Introduction
Death and photography are inextricably
linked; they are mutually bound by the medium’s ability to ‘freeze’ a
moment in time, liberating the subject from the inevitability of death. From
its very origins, photography was blessed with two possibilities: one, the
ability to produce an ‘indexical’ image, and two, the ability to visualize the previously
invisible. The latter contingency appears alongside the emergence of American
Spiritualism–a nineteenth century movement with a cultural stake in the
existence of ghosts–where the photographic index swiftly became a mediator to
the afterlife, thus giving birth to the genre of the spirit photograph. For the
movement’s acolytes, these ‘spirit photographs’ breathed new life into the
ontological possibility of a lingering human consciousness after death. In this
sense, spirit photography was doubly subversive of ephemerality: not only does
the photograph preserve the likeness
of a subject; it could also confront the imminence of death by revealing the
existence of an etheric afterlife.
However, there is a profound historical
and cultural ambiguity surrounding the existence of ghosts; despite their
apparent photographic presence, their existence remains entrenched in
uncertainty. This truism has similar consequences for spirit photography, for
it interrogates what Tom Gunning calls the photograph’s truth claim–admittedly, an index by another name.[1] [2] In
photography, the index responds to the “physical relationship between the
object photographed and the image finally created.”[3] In
other words, the index ostensibly proves that the photographed event took place
at that time in that space. Current theorization of the index situates it in a
place of crisis: theorists such as Gunning seem to be recasting it as
phenomenology.[4]
Spirit photography, too, places the index in a precarious situation that
demands a rethinking of the medium’s indexical quality. Despite the recurring
accusations of forgery and happenstance, many historical accounts on spirit
photography are oblique in their reference to the genre’s authenticity. In
light of this, this essay seeks to alleviate these discursive omissions by
interrogating spirit photography’s indexicality; in other words, I argue here
that manipulation and perception of spirit photography complicate and
compromise the photographic index. My reasoning for this is twofold. Firstly,
while some spirit photographs continue to elude a rational explanation, many
are confirmable results of accidental or conscious tampering with the
photographic process (double exposure being a recurring tool). I argue that
these situations do not disprove the
photograph index, but do compromise its claims to legitimacy. Secondly, the
photographic index is brought further into conflict by the subjectivity of perception.[5]
Briefly, I argue here that the perception of (and the narrative created around)
the spirit photograph’s index complicate–but do not necessarily invalidate–the
medium’s indexical quality.
Structurally, the first section of this
essay dialectically situates André Bazin and Roland Barthes–representing
photography’s objectivity and its subjectivity respectively–to tease out the
distinctions between authenticity and perception. These two theorists in
particular are remarkable for their visceral confrontation with the mutual
theme of photography and death.[6] [7]
For Bazin, photography’s ontological status is predicated on its mechanical
reproduction of reality and its ability to create a ‘double’ of the subject.[8]
For this reason, Bazin designates the medium as the apex of the mummy complex;
with photography, image arts were no longer bound by representation and could
effectively ‘embalm’ the subject by preserving his or her likeness.[9]
Photography’s ability to reproduce reality in total is an area of dispute in my
essay, for I will argue that spirit photography appropriates and
re-contextualizes parts of other photographs, an act that lies about what took
place before the camera. In addition, Bazin makes an assumption about the
limited role the photographer plays in the photographic process.[10]
This essay attempts to indicate the ways in which the practice of spirit
photography contests the assumption, as the photographer was necessary to
consciously or unconsciously alter the image. For Barthes, his invaluable
reflections on photography in Camera
Lucida situate the viewer in relation to his subjectivity by way of the
elements of the photograph’s reception–the studium
and the punctum.[11] I
employ Barthes here to argue that the viewer’s subjectivity plays a part in the
legitimating of a spirit photograph; this subjectivity, in other words, poses a
threat to the photograph’s indexical quality. Following this dichotomy, I will
chart a brief history of Spiritualism and its relationship to photography. Here
I will pay specific attention to Spiritualism’s role in easing the mourning
process. I will also spell out the ways in which spirit photography collapses
our common understanding of what constitutes a medium: in Spiritualist
discourse, a medium is not necessarily only a technology; it can also be a
human, thus bringing Bazin’s comments about the photographer into question.[12] In
the final section of this paper, I return to questions of the photographic
index by using Barthes and Bazin to interrogate the ambiguity that surrounds
spirit photography’s ontological and phenomenological nature.
