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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY UNPRECEDENTED PHOTOGRAPHY In 1927 the first volume of the photographic annual Das Deutsche Lichtbild featured two short statements by László Moholy-Nagy and Albert Renger- Patzsch on the nature of photography and the paths it might take. Their opinions, which may be read here and in a later selection (see p. 104), contrasted sharply. The unmistakable division between Moholy's experimental attitude and Renger-Patzsch's commitment to photographic realism prepared the ground for the ensuing debates in Germany about avant-garde photography. In "Unprecedented Photography" Moholy-Nagy presents photography as a modernist visual medium. He argues that it represents a historic mutation in the visual arts, reflecting the fact that "this century belongs to light." The immediate task of the photographer consists in developing a true "language of photography" entirely from within its own range of optical and chemical pos- sibilities. Emphasizing the need to move beyond traditional forms of repre- sentation, Moholy points out some of the new experimental techniques which photographers might begin to explore. Original publication: László Moholy-Nagy, "Die beispiellos Fotografié," inDas Deutsche Lichtbild (Berlin, 1927), pp. x-xi; also published in HO (Amsterdam) 1, no. 1 (1927), pp. 114-17. Until now, all the essays and commentaries about the paths and aims of photography have been following a false trail. Again and again, the question singled out from all the various possible approaches as the most essential has been that of the relationship between art and photography. But the fact of photography does not grow or diminish in value according to whether it is classified as a method of recording reality or as a medium of scientific investigation or as a way of preserving vanished events, or as a basis for the process of reproduction, or as "art." The photographic process has no precedent among the previously known visual media. And when photography relies on its own possi- bilities, its results, too, are without precedent. Just one of its features— the range of infinitely subtle gradations of light and dark that capture the phenomenon of light in what seems to be an almost immaterial 83 wr LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY 84 radiance—would suffice to establish a new kind of seeing, a new kind of visual power. But the subject of photography involves infinitely more. In today's photographic work, the first and foremost issue is to develop an inte- grally photographic approach that is derived purely from the means of photography itself; only after a more or less exact photographic lan- guage has been developed will a truly gifted photographer be able to elevate it to an "artistic" level. The prerequisite for this is: no depen- dence on traditional forms of representation! Photography has no need for that. No ancient or contemporary painting can match the singular effectiveness available to photography. Why the "painterly" compari- sons? Why Rembrandt—or Picasso—imitations? One can say without Utopian extravagance that the near future will bring a great transvaluation in the goals photography sets itself. The investigation is already under way, although frequently along sep- arate paths: Conscious use of light-dark relationships. Activity of brightness, passivity of darkness. Inversions of the relationships between positive and negative values. Introduction of greater contrasts. Use of the texture and structure (facture) 1 of various materials. Unknown forms of representation. The areas that have yet to be examined can be established in line with the new elements of photographic practice, as follows: 1. Unfamiliar views made by positioning the camera obliquely, or pointing it up or down. 2. Experiments with various lens systems, changing the relation- ships familiar to normal vision, occasionally distorting them to the point of unrecognizability. (Concave and convex mirrors, funhouse mirror shots, etc., were the first steps.) This gives rise to a paradox: the mechanical imagination. 3. Encircling the object (a further development of stereo photogra- phy on one plate). 4. New kinds of camera construction. Avoidance of the fore- shortening effect of perspective. 5. Adapting experiences with X-ray—aperspectivity and pene- tration—to the uses of photography. 6. Cameraless photographs, made by casting light on the sensi- tive surface. UNPRECEDENTED PHOTOGRAPHY 8 5 7. True color sensitivity. Only a work that combines all possible interrelationships, the synthesis of these elements, will be recognized as true photography. The development of photography is receiving a powerful impetus from the new culture of light, which is already highly cultivated in many places. This century belongs to light. Photography is the first means of giving tangible shape to light, though in a transposed and—perhaps just for that reason—almost abstract form. Film goes even further—generally one might say that photography culminates in film. The development of a new dimension in optical experience is achieved to a still greater degree by film. But the spadework accomplished by still photography is indis- pensable for a developed cinema. A peculiar interrelationship: the master taking instruction from the apprentice. A reciprocal laboratory: photography as an investigatory field for film, and film as a stimulus for photography. The issues raised by cinema provide lessons that serve as guiding principles for the practice of photography and can enrich the photo- graphic results themselves: changing light intensities and light tempos, variations in spatial motion engendered by light, the extinguishing and flashing forth of the whole organism of motion, the triggering of latent functional charges in us, in our brain. Chiaroscuro. Light- palpability, light-movement. Light-distance and light-proximity. Pen- etrating and cumulative light rays.—The strongest visual experiences that can be granted to man. Translated by Joel Agee 1. t r " was the term used by many constructivist artists and critics to refer to the specific visual characteristics of a material's surface texture. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |