Images are very rarely presented without an accompanying text. A title, caption, and sometimes even an essay accompany images in most cases. Moreover, we can say that photographs always come in the hand of language. There is no need for the language to be written by the photographer (or editor, or writer), the viewer will always put words to an image. Whether in a descriptive manner, or in the form of semiological critic, language always appears in the context of imagery. One way to put words to images is to make a verbal representation of a visual representation, a concept called ekphrasis. In his book “Picture Theory”, WJT Mitchells describes three phases of Ekphrasis:
(1) Ekphrastic Indifference, which comes from the thought that Ekphrasis is impossible, that is “words can ‘cite’ but never ‘sight’ their objects”.
(2) Ekphrastic Hope is the moment in which we realise that ekphrasis is not impossible but in a ‘sense’ can work and ‘make us see’.
(3) And Ekphrastic Fear, which comes into play when the gap between the difference in verbal representation, and visual representation, narrows and both become one and the same. It is “a moment of resistance or counterdesire that occurs when we sense that … ekphrasis might be realized literally and actually.” (Mitchell, 1998)
Other rhetorical devices are what Roland Barthes speaks of as functions of the linguistic message in relation to images. He talks about text as a way of anchorage and text as relay.
Anchorage is text used to fix the many signifieds that the viewer can attribute to a photograph. It is a way of guiding the interpretation of the symbolic message and also bracketing the extended interpretation or the lack of it. On the other hand, a relay text works as a complement to the image, the text contains information that the image doesn’t. The information of the work comes from the interpolation of both image and text. This last form of linguistic message is used by Duane Michals. As a conceptual artist dealing with photography and text, he puts onto the balance and questions the normal relationships between image and text.
In the image below (A1) Michals uses text to challenge the norms of photography and text. I will start by looking at the title of the photograph.
In “The spoken Image”, Clive Scott distinguishes ‘caption’ from ‘title’ and enumerates three different types of titles:
(a) as destination,
(b) as point of departure,
(c) and as parallel or displaced commentary.
This last type is the one we find in the photograph above. “There are things here not seen in this photograph” not only acts as a title, but tends to shift towards the mode of caption. The meaning of the work is found in the convergence between picture and title. Without it we wouldn’t know what to look for in the image, what meaning to attribute to it, and it would be completely incoherent. Clive Scott describes this type of title as a ‘Rebus Title’, which “delivers the photograph from its inherent incoherence” (Scott, 1999). The rebus title is nonetheless than a caption: it speaks to the viewer and subjects the image to language, thus, the meaning is displaced from the image to the caption as this last one either precedes the image or derives from it.
Furthermore, this caption destroys the almighty power attributed to photography to convey reality and be a truthful representation of it, for it transfers the weight of the photograph to the text and we find a scene represented as the intersection of both.
A 1. Duane Michals, There are things here not seen in this photograph, 1973.
If we think about the roles of picture titles which I mentioned before we find that “There are things here not seen in this photographs” works as all of them together. A title as destination “explains, synthesizes and gives coherence to the image” (Scott, 1999), for in this case the image is the subject of the language and can be treated as an object. Thus, the title works as a metalanguage, that is, a form of language used for the description or analysis of another language, in this case the photographic language.
Moreover, if we initially think of the title as a point of departure, we find that it “orientates the spectator and then leaves the image to do its work”. But the image does not stand alone.
The handwritten text which comes along with the photograph works both as anchorage and relay. As relay, it contains information which the image doesn’t, and this in itself is a way of guiding the interpretation that the viewer might have of the photograph, thus we find ourselves thinking of anchorage. Even though the text and the image are two separate pieces of information they are connected in two ways. The first one and most obvious, is that they exist in the same space, the photographic paper. The second one is that the text could not be displayed without the image, for it addresses the image, and by speaking of things which are not contained in this image it invokes it and makes it a necessary object in the work frame.
Duane Michals work has been described as ‘bad poetry’. Why poetry if it does not have the form of poetry? His texts can be put in the category of ekphrastic poetry:
“The narrowest meanings of the word ekphrasis as a poetic mode, ‘giving voice to a mute art object,’ or offering ‘a rhetorical description of a work of art,’ give way to a more general application that includes any ‘set description intended to bring person, place, picture, etc. before the mind’s eye.’ Ekphrasis may be even further generalized, as it is by Murray Krieger, into a general ‘principle’ exemplifying the aestheticizing of language in what he calls the ‘still moment.’ For Krieger, the visual arts are a metaphor, not just for verbal representation of visual experience, but for the shaping of language into formal patterns that ‘still’ the movement of linguistic temporality into a spatial, formal array. […] The estrangement of the image/text division is overcome, and a sutured, synthetic form, a verbal icon or imagetext, arises in its place.” (Mitchell, 1998)
In cinema, the resource of voiceover and dialogue is information that is not contained in the image but is parallel to the image, and so the general meaning of the moving image is found in the intersection of both. Likewise, Duane Michals’ text is parallel to the image and ‘gives voice to the mute art object [the image]’ creating an ekphrastic image.