Bazin
and Barthes: Photography and Death, Depiction and Perception
Debates about photography's ontological status recur throughout theory, but in his formative text, “The Ontology of the
Photographic Image,” André Bazin claims that photography’s ontological status
is derived from its ability to mechanically reproduce reality.[13]
Here, Bazin situates the medium as the telos
of the arts: for Bazin, the invention of photography finally achieved the
artistic desire of verisimilitude, for he writes, “Photography has freed the
plastic arts from their obsession with likeness.”[14]
Not only does photography successfully create a duplicate of its subject, but
it also, according to Bazin, removes the artistic bias of the photographer:
For
the first time, between the originating object and its reproduction there
intervenes only the instrumentality of a nonliving agent. For the first time an
image of the world is formed
automatically, without the creative intervention of man. The personality of
the photographer enters into the proceedings only in his selection of the
object to be photographed and by way of the purpose he has in his mind.
Although the final result may reflect something of his personality, this does
not play the same role as it is played by that of the painter. All the arts are based on the presence of
man, only photography derives an advantage from his absence.[15]
Photography, then,
cannot represent, because the artist plays a limited creative role in the
photographic process that cannot totally reflect the photographer’s intentions.[16]
According to Bazin, the photographer’s creative license is displaced by the
medium’s automatisms that give the photograph “a quality of credibility.”[17]
This credibility is a result of the photograph’s adherence to the objects it
depicts, creating an ‘index’[18]
of a moment that is ‘mummified’ both temporally and spatially.[19]
I argue here that Bazin’s contentions are
misleading. While Bazin may not be incorrect in stating that photography
‘mechanically reproduces reality’, [20]
he fails to account properly for photographic manipulations. Although the most
manipulated photograph may retain some aspect of the original event, many of
these alterations hinder its indexical claim. This is especially so in spirit
photography, since the perception of these photographs often gives them a false
status of authority. Furthermore, Bazin’s statement about the limitations
imposed on the photographer demand more scrutiny.[21]
As I will discuss later, in early Spiritualist discourse the pictorial trace of
a spirit was premised on the photographer’s role, for many spirit photographers
claimed they had been possessed during the photographic process. The same could
be said of manipulability; if, in other words, the spirit photograph was
‘faked’ but claimed to be authentic, then the photographer is required to alter
the presentation and the subject of the picture, thus giving the original event
an entirely new meaning and context.
In
contrast to Bazin’s objectivizing of photography, Barthes’ personal and
eulogistic reflections on photography illuminate the medium’s subjective nature.[22]
While Barthes does not argue against the photographic index, he does suggest
that photography’s appeal is derived from the viewer’s social conditioning; he
writes,
A
specific photograph, in effect, is never distinguished from its referent (from
what it represents) or at least is not immediately
or generally distinguished from its
referent (as is the case for every other image, encumbered–from the start, and
because of its status–by the way in which the object is simulated): it is not
impossible to perceive the photographic signifier (certain professionals do so), but it requires a secondary action of knowledge or reflection.[23]
For Barthes, it is not
only a question of what the photograph depicts, but also of how the photograph
is perceived; for this reason, he
introduces two elements of the photograph’s reception: the studium and the punctum.[24]
The studium–commonly used in the
discursive formations of history and sociology–is derived from institutional
knowledge, or what we have been educated to seek out in the photograph.[25]
The punctum, however, derives from
something the viewer cannot explain; in other words, this punctum–which “disturbs” the studium–is
that aspect of the photograph that solicits attention to itself by ‘pricking’
the viewer.[26]
For my argument, the punctum surfaces
when the viewer of the photograph recognizes certain semiotic cues that suggest
the likeness of the ‘ghost’ in the spirit photograph. Therefore, phenomenology
is crucial to understanding how spirit photography threatens the medium’s
indexical quality.
Furthermore, Bazin and Barthes are in
mutual agreement over their thematic interest in death.[27]
Bazin claims that the photograph’s preservation of a subject’s likeness is
ostensibly a victory over death.[28]
Barthes, however, takes this further: in the context of death, the photograph’s
that-has-been places the viewer in a
state of melancholy: the person depicted in the photograph is no longer, and further, this event has
already passed.[29]
Yet despite this sadness fuelled by nostalgia, Barthes’ writing on the death of
his mother and her presence in photographs is indescribably related to the
mourning process, as Geoff Dyer notes in his foreword to Camera Lucida, “In a way, the death of his mother was fortuitous in
that it confirmed something Barthes had suspected: that his fascination with
the medium–as he glibly admitted in a radio interview in early 1977–“probably
has something to do with death…”[30]
In the next section, I will elaborate on the relationship between photography
and mourning by discussing the historical and cultural beliefs of American
Spiritualism. In this sense, I will be paying special attention to the ways in
which the movement used photography as an objective tool to ease the process of
mourning.
