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SECCIÓN ARTE Y LITERATURA // SUSAN SONTAG, Antes disparar que observar. Por DAVID CASTILLO
Quince años después de su muerte, la voz de la escritora nos sigue haciendo propuestas: "La contingencia de la fotografía demuestra que todo es perecedero; la arbitrariedad de las pruebas fotográficas indica que la realidad es fundamentalmente inclasificable". Me gustaría saber qué pensaría Sontag del universo fotográfico individualizado y depredador --en sus palabras-- que aportan los teléfonos móviles, la captación inmediata de la realidad de cualquier situación que se produzca. Por ejemplo, cuestionaba los límites que los maoístas hacían de la fotografía en China. También ponía la secuencia de Antonioni sobre el desastre de Tiananmen. O se paseaba por territorios de la filosofía o de la pintura teniendo el cuenta la evolución de un arte y una aplicación sin medida. En realidad todo nos dirige hacia un debate sobre la realidad, sobre la percepción de la realidad que nos inunda y devora.
Sontag en su irrepetible ensayo "Aproximación a Artaud" nos dice que la relación sufrimiento-escritura es uno de los temas capitales de Artaud: solo se tiene derecho a hablar después de haber sufrido, aunque la necesidad de utilizar el lenguaje ya sea ocasión de sufrimiento. En el mundo postmoderno, donde la levedad implica todo el esfuerzo y la picaresca y el trueque son el presente de las relaciones humanas, la concepción del arte como calvario de Artaud nos lleva hacia una dimensión remota. En la visión de la fotografía constante podemos observar los signos de la estupidez, antes fotografiar que ver, antes disparar que observar.
| ART AND LITERATURE SECTION // SUSAN SONTAG, Before shooting what to observe. By DAVID CASTILLO |
In her famous essay "On Photography," Susan Sontag tells us that what is true of photographs is also true of the photographically seen world. It might be a thesis, but the American writer's book is a source of ideas and visions of a changing world, that of ideas and perceptions.
Very timely are the rereadings like the one we make from the Catalan edition made by the Virreina Centro de la Imagen with the publishing house Arcadia, and the translation of Anna Llisterri. From the cover, the book is filled with hooks to nibble on this exhilarating adventure that always involves the Sontag:"When in 1973 this series of essays was published, Susan Sontag's critical look on the photography was a revolutionary contribution. The initial purpose of thinking about some aesthetic and moral problems posed by the omnipresence of images was already unfolded to give body to a much broader and incisive theory about meaning, function, use, technique, history of and the relationship with the other arts and their political scope. Convinced that photographs teach us a visual code, with a clear ethical dimension, Sontag offers us texts that read today, more than forty years later, contribute to an in-depth understanding of the real weight of the image in contemporary culture and society. "
Fifteen years after her death, the writer's voice continues to make proposals: "The contingency of photography shows that everything is perishable; the arbitrariness of photographic evidence indicates that reality is fundamentally unclassifiable". I would like to know what Sontag would think of the individualized and predatory photographic universe -- in his words -- that mobile phones provide, the immediate capture of the reality of any situation that occurs. For example, he questioned the limits that Maoists made of photography in China. He also put Antonioni's sequence on the Tiananmendisaster. Or he walked through territories of philosophy or painting taking intoaccountthe evolution of an art and an unmeasured application. In reality everything leads us towards a debate about reality, about the perception of reality that floods and devours us.
Sontag in his unrepeatable essay "Approaching Artaud " tells us that the suffering-writing relationship is one of Artaud's capital themes: he only has the right to speak after he has suffered, although the need to use language already it's an occasion for suffering. In the postmodern world, where lightness involves all the effort and picaresque and barter are the present of human relationships, the conception of art as Artaud's ordeal takes us to a remote dimension. In the vision of constant photography we can observe the signs of stupidity, before photographing to see, rather than shooting to observe.
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