Week 5

This week in the lecture we discussed the cultural and artistic impact photography has had since it was invented. We looked at the fear of painting becoming obsolete and how photography changed into an art form as well as a medium of documentation simultaneously. In the tutorials we were split into groups and given different approaches to photography throughout history and how it was affected by the culture at the time, as well as how we perceive it today. The group I was in got Victorian post-mortem photography, how in the Victorian era when a close family member died (especially children), their bodies were dressed up and posed in order to have their photo taken. It was a way back then of permanently preserving the likeness of a deceased loved one- as death was much more common. The attitudes toward these images were extremely respectful, as seen by the sombre faces, nice clothing and occasionally some symbolism in religion and death. Our group discussed what changed in our culture that made doing something like this today seems taboo and disrespectful. We found a few points that we thought summed up this cultural shift.

As medicine advanced, people and children started dying less frequently and diseases were much more preventable, so the general public has become less and less sensitised to death, and by extension dead bodies. When someone dies today it is seen usually as a preventable tragedy, and more focus is on the grieving process for friends and families.

The child on the left had his eyes painted on after the picture was taken in order to give him a more life-like affect. On the right the girl has been posed as if she fell asleep in a chair.

As an extension of this point, people today (in most western cultures) do not like the idea of their bodies being propped up, dressed and moved into poses. Personally I don’t like the idea of my body being moved around too much once I die, but I’m not too sure why. I don’t know if it’s for the sake of the people around me, because I wouldn’t want to touch a dead body if I could avoid it, or if I just don’t like the idea of my body moving without me in it, as if I had some kind of spiritual connection to it. This brings me to the next point we made.

200 years ago was a much more religious time, people were less connected to their physical bodies because they viewed themselves mostly in spirit. So it could’ve been possible that once someone died, because the culture at the time believed that their spirit went up to heaven to live on, the body didn’t represent the person so much as it did when they were alive. However now, more and more people are connecting to their physical body instead of their spiritual nature (depending on what their beliefs are).

Also, with modern technology photography is much more commonplace and people tend to take photos of family and friends in order to preserve happy memories. The only instance of it being appropriate to take a picture of a deceased person would be documentation. If someone took a photo of a dead body and posted it to social media, people would find that extremely disrespectful because it can be seen as the person who posted it using another person’s death as a way of attracting attention to them, even if they are a grieving family member.

Discussing this brought up some interesting questions on how we used deceased peoples images today, such as videos of Freddie Mercury played at live concerts or passed peoples twitter accounts posting political messages and ads. Does it all depend on a person’s wishes before they pass, if they consent to their image being used should we use it? What if they died before they knew how it could be used, again with Freddie Mercury? Are there exceptions when it comes to documentation and education, even if the person said they did not want their image to be used in any way? It’s a lot to think about for a morbid and real subject.