Mourning
the Dead: Spiritualism and Photography
Spiritualism and communications technology
enjoy a nuanced relationship that goes back to its very roots. American
Spiritualism emerged in 1848 following the apparent haunting of the Fox
family’s upstate New York home.[31]
Moreover, Kate and Margaret Fox–the two sisters who initially reported the
haunting–claimed they had devised a system of communication with the ghost by
means of an alphabetized rapping system (i.e. one rap equalled A, two raps
equalled B, and so on).[32]
This system of communication, Jeffrey Sconce suggests, clarifies the
relationship between Spiritualism and technology, as it mirrors the function
and operations of the then-recently invented telegraph.[33] [34]
While this relationship is far too nuanced to discuss at length, it is clear
from this initial haunting that media technologies and Spiritualism share a
special mutualism: similar to how microscopes and telescopes vaulted the
Enlightenment into an age of mediated visuality, photography granted
Spiritualism the means to visualize and ostensibly confirm the existence of
ghosts.
Elsewhere in his book on haunted
technologies, Sconce claims that Spiritualism disturbs the semantic distinction
between media and ‘mediums’.[35]
Traditionally, the term media refers
to communicative technologies; in Spiritualism, a medium can transcend this
definition by being corporeal.[36]
These (traditionally female) subject-mediums are conductors of the séance, a
performance in which the spiritual medium acts as a conduit through which the
mortal world can contact the spiritual world.[37]
While elsewhere I have argued that this feminized medium has cultural
consequences on gender representation,[38]
there is another kind of subject-medium that transcends gender conventions: the
spiritualist photographer. Curiously, these spiritualist photographers
speciously reasoned that they possessed communicative powers that allowed them
to contact and visualize the spirits. In this sense, without the appropriate
photographer, there is no ghost.
In particular, a spiritualist photographer
named William Mumler gave rise to this cohabitation of photography and
Spiritualism. An early celebrated figure in Spiritualist circles, Mumler’s
ghostly apparitions were originally the result of happenstance, as Crista
Cloutier remarks in her biographical essay of Mumler,
According
to Mumler’s autobiography, he was alone in the studio one day, attempting to
make a self-portrait, when he saw the shadowy figure of a young girl beside his
own likeness in the negative. At the time, Mumler attributed the “spirit” to
his own inexperience: he believed he had used a previously exposed plate that
had been insufficiently cleaned.[39]
Graced with this
mysterious photograph, Mumler quickly began to attract more recognisable high society
Indeed, mourning plays a large role in the
authenticating of the spirit photograph. As Molly McGarry suggests, spirit
photography owes its popularity in the mid-nineteenth century to the profusion
of mourners, for it was around this time that many were grieving friends and
family they had lost during the American Civil War.[42] In
short, spirit photography ‘resurrected’ the dead. Indeed, a spirit photograph
was largely granted its authority by its resemblance to the deceased it
purports to depict; for instance, in figure
B, the presence of the girl’s spirit in the photograph taken by a
spiritualist photographer named “Dr. Hooper,” was identified by a father who
had lost his daughter thirty years before the picture was taken.[43] [44] In
contrast to Barthes, spirit photography did not only show “what is there no
longer,” but essentially “that which remains.”[45]
Regardless, despite its ambiguous ontological status, spirit photography
continued to triumph over the epistemic uncertainties that flared over the
existence of ghosts. In the next two sections, I will ground this historical
and cultural examination by demonstrating how manipulation and perception
complicate the photographic index.
An
Index of Ghosts
As I have suggested above, photography and
the occult are mutually bound by the latter’s use of the former to collapse the
boundaries between our world and the afterlife. Regardless, such nebulous
assertions demand more explication; in this section, I interrogate Spiritualist
discourse by accentuating the methods used by spiritualist photographers to
create these imagistic phantoms. The historical discourse on spirit photography
is suffused with unreliable information, yet it clarifies many of the ways in
which Spiritualism–a movement of questionable intellectual merit at best–abuses
the photographic index to substantiate its beliefs.
The practice of spirit photography emerged
when photography was still a nascent medium, as the camera was still too cumbersome
to be used leisurely. Thus, photography would surely have been an easy
apparatus to abuse and falsify, even accidentally, in the mid-nineteenth
century, bringing the objectivity of this medium into question. In light of
these uncertainties, many in Spiritualist circles claimed they had produced
spirit photographs by stripping the photographic process of its most
fundamental elements; somehow, the camera, the lens, and light were
unnecessary.[46]
Despite his blind acceptance of the tenets of Spiritualism, Fred Gettings
luminously provides an historical example of how some of these ghost
photographs were allegedly obtained, he writes:
[Traill]
Taylor was among those early investigators who realized that in some cases the
extras obtained on the negatives were not always produced by the action of
light, which is the sine qua non of
the worldly photography, and he was reduced to admitting at a Spiritualist
Conference in London in May 1895 that, so far as he could see, neither camera,
nor lens, nor light was required to obtain genuine spirit pictures.[47]
This method is called dorchagraphy.[48] However
there are limited readings on this type of ‘photography’ and Gettings’ account
of the process does not clarify its usefulness in spirit photography.[49] Such
vague explications recur throughout Gettings’ book, although this excerpt does
epitomize the ambiguous and unreliable nature of Spiritualism.
