A personal look at Photography

NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION

A personal look at Photography

The world as we know it is full of sensations, smells, expressions, emotions and actions that are shared by us in various ways and forms. Communication, verbal or non- verbal, is an essential means of these human connections and to the existence of man, a person and as a social being. In fact, communication is as old as man. Since ancient times that Humanity sought several forms of expression and communication (gestural, visual and verbal).

Since the existence of the first Homos we can verify through prehistoric remains, archaeological evidence and cave paintings, that there was a need for communication among our ancestors (primates). The way humans communicate has evolved, from visual communication (paintings of hunting and everyday scenes), gestures and primitive sounds (the initial verbal language must have been very rudimentary) to the verbal, oral and written language (with the creation of verbal codes), or body language we know today. Moreover, the pattern of communication is simultaneous to man’s evolution shaping up well to society and different cultures.

Non-verbal communication can have an enormous impact, or even greater, than verbal language. As Darwin wrote in 1861, “one cannot doubt that language owes its origin to imitation and modification, supported by signs and gestures, several natural sounds and instinctive cries of man himself �. Of course, the basis of the evolution of language and communication are the gestures and signs, that is, the non-verbal communication. However, it is only in the beginning of the

twentieth century that there is a greater interest in the importance of non-verbal communication in human interactions, with the beginning of the emergence of several studies on the question of movement and bodily reactions of the human being. Flora Davis, in her book “Non-verbal communication”, states that Edward Sapir, German anthropologist, argued that there was a possibility that gestures are codes that, in spite of not being stipulated, everyone understands them. In the 50s of the twentieth century, many anthropologists, psychologists and scientists begun to explore these issues methodically. Since then, it was understood that non-verbal communication should be studied and analyzed systematically and as a whole, that is why this type of communication is the subject of study in different disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, ethology, and kinetic art itself.

Art is a form of expression and communication. It has its own language and uses it in order to communicate. We can say that it is considered the “artistic language” which is different from other types but, like other languages, employs symbols to communicate, appropriating and exploiting the diversified means of communication.

Through symbols, art conveys emotions, feelings and thoughts through sounds, movements, images, color, being so, a way to communicate. However, unlike, for example, the scientific language, art has numerous meanings, it’s polysemous and, as such, rather subjective. Therefore, different works of art interpreted freely and unlimitedly. Undoubtedly the artist intends to express something, to convey a given message through his work. However, this can be interpreted in many different ways (and even misinterpreted!), influenced by the experiences and the personality of each individual, by his artistic sensibility.

But this is a characteristic of the artistic language itself and is what makes it so singular, unique and intriguing. She invites the “public” to give it a meaning, to recreate a meaning! Perhaps for this reason, works of art are admired for generations and generations, maintaining the vitality, dynamism and contemporaneity, despite the evolution of culture and aesthetic conceptions.

The prehistoric, ancient, classical and medieval art marked their times in many different ways, thus leaving visual traces of how people lived and communicate with each other. Modern artists such as Giotto, Alberti, Rafaello, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Luca della Robia, Bellini, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Rousseau, Bach, Chopin, among others, had already explored different means of representing and communicating (the reality, the mythical, the Christian, the imaginary) through painting, sculpture, music, and even architecture. Most of these artists’ works have been appreciated and criticized in their time and, despite their age, they are still susceptible of criticism and new interpretations. It was based on the composite, pictorial and technical study of many of these modern artists that a better understanding of different ways to provide either the reality or feelings through different types of art was possible.

With social change and the evolution of new technologies, culture has been transformed, thus starting up one of the most controversial times of Art: The Contemporary Art. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were marked by a questioning of the old bases and traditional forms of communication art. The emergence of new technologies and media has generated a new standard of culture, more dynamic and accessible to all, giving rise to new artistic movements and new artistic fields, breaking all traditions. Due to the invention and development of new technologies, including the creation of the camera, new artistic fields came out: Photo, Video Art, Installation and Performance.

Many of these areas also end up, as a way of expression, by appropriating and supporting themselves on the classical arts such as sculpture, painting, architecture and music. The XX and XXI centuries have witnessed a boom in terms of design works and its significance. Due to the evolution of mentalities and free will, the artistic work flock to the conceptuality and the abstract. The obvious formerly represented has no much value anymore and paves the way for new paths, not so obvious ones, leading the viewer to question himself more often about what he sees.

