Touching Photographs

Liv­ing Pictures

In the first room, the ​“Liv­ing Por­traits” repeat the act of pho­tog­ra­phy. The moment is cap­tured once more on a light-sen­si­tive plate. The light now hits our eyes, for that long moment of recog­ni­tion. We see as the cam­era saw, almost in the blink of an eye. In 10 – 25 sec­onds, the ​“his­tor­i­cal” fig­ures pose once more before the view­er, con­fronting them with the sit­u­a­tion of their coun­ter­part. The cam­era alone, the medi­um, no longer stands between the view­ers, cre­at­ing an imme­di­ate moment.

The pho­to­graph­ic moment is thus reversed; one is in a sense at the mer­cy of the pres­ence of the per­son stand­ing at the end of the room, espe­cial­ly since one must pass through them into the next room. The vis­i­tors approach peo­ple in the truest sense of the word. A con­stant noise can be heard in the room, the qui­et but audi­ble breath­ing of sev­er­al peo­ple. This spa­tial and emo­tion­al prox­im­i­ty is thus a delib­er­ate stag­ing effect. The moment of incom­pre­hen­sion – like the sit­u­a­tion ​“back then” when the peo­ple being pho­tographed often cer­tain­ly did­n’t know what was hap­pen­ing before their eyes – this moment is intend­ed to be evoked. We, the view­ers, are now also being observed. And only through this does the feel­ing of a social moment, of a sit­u­a­tion, arise again. Pho­tographs touch us; they step out of their con­text and sud­den­ly become tan­gi­ble as liv­ing images; they become audi­ble; the sit­u­a­tion is moving.

The basic strat­e­gy of this first room is there­fore to ini­tial­ly encounter the pho­tographs at eye lev­el as liv­ing images, with­out com­men­tary. The vis­i­tors are intend­ed to ini­tial­ly encounter the peo­ple direct­ly, with­out fur­ther information. 

Pic­ture Sto­ry Picture

In the sec­ond room, vis­i­tors will encounter the pre­vi­ous­ly seen, liv­ing por­traits again in tra­di­tion­al nar­ra­tive con­texts. Unearthed diary entries, ref­er­ences from ethno­g­ra­phers, and artists have been inte­grat­ed by the cura­tor into a ded­i­cat­ed nar­ra­tive dra­matur­gy. In an intro­duc­tion and six the­mat­i­cal­ly ori­ent­ed chap­ters, a female voice (in con­trast to the all-male pho­tog­ra­phers) care­ful­ly guides the view­er through the var­i­ous record­ings and expla­na­tions of the cura­tor. Only in the intro­duc­tion does the cura­tor’s voice take a per­son­al, cura­to­r­i­al approach to the pho­tographs, attempt­ing to explain the approach to these research objects.

Vis­i­tors can lis­ten to the indi­vid­ual pic­ture sto­ries via head­phones while sit­ting on pro­vid­ed chairs. Only here, at the front of the sec­ond room, are vis­i­tors informed about this spe­cial exhi­bi­tion sit­u­a­tion via a longer explana­to­ry text on the wall. This room is the muse­um hinge that gen­uine­ly cura­to­ri­al­ly links the direct encounter of the first room with the sci­en­tif­ic-tax­o­nom­ic dis­cus­sion of the third room by pro­vid­ing an inter­pre­ta­tive and didac­ti­cal­ly explana­to­ry clas­si­fi­ca­tion of the photographs.

Edit­ing Images

In the third room, ​“touch­ing pho­tographs” con­tin­ues as a guid­ing prin­ci­ple: All back­ground mate­r­i­al, the sources of the diary entries, the sci­en­tif­ic mate­r­i­al, the clas­si­fi­ca­tions, and the images them­selves are placed in explana­to­ry contexts.

There is an over­head pro­jec­tor on each of three work tables, and all the mate­r­i­al is stored on trans­paren­cies in box­es next to the pro­jec­tors.
The mate­ri­als are sort­ed accord­ing to the cur­rent ​“researcher” group and assigned to the work tables and pro­jec­tors. (Art pho­tog­ra­ph­er, artist, eth­nol­o­gist) – They con­tain infor­ma­tion and data about the indi­vid­u­als, their con­cerns, inter­ests, the cir­cum­stances of the trip, and their writ­ten tes­ti­monies regard­ing the images, sit­u­a­tions, and jour­neys.
The trans­paren­cies form the exhib­it labels for the pre­vi­ous­ly uniden­ti­fied ​“Liv­ing Por­traits” in the first room. The mate­r­i­al must be explored for one­self. By research­ing, select­ing a trans­paren­cy, and plac­ing it on the pro­jec­tor, the vis­i­tor simul­ta­ne­ous­ly touch­es it and exhibits it. The pro­jec­tors now enable com­par­isons that vis­i­tors can repeat­ed­ly make in new con­stel­la­tions.
All data sheets have the same struc­ture, sort­ed accord­ing to estab­lished cat­e­gories, so that it becomes clear again and again that there is lit­tle to no infor­ma­tion about many of the images, and then only very spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion. This high­lights the extent to which per­spec­tives are influ­enced by what is known. The blank spaces on the data sheets also allow for the unknown as a frame­work for inter­pre­ta­tion. Above all, the inten­tions of the pho­tog­ra­phers are also intend­ed to become clear. Some­times a pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er, some­times an eth­nol­o­gist, some­times an artist, each with dif­fer­ent ambi­tions. The many dif­fer­ent slides, which they can com­bine inde­pen­dent­ly, are intend­ed to enable vis­i­tors to take a dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed view of these pho­tographs and their respec­tive con­texts. Both per­spec­tives, that of the pho­tographed and the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, are intend­ed to be taken.

Touch­ing Photographs

Vis­i­tors are con­front­ed with three devices, three appa­ra­tus­es, all of which are part of the gen­uine inven­to­ry of the new­er muse­um as a place of dis­play: the hid­den cam­era that cre­at­ed the images that now form the basis of the ​“Liv­ing Por­traits,” the tablet device on which vis­i­tors come into audi­ble con­tact with frag­men­tary retellings of the images, and the pro­jec­tor, which, on the one hand, cre­ates these por­traits in the first room and, on the oth­er hand, serves as a tool for visu­al­iz­ing the infor­ma­tion in the sec­ond room.

The move­ment back and forth between the rooms is inten­tion­al. After the infor­ma­tion, after the var­i­ous back­grounds have been viewed by the vis­i­tors them­selves, the view of the peo­ple nat­u­ral­ly changes.
The three rooms thus stand in a clear rela­tion­ship to one anoth­er, offer­ing three dif­fer­ent modes of being: a vivid­ly imme­di­ate one, made pos­si­ble by repeat­ed, tech­ni­cal ​“alien­ation,” a nar­ra­tive-imag­i­na­tive one, and an ana­lyt­i­cal one, which only emerges through one’s own action and not just through obser­va­tion. All three modes ​“touch” us in their own way: some­times the images affect us, some­times the images evoke his­to­ry, and final­ly, the infor­ma­tion must be touched. This reflects the ambigu­ous mean­ing of the title ​“Pho­tographs Touch,” with both active and pas­sive diathe­ses com­ing to the fore. And the scenog­ra­phy presents vis­i­tors with a ques­tion and an action to answer, both as the sub­ject and as the object of the situation.