Light aside, Gettings addresses the
emphasis Spiritualism places on the photographer’s role in the photographic
process, an importance rooted in spiritualist photographer Jean Buguet’s
suggestion that the spirits in his photographs had “possessed him” for purposes
of communicating with the living via the camera.[50] His
apparent psychic powers are revealed in correspondences between “psychic
author” Lady Caithness and a purported medium named Stainton Moses; in one
letter, which is quoted in Gettings’ book, Lady Caithness writes,
[Buguet]
acts throughout spirit guidance, being in partial trance during the exposure of
the plate. The length of exposure is regulated by spirit guidance–he does not
stop the camera until he is told to do so.[51]
In short, the spirits
needed both the medium of photography and the medium-photographer to be seen.
In this sense, the photographic process is rooted in spiritual possession,
which necessitates the presence of the photographer. These statements reflect
Bazin’s postulation that the photographer only has a limited authority over how
the image is to be presented (selection of the object and minor formal elements
such as angle selection and the positioning of objects in the mise-en-scene).[52]
Within the context of its discourse, Spiritualism adds the invocation of the
dead to that list. Yet, even with this addition, the photographer is still
bound by the technological inherencies of the medium; he or she still merely
acts as the impetus towards the mechanical reproduction of ‘reality’.[53]
These ideas are plausible if only considered within the context of
Spiritualism, in which case these photographs are irrefutable documentations of
a spiritual existence. It is clear, however, that this discourse insufficiently
provides the basis for authenticating the photograph.
Rather, photographic manipulations provide
a clearer example of how spirit photography compromises the index. Even in its
prototypical phase, photographs could easily be manipulated either consciously
or accidentally. For this reason, it is unclear why Bazin does not complexify
his argument further by accounting for the alien features of the photograph
that did not originate from the depicted event.[54]
Rather, Bazin argues that formalism in photography can only serve to reinforce
the medium’s realism; he writes, “Hence photography ranks high in the order of
a surrealist creativity because it produces an image that is a reality of
nature, namely, a hallucination that is also a fact.”[55]
Broadly, it is indeed true that a ghostly extra created by means of a double
exposure is arguably a “hallucination that is also a fact,” for the extra may
have originated from another photograph.[56] [57] However,
this ‘spirit photograph’ created by double exposure is not indexical to the
existence of spirits nor is it indexical to an event in which a spirit was
present; the extra has been stripped from its original source,
de-contextualized, re-contextualized, and then re-presented as indexical proof
of the existence of ghosts. In other words, in this hypothetical spirit
photograph, the extra was not there,
but it does originate from another photograph in which he was there. Problematically, these
photographic melanges are never
forcefully discussed in Bazin’s essay. Ultimately, manipulations by means of
appropriation and re-contextualization raise questions about the indexicality
of photography, especially so when the authentication is rooted in the specious
reasoning of occultists and parapsychologists.
Thus, photography demonstrates the
unreliability of mediated vision, which is the focus of Tom Gunning’s essay “To
Scan a Ghost: The Ontology of Mediated Vision.”[58]
For instance, in his brief discussion of the spirit photography, Gunning
suggests that
Most
Spirit Photographs [sic] portray spirits alongside “normal” figures in familiar
spaces (posed subjects in a studio or room), but the two sorts of bodies appear
oddly superimposed upon each other or illogically juxtaposed. This collision of
separate orientations betrays the technical means by which the photographs were
produced (superimposing two or more images photographed at separate times) and therefore undermines their claim to be
evidence of a spirit world.[59]
In spirit photographs,
the ‘ghosts’ are hollowed of their initial signification. In some of these
photographs, the spirit extra has been clearly extracted from paintings (figure C). How this obvious breach of
medium specificity went unchallenged is unclear, however it is clear that
spirit photography misappropriated parts of other photographs and paintings to
create evidence of a spiritual world.
Some of these spirit photographs were
accidental. At times, spirit photographs were produced by a malfunctioning
apparatus or were caused by the photographer’s incompetence. These incidents
were symptomatic of the cumbersomeness of early photography; for instance,
Clément Chéroux articulates that
At
the time of the daguerreotype or of the collodion, slightly less frequently in
the days of the gelatin silver bromide process, photographers who reused poorly
cleaned plates did indeed risk seeing what the correspondent of Le Progrès photographique so charmingly
called unwanted “ghosts” to appear in these images.[60]
Even with the extra’s
presence, these photographs are indexical. That is, ignoring the white
spherical formations does not tarnish the photograph’s evidential state. If
viewed as anything other than signifiers of fault, these images begin to
problematize the photograph’s indexicality. However, in these cases the phenomena of the photograph compromise
the index. In other words, if these extras are subjectively given the label of
ghosts, then the photograph takes on a different meaning.