Regarding the non-verbal communication in the world of art, photography is one of the artistic means, which better appropriates this type of communication. The photo represents and captures the desired appropriating itself from various gestures, movements, signs and symbols. This artistic medium is the most faithful of all the arts since it represents reality, although it can also manipulate it.

It is used for various purposes, i.e. as an illustrative, representative, artistic and documented medium, always becoming a memory and recording object.

According to Roland Barthes, it is subjected to different divisions: “they are factual or empirical ones (professional vs amateur), or rhetorical (landscapes / objects / pictures / nude) or aesthetic (realism / pictorialism)”. The author argues that it is unclassifiable and it is divided in two languages: an expressive one and another critical, always being linked to semiotics, sociology and psychoanalysis.

In photography there is always an Operator and a Spectator and these two dualities will always depend not only on the worked topic but also on the experience and look of the Operator and how the Spectator interprets and criticizes it. Sometimes to apprehend a photograph in its root is not easy, you must want and have a certain aesthetical sensibility and a critical and reflective attitude.

In my opinion, the documentary or journalistic and artistic photography are the most difficult to decipher and are the ones which can impress more the Spectator, due to the fact that photo-journalistic art portrays the reality we live in a “crude and naked” form. The artistic photography can also do so, but more in a metaphorical, ironic and poetic form.

Unlike artistic photography, the documentary/journalistic photography has a major factor in its favor: the representation of the “crude and naked” reality.

It is a kind of extremely communicative and direct photography owing to the fact that it portrays everyday themes such as situations of war, conflicts, poverty, prostitution, cultures, communities, etc. “The reportage photos are very often unary photos (the unary photo is not forcibly peaceful). (...) These reporting pictures are received (at once), that’s all. “(Roland Barthes).

With the easy access to the Internet and other media, the representation of this type of reality comes to us with tremendous facility. Besides its arrival through online news, in Portugal one of the most accessible and current means to “enjoy” this kind of photography is the online P3. Being an avid reader of the P3 cultural sector, it is amazing to see contemporary Operators wanting to portray and communicate various kinds of realities in a clean and straightforward manner. In the different existing documentary works on this platform, you can see a recognition of gestures, movements, actions of other cultures and realities that have become easily recognized and common to moments already experienced.

In one of the most recent articles from P3 culture it’s possible to observe a photographic project of Anna Liminowicz, a Polish photographer who developed the “In Between Blocks” project. It explores aspects of homosexuality, remarkably showing some similarities of the daily life of a homosexual and heterosexual couple (images 1-3).

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Image 2 to 3

Another equally interesting project is the “City of Darkness Revisited” which portrays a city-state of Hong Kong called “Kowloon Walled City”, an outlaw city, where crime reigns. It is shocking to see the conditions in which people live and yet the existence of the expression of joy on some faces (Images 5 to 7).

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Image 5 to 6

To prove the variety of photo sharing and the exploration themes on P3, the news coverage “Naked Bike Ride” consists of a naked bicycle protest to remember the importance of using clean transport in major cities, documented by José Farinha. It contrasts realities as “Kowloon Walle City” and shows the struggle of humanity for survival (Images 7-9 ).

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Image 8 to 9

Regarding the artistic photography, this one is not so straightforward and it is subjected to greater criticism and different connotations. It is inserted in a broader context, exploring emotions in a reflective and even provoked way. In my opinion, those which are the most intriguing are the ones that exploit the body, the nude, and the imperfection of the human being: it is the handing of someone to the rest of the world, also naked and crude, but in a poetic and ironic way. It is the communication and the exploitation of the human being in an equally “shocking” way, although it becomes beautiful (for me of course).

In the set of photographs of Paradise Regained (1968) of Duane Michals, we can observe a daily and monotonous life of a couple (photo 1) who will undress from the concerns and, little by little, detach themselves from what is material melting into the nature that is emerging around them (Images 10-16). But they all have one thing in common: in their bodies and expressions, if we notice carefully, one can see that the expressions and positions almost don’t change throughout the photographs. The background woman and their serious expressions remain. Despite this continuity, the couple’s expression, as the space is being “stripped”, gains another power. The Nature softens the seriousness and monotony, bringing intrigue, comfort and purity instead. In my opinion, this set of

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Image 12 to 16

photographs is a social critique of the daily monotony and lack of interaction with the purity of bodies and minds. Michels is an artist who appropriates himself of society and its daily routine, to criticize it in an intriguing and poetic way, exploring various facial and bodily expressions. Another example could be his project “The Human Condition”.

