Context without context
Posted July 20, 2007 by John Menick
In a public reading four years ago, William Gibson was asked by a well-meaning audience member whether the viral videos in his novel Pattern Recognition were meant to address contemporary images “without context.” After a slight pause Gibson wryly asked in his dry Canadian-ized southern drawl, “Are you in school?” The laughter subsided and Gibson confessed to having to go away for a while and think about what she was asking. I thought of this exchange when reading Errol Morris’ recent blog entry at The New York Times:
I have often wondered: would it be possible to look at a photograph shorn of all its context, caption-less, unconnected to current thought and ideas? It would be like stumbling on a collection of photographs in a curiosity shop – pictures of people and places that we do not recognize and know nothing about. I might imagine things about the people and places in the photographs but know nothing about them. Nothing.
Morris’ entry is perhaps one of the most thoughtful things I’ve read in The Times in a while, and one can only hope it leads us a little closer to his upcoming film on Iraq. Lurking in the background of his essay is the question of whether or not it’s possible to have a photograph without context. Of course, Gibson’s audience member was being somewhat hyperbolic. There is always some context. But why is there always some remainder of some relation to something outside a photograph? Is it because the very fact of a photograph necessitates context: namely that someone — something — in fact took it?
I would propose a project: create an exhibition or a book or an album of photographs without context. None. Pure semantic self-sufficiency. I can see it now: scientists working around the clock in hazmat suits making sure every scrap of context has been expunged from the premises. A job for real professionals.