However, some of these photographs are not
the result of double exposure or faults in the process, yet they still remained
manipulated pictures. In the Cottingly Fairy Photographs (figure D), Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths famously claimed to
have seen and played with actual fairies. They subsequently took pictures of
themselves playing with the fairies as proof.[61]
As Sophie Schmit notes, the photographs were popularized by the Arthur Conan
Doyle[62];
yet, despite the sensational coverage the photographs received, the narrative
was ultimately a fabrication: the fairies, it turned out, were based off of
illustrations found in Princess Mary’s
Gift Books (figure E) that were
‘copied, re-arranged, cut-out’, and then “held in place with hat pins.”[63]
In short, these photographs lifted uncited imagery from another text, thus
weakening its indexical quality. Such instances, I will forcefully argue, are
the result of the narrative the photographer creates and are reinforced by its
subsequent reception by the viewer. This leads, I argue, to a phenomenological
re-tooling of the photographic index. However, before that, this instance must
be acknowledged as an area where Bazin exaggerated his argument: it is clear
that the photographer’s role is not just to initiate the ‘mechanical
reproduction of reality’[64]
(in the case of the fairy photographs, the perceived reality is really more of
a fantasy), but serves to construct the narrative that encompasses the
photograph.
Perceptions of the Index: Photography and
Phenomenology
Generally, all evidence is skewered by perception; as
Barthes eloquently puts it, “The photographer bears witness essentially to his
own subjectivity.”[65] But
the subjectivity of the photographer extends to the subjectivity of the viewer,
for the index has something at stake in the perception of the image. In the
previous section I argued that the photographic index is complicated by
conscious or accidental tampering of the photographic process. For instance,
the juxtapositions commonly found in early spirit photography create an index
of a plurality of events rather than a singular event; in this sense, the
photographic index is compromised and breached by an abundance of alien
signifiers. In accidental cases, the perception or subjectivity of the
photographer engenders the notion that he or she somehow happened upon a
spirit. In this section, I take this phenomenological understanding of spirit
photography further by suggesting that perception from the viewer (not
necessarily the photographer) complicates the index.
Paradoxically, the phenomenology of spirit
photography–that is, the recognition of the ghost–legitimates and complicates
the index. In other words, the phenomenology of spirit photography places the
viewer in a subjective position relative to his social conditioning: by
recognising the presence of a lost loved one or someone with a universal
recognisability (Lincoln, for instance), the spirit photograph is presumably
authenticated.[66]
However, the unreliability of this subjectivity raises questions about its
indexicality. In his pioneering essay on spirit photography “Phantom Images and
Modern Manifestations,” Tom Gunning argues that this social conditioning is
responsible for legitimating spirit photographs; he writes, “[…] it is the
uncanny ability of the photograph to produce a double of its subject that gives
its unique ontology as much as its existential link with its original source.”[67] Gunning
takes this psychoanalytic “uncanny ability of photography” even further by
suggesting that the indexical authority of the spirit photograph relied on the
recognisability of the ghost.[68] Viewing
a spirit photograph, then, doubly relies on the viewer’s history and
subconscious.[69]
In this sense, the uncanny ‘ontology’ of the photograph derives its status from
experience, and therefore is more closely aligned with phenomenology and
perception.[70]
This phenomenology underscores Tom Gunning’s postulation that the index is
often confused with iconicity (however, this confusion goes past the
intellectual thought that Gunning is concerned with and extends into the
subjectivity of the viewer, who also might confuse iconicity with
indexicality).[71]
For example, figure A depicts the
living Mary Todd Lincoln and the ostensive presence of her late husband’s
ghost. An immediate glance suggests that the photograph is indexical to the
lingering presence of Abraham Lincoln’s consciousness, for it is there at that time in that space. How Mumler achieved this photograph is
unclear, but Lincoln’s iconography is easily replicated. Moreover, Lincoln’s
apparition is obscured, making it difficult to identify whether this is an
authentic Lincoln spirit photograph or whether it is just a superimposition or
an imposter (or a superimposition from another photograph). In this instance,
the photograph’s index is predicated on the ghost’s iconicity; whether or not
it is a legitimate spirit photograph remains ambiguous.