Unlike Michals, Francesca Woodman has a very characteristic work. In the documentary “The Woodmans” I discovered different influences on her work and how the artist worked. Her parents, being themselves artists, thought her daughter’s work was not completely self-biographical, saying she used herself as a means of expression because the human being relates himself to something, taking his own, apprehending it. Just like the photograph where she covers her-

self with wallpaper to understand how it would be like if she was wallpaper (image 17). In fact, Francesca’s work is very strong and full of meaning, she was an artist who explored the human emotions and body, abandoned movements and spaces, placing herself, most of the times, as the main character. In the following images you can verify how Francesca communicates her emotions through the

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Image 18 to 21

movements and expressiveness of body so well always combining the light factor.

Sally Mann is another pearl of photography, known for her famous picture “Candy Cigarette�: a 1st plan girl with her direct gaze and an almost adult pose with a cigarette in her hand, inserted in a completely childish environment through play (Image 22). The artist portrays lots of familiar scenarios, exploring the childish and familiar side, and the desire of children who want to become adults. She is a photographer who can capture rather expressive looks and positions which redirect our gaze to one single detail. One can verify this very well

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Image 23

through her set of photographs “Family Pictures�. As an example, the photography x which represents 3 children, two girls and a boy in the middle of them, one can observe the great expressiveness in their looks: the two girls are in lofty and command like positions and the boy seems being dominated by them (image 22). Also, the picture 23 shows a completely intimate family environment, free from prejudice and full of emotion.

Only when exploring these two types of photography, are you able to see great similarities. Although they have two different paths in technical and pictorial terms, they end up finding one way or another through gestures, symbols,

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emotions in different themes and explored means. One must never forget that this is my view and the Spectator differs according to his own tastes, experiences and aesthetic sensibility.

In fact photography is something that has become common, everybody can take a shoot. However, not everyone knows how to shoot. Some argue that this statement refers to the technical terms of using of a machine but in fact, everyone can learn how to use a camera. This does not mean that I do not value the ​​ “scientific” and technical knowledge of using of a machine, but those who know how to shoot, can also compose and communicate through symbols, and may

even go to the extreme “misuse” of the camera settings as a way of expression.

The artist is the one who looks at the world in a special way. The one that explores, (re)interprets, while maintaining a critical and open perspective. Being fond of photography, I believe that in this kind of photography we have reached a stage where, like people say, “it is 8 or 80”. I mean, when we look at a photo it could not reach out to us, leading to reactions like: “Ah! It is just one picture” [as Barthes said about Koen Wessing photography of Nicaragua, “The army on patrol in the streets. Does this photo please me? Am I interested in it? Does it intrigue me? Not even that. It simply exists (for me)]. On the other hand, a photograph can provoke a reaction of awe or delight for somehow it touches us, it “holds us”, evokes and awakens in us sensations, feelings, emotions and even some thoughts. For those who do not have aesthetic sensibility, this same photograph would be only a foreign body. Maybe this duality occurs due to the amount of pictorial information we receive today, voluntarily and involuntarily.

Due to the internet and the media, we end up overwhelmed with visual information. But it must be emphasized that the way we look at a photograph depends on each of us, on how the world communicates with us and how we communicate with it, our culture, our roots, our values and finally, it depends on our personality and our sensitivity, our personal experiences. The way a photograph communicates with us is extremely relative and subjective. Although there are signs, movements, expressions and gestures that are easy to decipher, as they are used in different contexts they can be connoted with a thousand meanings. As a work of art, a photograph is constituted as an open field of meaning, an endless stream of significance.

Being the photo an extremely communicative means, we need to know to what extent it will evolve in communicative terms. Will it lose its communicative power and, due to the developing notion of conceptuality, be restricted to a black dot on a white background – like Malevich famous painting “White on white”, that generated a huge discussion about “what is art?”. In fact, I believe it will never reach such a point like: “This is it. Stop”.

Photography is an extremely expressive and representative means that captures a moment, which freezes time in an image, which creates a memory.

However, I believe that it may reach the limits of conceptuality and banality of Malevich’s work. Although it may end up in these directions, there will always be someone eager to convey his own feelings and perceptions, in spite of what others see. Let him grasp the power of photography and communicate through it without saying a word, giving the Spectator a mixture of emotions.

Photography is and will always be an essential means of communication for Humanity, “Some think that an image is a very rudimentary system when compared to language, and others that the significance cannot exhaust the ineffable wealth of image” (Roland Barthes).