject. In a moving discussion of a rare collection of color slides taken by a Nazi official in the Lodz ghetto, Baer makes us aware that it is the viewer's responsibility to account for the spectral evidence embedded in every image.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Applying psychoanalytical theory to photo criticism, Baer (German, NYU) makes comparisons between the notion of the photograph's "arrested moment" and how the human psyche processes trauma. He draws from Freud, Barthes, Benjamin, and Charcot, as well as recent studies in trauma, to prove that images representing a traumatic history lack the concept of "future" and forward movement that characterizes conventional documentary photographs. Traumatic memory, like the camera, freezes the moment and removes it from the forward motion of linear time. Instead of sensational images, as the title might suggest, Baer uses seemingly commonplace photographs to illustrate his ideas, thus placing the viewer in the role of witness instead of innocent onlooker. Ultimately, Baer is able to support his premise by establishing the connection between the concept of trauma and the development of the photograph, making this research original as well as timely. Baer is the editor of No One Bears Witness for the Witness: The Culture of Memory and Historical Responsibility after the Shoah and the forthcoming 110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11. The current volume contains an extensive bibliography and notes and is recommended for graduate and research collections. Shauna Frischkorn, Millersville Univ. Lib., PA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Whether he's discussing the relationship between AIDS-activist video and Charles Ludlam's aesthetic of the ridiculous, applying Walter Benjamin's concept of messianic time to the experience of living with AIDS, or exploring the ethical position of film as witness, Gregg Bordowitz is at once passionately committed to socially engaged, theoretically informed art and searchingly honest about its difficulties. Representing a unique voice that refuses to separate the personal and the political, this is an indispensable collection for anyone interested in contemporary debates about cultural politics."--Rosalyn Deutsche, Barnard College, author of *Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics*Please note: "Ludlam" was misspelled in previous version.

"Baer seeks to usurp our common understanding of the photograph with a richly informed and persuasive discourse." Robert Pepperell Leonardo

"Genuinely interesting, original, and well-written. The book's arguments will be especially relevant to scholars of the still-developing field of photo-history and criticism."--Geoffrey Batchen, Professor of Art History, City University of New York Graduate Center

"This book introduces photography into the rapidly expanding arena of interdisciplinary debates about collective trauma, memory, and representation. Arguing that photography and traumatic events have a common structure, Baer pleads with great sensitivity for an ethical way of seeing--witnessing--that both respects and responds to the unknowable reality of trauma. A welcome contribution to an urgent discussion."--Rosalyn Deutsche, Barnard College, author of *Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics*

"Georges Didi-Huberman's *Invention of Hysteria* is an almost legendary text, so influential has it been on cultural criticism, and this even before its very welcome translation into English. Written in a style that is at once literary and philosophical, Didi-Huberman brilliantly demonstrates how a study of hysteria in the nineteenth century continues to have profound relevance for anyone interested in questions of culture and its embodiment -- that is, questions concerning the workings of power. The author's erudite combination of visual and textual research and provocative analysis has produced a book that will be equally crucial to scholars of medicine, feminism, psychoanalysis, literature, photography, art history, the body, or postmodern theory, to name only a few of the fields it touches on. But it's also simply a great read, an artful rendition of history that reminds us of the extent to which the 'weird science' of the nineteenth century still haunts our thinking to this day."--Geoffrey Batchen, Professor of Art History, City University of New York Graduate CenterPlease note: Endorser gives permission to excerpt from quote.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 218 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (September 23, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262524473
• ISBN-13: 978-0262524476
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #343,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3.0 out of 5 stars weak argumentation but nonetheless interesting, December 12, 2010

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This review is from: Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma (Paperback)

This book is suggestive rather than having a strong argument. The structure is a little eccentric: photographs of hysteria are analysed in one chapter, while the rest of the book considers photographs about the holocaust. There's little engagement with other books on the topic of holocaust imagery such as the work of Didi-Huberman, Lisa Saltzman and Barbie Zelizer. On the other hand, the book does raises some interesting issues about hysteria and the camera and examines some interesting photographic projects about the Holocaust. On the whole, the writer does not handle images well, although the discussion of landscape is quite nuanced. My feeling is the book needed another draft and deeper thinking, nonetheless it is provocative and well worth reading.