Again, Tom Gunning would propose that such
a reading of this photograph collapses the boundaries between what constitutes
the index and what constitutes its iconicity.[72] In
purely semiotic terms[73],
Lincoln’s beard, stature and posture contribute to its iconicity. Its indexical
quality, however, is more accurately rooted in the photographic process,
according to Gunning.[74]
For Gunning, the intertwining of indexicality and iconicity is predicated on
“visual accuracy and recognizability [sic].”[75]
He continues, “Our evaluation of a photograph as accurate (i.e. visually
reflecting its subject) depends not simply on its indexical basis (the chemical
process), but on our recognition of it as
it looks like its subject.”[76] However,
the index and the icon are not diametrically opposed elements, as Gunning
infers, as iconic elements of the photograph serve to grant the photograph’s
truth claim, where the iconic elements are intrinsic to the photograph’s
‘recognisability’ in figure A.[77] It
is for this reason that I turn to Barthes’ punctum,
which sheds light on why this phenomenological response to spirit
photography–in conjunction with the ‘uncanniness’ described by Gunning[78]–paradoxically
gives the photograph its indexical quality while also complicating it.
The spirit photograph collapses the
distinction between Barthes’ receptive elements of the studium and the punctum.
Viewing a spirit photograph in a contemporary context is formalized by the studium, as these images have now been
subsumed as historical documents that relay information about a specific
cultural movement that emerged at the threshold of the medium. Viewing a spirit
photograph shortly after its development, however, is derived of the punctum, for a respectable fraction of
these photographs were not conceived intentionally. Figure F is a photograph taken in 1891 in the library of Combermere
shortly after the death of Lord Combermere. The far left of the picture shows a
ghostly extra sitting in the chair. The story behind this ghost was purely
accidental; the photographer–Sybell Corbet–had decided to take a picture of
“the rather splendid library there.”[79] After
developing the picture, she noticed “the head, body, and arms of an old man,
seated in the high-backed chair to the left of the room.”[80]
This, I argue, constitutes photography’s punctum,
for it is a detail of the photograph that solicits the viewer’s attention[81];
furthermore, it is not bound by the strict institutional codifications that are
inherent in the photograph’s studium.[82] This
photograph was subsequently shown to members of the Combermere family, where a
few family members suggested that the materialization looked similar to Lord
Combermere (it is this instance where the studium
takes effect, as the photograph was being shown to the family under the pretext
of Lord Combermere’s death and its potential state as an evidence of his
lingering presence).[83]
However, as Gettings notes, “not everyone agreed about the appearance, which
was in any case difficult to distinguish.”[84]
In this instance, however, this interloping ghost complicates the photographic
index by means of perception; its fleeting resemblance to the late Lord
Combermere gave rise to the thought that this photograph was indexical to his
ghost, and further, as an index of the existence of spirits. Phenomenology, then,
constructs a narrative around the index, complicating photography’s claims of
authenticity (but not necessarily disproving it).[85]
Conclusion
In his essay, Tom Gunning inquires, “What
does a ghost look like?”[86] Speculations
about ghosts permeate contemporary culture, even though ghosts have been
rationalized as nothing more than mere superstitions. Regardless, their
photographic presence poses two unique and conflicting observations: one, the
photograph’s ‘indexical’ quality–that being its objective relation to the
object it depicts–confers the spirit photograph its authenticity, and two, the
ambiguous ontological status of ghosts paradoxically corrupts the photographic
index. I have argued herein that the photographic index is compromised by the
penetration of these ghosts, which are said to be rooted in the spiritual
afterlife, but are more appropriately defined as being ‘extras’ lifted from
other photographs that have been re-contextualized as evidence for the
existence of life after death.
This contention moves away from André
Bazin’s ontological viewing of photography and is more closely aligned with
Barthes’ phenomenological study of photography.[87]
While it is important to stress that both Barthes and Bazin argue in favour of
photography’s index, their postulations are methodologically dichotomous: in
this essay, I challenge Bazin’s understanding of photography’s index (or its
‘authority’) by casting the photographic index in the context of spirit
photography as: one, contesting Bazin’s claims of the limited role of the
photographer, and two, situating re-contextualized aspects of other photographs
as an endangerment to the index.[88]
In the former, the photographer manipulates and creates a narrative around the
spirit photograph, which, in conjunction with photography’s indexicality, eases
its claims to authenticity. In the latter, aspects of other photographs are
combined–either consciously or accidentally–which compromises the index by
signifying outside of the photograph and into other unrelated texts.
Furthermore, by invoking Barthes, I have
employed a phenomenological reading of spirit photography to establish the ways
in which this genre of photography abuses the index and uses ghosts as an
artifice to suggest its legitimacy. In this case, the ‘uncanniness’[89]
of the spirit in the photograph–which can effectively be either the studium or the punctum, depending on the viewing context–contributes to the
legitimating of a spirit photograph. I have argued that these unreliable
subjective accounts are insufficient in granting the photograph this
legitimacy; however, it is clear these identifications re-shape the index
accordingly. This is recurrent throughout historical discourse on Spiritualism,
where these identifications were taken as legitimate proof of the photograph’s
authenticity. This is in no way an articulation against the photographic index. But in the case of spirit
photography, excessive tampering of the photograph before, during, and after
the process clearly contributes to misleading and imprecise understandings of a
photograph’s indexical quality. Ultimately, photography cannot clearly answer
our question of what awaits us after death.
