contours when building up facial tissue. Sometimes the
Jews, gypsies, thieves, political agitators (aka revolu-
reconstructed facial tissue can be overlaid with a photo-
tionaries), etc. Whereas Sander employed an 8x10 inch
graph of the alleged person for further verification.
plate camera, Bloomberg and Chanarin used a camera
The truth is in the bones, as Hegel argued. After all bones are
purpose-built for facial recognition.
unchanging even in death, unless chipped away for plastic
Nowadays photographs serve in the search for individu-
surgery which is easily detected. What can we say about the
als rather than groups. Photo-id is required just about ev-
link between the skull and what overlays it, the face?
erywhere in order to identify an individual. At borders,
What Broomberg and Chanarin have done in their book
such as airports, additional photographs are often taken.
is to create an archive inspired by August Sander’s Citi-
But these photographs are not a recourse to physiogno-
zens of the Twentieth Century. Sanders began it after
my – you are usually instructed not to smile. The photo-
World War I in Weimar Germany but was interrupted by
graphs in this book go beyond a photo-id. Although two
the advent of World War II. It contains the faces of bank-
dimensional they appear to be wrapped like skin around
ers, poets, revolutionaries, the unemployed, migrants
a skull and so form a new sort of representation, which
and so on, often named. Sander’s archive was studied
“returns us back to the [unchanging] skull, and the ‘truth’
closely, read and reread, interpreted and reinterpreted.
underneath the face,” writes Elyl Weizman. In this way
In Nazi Germany it took on a new and sinister meaning
we return to a form of the phrenological principle of pre-
following the doctrine of Aryan supremacy effectively
diction, “of looking at various patterns to see the future,”
sentencing certain racial groups to death. Bloomberg
says Weizman. However, he continues, the future is the
and Chanarin “see disturbing parallels of this totalitarian
domain of the algorithms whose grist are the big data sets
regime in present-day Russia,” which is why they chose
that make up digital photographs.
Russia as the stage for their project.
Bloomberg and Chanarin’s work is a fine example of the
Bloomberg and Chanarin’s archive differs from Sand-
fusion of art and technology giving rise to images never
ers in many ways. They never state names, only pro-
seen before. They are the product of more than art and
fessions. One photograph has the caption “The Revo-
technology moving ahead hand in hand. Rather these
lutionary.” The face belongs to the Pussy Riot band
two disciplines are merged into a single discipline. This
member, Yekaterina Samutsevich. What the state ma-
leads to a new aesthetic which is the sum of the visual
chinery sought in Sander’s photographs, as it did in
image and the technology that produces it. Only through
Alphonse Bertillon’s ‘mug shots’ in Paris in 1879, was
understanding this new technology can the work of art
types, whether people who looked a certain way were
be most deeply appreciated.
Above: ©Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin 2015 courtesy MACK. Opposite: Casual Labourer.
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