Up to now we have been talking about the relation of the text to the image, but there also exists an inverse relation of the image to the text. In Mitchell’s text quoted above, he explains that once the ekphrastic hope is overcome the image/text division is sutured to form a ‘verbal icon’ or ‘imagetext’. In the relation of dependency from the text to the image, the image supports this new form of imagetext created by ekphrasis. What we can picture ourselves is supported by ‘evidence’ from the image and situates it in a factual space and time. It is a mutual support which goes both ways.
In this example we have seen how Michals not only challenges the conception of photography as an almighty source of information and a true representation of reality, but also how he challenges the norms of image and text which writers such as Barthes and scott have set.
In his work Possesion (image A2), Victor Burgin takes the form of advertising to his work. He uses ‘found’ images and text, combining them to convey a different type of message, that of capitalism and social inequality. I find this piece sarcastic, for in a way it advertises capitalism as desirable.
The first message in advertising is the linguistic message. In this case the captions in Burgin’s work have two fold message. The first one, is the denotational message, in which he poses a question and a statement. This second one is simply facts: “7% of our population own 84% of our wealth.” The first one is a question. As in advertising form, this is only a rhetorical question: it does not seek for an answer from the viewers side, it simply raises the question as an excuse for an answer. In this case, the product for sale is capitalism and possession itself.
A 2. Victor Burgin, Possession, 1976.
These two come together to form the second level of the linguistic message, the connoted message, which is a rejection of capitalism and possession for the good of society. But this is not quite so because there is also the message of the image. The image suggests desire, sex, beauty and transmits a feeling of sensuality at the level of signifier. Combined with the text, it connects possession and wealth, with desire, sex and beauty, and achieves its purpose: to advertise capitalism, possession and wealth as desirable.
The captions in “Possession” challenge their own conventions. They work more like a title as parallel or displaced commentary. They have a different meaning on their own, but the meaning is found in the intersection between photograph and text.
Following the model of sensational press, John Hilliard uses captions in to fix the signifier of the four images shown bellow (A3). By cropping one photo in different ways the signifier changes the signified. It is the context the subject is placed in that changes the signified of the image. The captions, work because they exploit the ambiguity of the images. As a rebus caption it “delivers the photograph from its inherent incoherence” and subjects the image to language. By using this resource, which depends on the photographer (journalist, editor, etc.) he is questioning the guarantee we are given by these in the sensational press.
A 3. John Hilliard, Cause of Death?, 1974.
The captions also work as destination titles, which explain, synthesize and give coherence to the images, similar to Barthes’ anchorage where the “text is meant to fix the floating chain of signifieds in such a way to counter the terror of uncertain signs.” (Barthes, 1990). Moreover, the title of the work is “Cause of Death?” This reinforces the questioning raised by the work. In my opinion the captions given to the images should not be necessary, for the title used is a sufficient point of departure for the images to do their work. Especially in the horizontal cropped images the signified is quite clear and answers the question of the title.
In these three examples we have seen how image and text work together. Text helps the understanding of photographs, or better said, guides the viewer into an interpretation amongst a floating chain of signifiers.
Bibliography
Campany, D. (2005). Art and Photography. London: Phaidon.
Barthes, R. (1990). Image-Music-Text (6th Edition ed.). (S. Heath, Trans.) London: Fontana Paperbacks.
Breton, A. Nadja. (R. Howard, Trans.) New York: Grove Press.
Burgin, V. (1986). Seeing Sense. In V. Burgin, The end of Art Theory. London: Macmillan.
Marzona, D. (2005). Conceptual Art. Taschen.
Mitchell, W. (1998). Ekphrasis and the Other. In W. Mitchels, Picture Theory: essays on verbal and visual representation (pp. 151-181). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Scott, C. (1999). Title and Caption: projecting the photographic image. In C. Scott, The Spoken Image: Photograph and Language. London: Reaktion.
Williamson, J. (1978). Decoding Advertisements: ideology and meaning in advertising. London: Boyars.
Do not reproduce this essay or any part of it without previous written approval from it’s author.
How does text shape the understanding of photographs? by Tomas A. Hein is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Stephen Shore - Uncommon Places
hm… luv it..