 |
| Figure A Mrs. Lincoln with ghost of Abraham Lincoln, WIlliam Mumler, 1865) |
 |
| Figure B Spirit photograph of child, "Dr. Hooper," before 1919 |
 |
| Figure C F.M. Parkes and Reeves, 1874 |
 |
| Figure D Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, 1917 |
 |
| Figure E
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d2/CottingleyFairies-PrincessMary2_gobeirne.png)
|
 |
| Figure F Sybell Corbet, Library of Combermere, 1891 |
[1]
Tom Gunning, “What’s the Point of an Index? Or, Faking Photographs,” in Plenary Session II: Digital Aesthetics,
39
[2]
Gunning suggests that the truth claim is derived from the index and the visual
accuracy of the photograph. While even the most unrecognisable photograph might
be unclear or inaccurate, the photograph still remains indexical. However, it
is never clear why this term should replace the notion of indexicality, for
both terms refer to the photograph’s veracity. Furthermore, as I will argue in
this essay, perception plays a significant role in forming the photograph’s
index. See Gunning, “What’s the Point of an Index?” Or, Faking Photographs,” 41
[3]
Gunning, “What’s the Point of an Index? Or, Faking Photographs,” 40
[4] “Here
I think we encounter a basic aporia in
our understanding of photography, one I believe can only be approached
phenomenologically, rather than semiotically. It is only by a phenomenological
investigation of our investment in the photographic image (digital or otherwise
obtained) that I think we can truly grasp the drive behind digitalization and
why photography seems unlikely to disappear and why, even without a formulated
truth claim, it offers us something that other forms of visual representation
cannot.” See Gunning, “What’s the Point of an Index? Or, Faking Photographs,”
44
[5]
For instance, as I will elaborate later in this essay, this phenomenology is
rooted in the depicted ghost’s recognisability to a person now deceased.
[6]
André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” in Film Quarterly 13 (1960), 9-16
[7]
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida:
Reflections on Photography (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), 1-119
[8] Bazin,
“The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” 12-13
[9]
Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” 9
[10]
Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” 13
[11] Barthes,
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography,
26-27
[12]
Ibid.
[13]
Ibid.
[14]
Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” 12
[15]
Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” 13; emphasis mine
[16]
Ibid.
[17]
Ibid.
[18]
Bazin never uses the word ‘index’ to describe the photograph’s objective
status, but his understanding no doubt informs contemporary writings on the
subject.
[19]
Ibid.
[20]
Ibid.
[21]
Ibid.
[22]
Ibid.
[23]
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida:
Reflections on Photography (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), 5; emphasis
mine
[24]
Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on
Photography, 26-27
[25]
Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on
Photography, 6, 26
[26]
Ibid.
[27]
Gunning, “What’s the Point of an Index? Or, Faking Photographs,” 46
[28]
Ibid.
[29]
Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on
Photography, 76-77
[30]
Geoff Dyer, foreword to Camera Lucida:
Reflections on Photography, by Roland Barthes (New York: Hill and Wang,
1981), x-xi
[31]
Molly McGarry, Ghosts of Futures Past:
Spiritualism and the Cultural Politics of Nineteenth Century America
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 1-2
[32]
Ibid.
[33]
Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted Media: From
Telegraphy to Television (Durham & London: Duke University Press,
2000): 23
[34]
Furthermore, Sconce argues that technologies such as telegraphy were veiled in
such obscurity that many believed electronic media were capable of
communicating with other worlds–not just the world of spirits. For instance, in
a later chapter, Sconce discusses the then-held belief that radio technology
could communicate with an alien civilization on Mars. Such notions were not
even counter-cultural; mainstream scholars like Nikola Tesla were firm in their
belief that such technologies could breach the boundaries between worlds and
dimensions by communicating with other life forms not of this planet. See
Sconce, Haunted Media: From Telegraphy to
Television, 96-97
[35]
Sconce, Haunted Media: From Telegraphy to
Television, 25
[36]
Ibid.
[37]
Ibid.
[38]
In “The Medium is Possessed: An Archaeology of Possessed Media in the Context
of Spiritualist Discourse,” I argue through Sconce, McGarry and Gunning that
Spiritualist discourse has informed contemporary entertainment culture’s technologizing of the female body. In
the context of Spiritualism, a successful contacting with ghosts is predicated
on the presence of a feminized body that acts as a conduit to communicate with
the spirit world. This is consistent with the scientific discourse at the time,
which had an almost fetishistic interest in the apparent ‘electrified’
biological make-up of the female body. The emergence of the séance would most
prominently feature the so-called ‘electrified’ female mediums and their
abilities to contact the spirits in the ether. I discuss this essay here
because it highlights how Spiritualism blurs the distinction between media and
medium by replacing an actual technology as a medium with that of a human body.
