![]() ![]() Bringing together an ensemble of works that Sekula never had the chance to publish together before his death in 2013, this new collection expands our sense of the persistent depth and breadth of Sekula’s concerns and commitments. This new compilation of textual, photographic and filmic essays underscores Sekula’s longstanding engagement with the many intersections between art, photography, and the shifting terrain of power struggles from both a local and international perspective. ![]() This paper will explore the representation of the criminal body from pre-photographic textual descriptions, the first mug shots, phrenology, physiognomy and the images of Cesare Lombroso, through to the contemporary digital age, the obsolete body according to Stelarc, the Visible Human Project, and my own video and photomedia practice.Art Isn’t Fair is the title of the last video completed in 2012 by Allan Sekula (1951-2013), a work commenting on the rise of art fairs as yet another international gathering of moneyed elites. Referencing Michel Foucault, I will explore video conferencing as an instrument of political technology and machinery that assures dissymmetry and difference, impacting upon the visibility and construction of the criminal body. I suggest that a new 'observatory' of humanity has appeared, a post biological instrument of power and control over the imprisoned body where the inmate is reduced to an isolated, disembodied subject in virtual space. The resulting data will be analysed through the lens of theories of embodiment, phenomenology, critical criminology and visual arts. My interdisciplinary research explores the impact of video conferencing upon incarcerated persons through fieldwork involving interviews with inmates at correctional centres. Prisoners face a new form of representation in twenty-first century criminal courtrooms, with video conferencing replacing the need for inmates to physically appear in certain procedures. The criminal body has been perceived as inherently deviant and potentially transgressive, yet corporeality - the physical presence of the criminal body – has been fundamental in legal process for centuries. (PhD thesis, University of East Anglia, Norwich/UK, 1995) The dispositif photographique thus served to constitute a visual economy of individuals which contributed to the affirmation of social positions and a distinct sense of self for the social agents. Simultaneously, the observer's subjectivity itself was articulated by the practices involved in the use of portrait photographs. ![]() Ultimately, it was the latter's subjective reaction that served to affirm the status of objectivity of the representations. It is argued that the epistemological status of photographs hinged on the emotive impact they had on the observer. The study assesses recent contributions to the historiography of scientific representation and seeks to re-evaluate the significance of photography in the period between 18. Robinson, and the influential French photographer Albert Londe. ![]() Other material under discussion includes the publications of Paul Broca, Charles Darwin, A. Among the sources which are being examined are the British manual Notes & Queries and the works of Gustav Fritsch in Anthropology, the writings of John Conolly, Henri Legrand du Saulle and other psychiatrists, the publications and collections of criminologists like Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, and Alexandre Lacassagne, and the literature on Alphonse Bertillon’s system of police photography. The main examples for these photographic practices are taken from various European countries, including France, Britain, Germany, Austria, and Italy, and are discussed and compared in their respective social, historical, and scientific contexts. This study investigates the uses of portrait photography in the nineteenth-century sciences of Anthropology, Psychiatry, and Criminal Anthropology, and discusses these practices in relation to applications of photography in Criminalistics, and to the portraits made by high street photographers. ![]()
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