download this issue as a PDF
download this issue as a PDF
download this issue as a PDF
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
documents. In abandoning <strong>this</strong> strict critical approach to photographic images, Barthes is embracing the idea<br />
that the referent in a photograph is a direct link to the p<strong>as</strong>t, a visual trace of a subject or object ‘that h<strong>as</strong> been’<br />
(Barthes, p. 80). For Barthes, the photograph, unlike text or language, is a medium that is capable of carrying its<br />
referent within itself. In Barthes’ later writings on photography, the referent therefore becomes the essence of<br />
the photograph’s communicability <strong>as</strong> conventional language becomes redundant. This represents a complete<br />
about-turn in Barthes’ reflections on photography.<br />
In Camera Lucida, then, Barthes is making an ontological claim: if we damage the photograph we damage the<br />
image and its realism, and we thereby destroy the photograph’s essence or meaning. On another level of<br />
abstraction, I am arguing that texts and photographs can also ‘laminate’ each other. They become fused; they<br />
collaborate to produce a single piece of work or artefact; they are mutually supporting; they become <strong>as</strong>sociated<br />
with each other; and, <strong>as</strong> with construction of the paper photograph, they can also trap meanings between them<br />
(like insects in amber). These are the b<strong>as</strong>ic premises of lamination <strong>as</strong> I am defining it. It is intended <strong>as</strong> a<br />
sociological concept for understanding and analysing the constructions, <strong>as</strong>sociations and meanings produced<br />
by photo-text amalgams. With lamination I am reinstating the significance of text in order to reconceptualise<br />
the effects that it can have on the use of photographic images in various contexts. Put simply, I am therefore<br />
using Barthes’ supposedly post-semiotic perspective on photography to re-establish a semiotic relationship<br />
between photographs and texts because, <strong>as</strong> a metaphor of construction, lamination works <strong>as</strong> an overall system<br />
or meta-narrative for understanding <strong>as</strong>sociations between the two media and the effects that such <strong>as</strong>sociations<br />
are capable of producing.<br />
To be clear, I identify a number of processes or stages involved in lamination. These are: exemplary lamination,<br />
substantive lamination, de-lamination, re-lamination, mis-lamination, ironic lamination and meta-lamination.<br />
Lamination refers to any construction in which text(s) and photograph(s) are combined; exemplary lamination<br />
refers to efficient and precise uses of texts and photos, usually involving one photograph and a caption;<br />
substantive lamination refers to extended and multi-layered combinations in which meanings, <strong>as</strong> they build,<br />
become more complex and manifold; de-lamination refers to the destruction of meaning that occurs when<br />
photos and texts are separated, torn from one another for the use of either in a new context; re-lamination<br />
refers to the reintroduction of texts and photographs in new configurations and contexts; mis-lamination refers<br />
to the gaps that can exist between texts and images and to those situations where textual descriptions and<br />
visual appearances are incompatible; ironic lamination refers to the versatility of both writing and photographs<br />
<strong>as</strong> media forms with multiple meanings and their use in combination to exploit <strong>this</strong> versatility. Finally, metalamination<br />
describes a kind of m<strong>as</strong>ter lamination, an over-arching text or narrative, which is used to compress<br />
and make transparent a number of perspectives under a single perspective. This paper is therefore a metalamination<br />
of Calle’s work.<br />
‘The Sleepers’ <strong>as</strong> a Lamination<br />
In published versions of The Sleepers, the photo-text sequences usually consist of brief and efficient written<br />
descriptions followed by a number of photographs depicting the participants in Calle’s game at various stages<br />
44