[39]
Crista Cloutier, “Mumler’s Ghosts,” in The
Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, eds. Clément Chéroux et al.
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 20
[40]
Cloutier, “Mumler’s Ghosts,” 23
[41]
Ibid.
[42]
McGarry, Ghosts of Futures Past:
Spiritualism and the Cultural Politics of Nineteenth Century America, 22-23
[43]
Fred Gettings, Ghosts in Pictures
(New York: Harmony Books, 1978), 11
[44]
To clarify this example, here is the text that identifies the spirit of the
young girl: “One day he (the patient) had been out for a walk, and when came
back, he said: “Doctor, I feel so queer, I feel as if there is something with
me; will you get your camera and take a snapshot of me?” I got the camera and
before I exposed the plate I told him I saw a beautiful child with him. I put a
dark tablecloth over the door in the drawing room to form a background and then
exposed the plate. The gentleman himself took the plate to the dark room and
developed it; and there appeared the beautiful spirit form of a little girl
with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a role of paper in the other. The
exclamation of the gentleman was, “Good heavens! It’s my daughter, who died
thirty years ago.” See Gettings, Ghosts
in Photographs, Ibid.
[45]
Ibid.
[46]
Gettings, Ghosts in Photographs, 7-9
[47] Ibid.
[48]
Ibid.
[49]
Gettings provides the explanation for this method, which is as follows:
“[Andrew Glendinning] would take a few plates from a newly opened box of
quarter plates, and then place one of these, still in its paper wrapper, into
Duguid’s hands, and then fold the medium’s hands firmly in his own. Duguid
described the sensation as being rather like that of holding the handle of a
magnetic battery while a slight current was being passed through it. When this
“electrical” experience stopped, the plate was developed.” See Gettings, Ghosts in Photographs, 9
[50]
Gettings, Ghosts in Photographs, 38
[51]
Ibid.
[52]
Ibid.
[53]
Ibid.
[54]
Ibid.
[55]
Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” 16
[56]
Ibid.
[57]
To elaborate, surrealistic photography often demonstrated a more formal use of
photography rather than just merely creating a trace or record of an event.
These manipulations, however, are apparently still rooted in realism, according
to Bazin.
[58]
Tom Gunning, “To Scan a Ghost: The Ontology of Mediated Vision,” Grey Room 26 (2007), 99
[59] Ibid.
[60]
Clément Chéroux, “Ghosts Dialectics: Spirit Photography in Entertainment and
Belief,” in The Perfect Medium:
Photography and the Occult, eds. Clément Chéroux et al. (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2004), 45
[61]
Gettings, Ghosts in Photographs, 67
[62]
Doyle was an avid Spiritualist and paranormal researcher. See Sophie Schmit,
“Conan Doyle: A Study in Black and White,” in The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult , eds. Clément
Chéroux et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 92-94
[63] Schmit,
“Conan Doyle: A Study in Black and White,” 93
[64]
Ibid.
[65]
Roland Barthes, The Grain of the Voice:
Interviews 1962-1980 (USA: Northwestern University Press, 1981), 356
[66]
Ibid.
[67]
Tom Gunning, “Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations: Spirit Photography,
Magic Theater, Trick Films, and Photography’s Uncanny,” in Fugitive Images from Photography to Video, ed. Patrice Petro
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 995), 43
[68]
Ibid.
[69]
Ibid.
[70]
Ibid.
[71]
Gunning, “What’s the Point of an Index? Or, Faking Photographs,” 41
[72]
Ibid.
[73]
It is prudent for me to note that theorists such as Barthes and Gunning contend
that photography does not possess a language (at least not in the same sense as
cinema, which is usually thought in terms of being constructed by sequence- i.e.
Eisenstein’s dialectic montage, for instance) and that it “possesses an
ontology rather than a semiotics.” However, I use semiotic terms to describe
these instances since spirit photography is predicated on recognisability and
thus depends on semiotic cues to the ghost’s likeness. See Gunning, “What’s the
Point of an Index? Or, Faking Photographs,” 46
[74]
Ibid.
[75]
Ibid.
[76]
Ibid; emphasis mine
[77]
Ibid.
[78]
Ibid.
[79]
Gettings, Ghosts in Pictures, 51
[80]
Ibid.
[81]
Ibid.
[82]
Ibid.
[83]
Ibid.
[84]
Gettings, Ghosts in Pictures, 51-53
[85]
There is also evidence to suggest that the phenomenology of figure F goes beyond the punctum and is more logical when thought
of in the context of mourning, for this photograph was taken only shortly after
the death of Lord Combermere.
[86]
Gunning, “To Scan a Ghost: The Ontology of Mediated Vision,” 102
[87]
Ibid.
[88]
Ibid.
[89]
Ibid.
