Photograph preserves

I did not know that I need to click "publish." no wonder it didn't show..

It must be so nice to analyze the whole book in this short paper. However, the broadness of the book or messages in the book limits me (yet, I do not fully understand). So I will try to focus on a few parts which struck me like a lightning of insightfulness.

Most of time, the one who is being photographed is aware of one’s self being photographed. As being aware of that, the one engages in the action of “posing.” Barthes refers the action to “transformation”—feeling the creation of one’s body or the mortification by the photograph. Though it is imaginary, through “posing” Barthes metaphorically mentions that he derives his existence from the photographer. It is an interesting notion that by the time one performs the action, the one realizes that his image will be regenerated—possibly over and over. It is agreeable that such an action qualifies as “transformation” in the sense that the action is acknowledgement of his permanent image created. However, a question arises: what about the photograph does not involve in the action of “posing” (for example, a situation that you do not notice you are being photographed)?

In contrast to an image is being eternalized, the subject is become an object. Barthes refers this to “death”; the subject does not necessarily have any importance in the photograph anymore. It is understandable that after the photograph is taken, the subject—someone who is photographed—is breathless, motionless, and even timeless. Whether or not the subject exists any more, it is clear that it is no longer important in the photographed image itself. It is paradoxical that the photograph is no longer relevant to its referent: the photograph eternalizes and objectifies the subject or the referent. The photograph then gains its meaning or identity other than the replication image of the referent. I am not sure that Barthes meant the idea of “death” even taking into account of the referent’s existence. This, the referent’s existence does not have any influence on one’s replica, means that the photograph is granted a distinct identity or meaning apart from the referent.

“In this glum desert, suddenly a specific photograph reaches me, it animates me, and I animate it. So that is how I must name the attraction which makes it exist: an animation. The photograph itself is no way animated (I do not believe in “lifelike” photographs), but it animates me: this is what creates every adventure.”—pg20,

It might be necessary for me to connect to the class’s main focus—time machine and machine time. Despite the photograph can not exist without the referent, the photograph still exists even if the referent no longer exists. Barthes asserts that the photograph animates him. To Barthes, the photograph means preservation. It can be said “time machine”; however, the photograph does not bring you to future nor is it meant to. What I mean by ‘preservation’ is that the subject is eternalized in the photograph. This gives me a clue why Barthes prefers a photograph to a movie: “I do not believe in “lifelike” photographs.” This seems that Barthes rejects an idea of the photograph as a tool to portray the world does not exist. In the photograph, the subject is preserved for eternity that the past is present.

Why travel time to talk about the present?

I think “The Time Machine” is less about the mysteries and science of time travel than it is a critique or warning of the consequences of industrialization. Wells warns about the potential harms of subjugating the working class and also of eliminating challenges from life. He sees a future where the poor or working class have been banished from the surface of the earth and are no longer even seen to be the same species as the upper class which was allowed to stay on the surface. The Eloi are Wells' comment on the “easy life” of the elites and what happens when survival is not challenged. Although Wells wrote this book over 100 years ago, I think the novel's lesson is even more relevant in today's world. The evolution of humans into lesser beings is also the subject of the movie Idiocracy (which I mentioned in an earlier comment).

It interested me that Wells foresaw the impact that industrialization would have on people's attitudes toward melanin. Before industrialization, most workers were agricultural and developed darker skin. In contrast, the elites stayed inside most of the time and had pale skin. As a result, pale skin was seen as a sign of success because it meant you did not have to do real labor out in the hot sun. Wells saw that now the majority of the working class was kept in factories during daylight hours and rarely saw the sun. He speculated the continuation of this, and progressively worse working conditions, would make the working class very pale skinned. The Morlocks in The Time Machine represent the projection of this 800,000 years into the future, but we can already see some of what Wells “predicted.” Tan skin is now viewed in our culture as being more attractive than pale skin and I think what Wells saw happening during the industrial revolution has a lot to do with it. In the modern age, a lot of labor (particularly factory work) is done inside, while the elites, with their free time, are able to stay outside and get a tan.

Depicting the future working class as barely resembling humans seems like a comment on hazards already known to be caused by inhumane working conditions, like rickets for example. Rickets was a disease that riddled young children working in factories in England, because they did not absorb enough sunlight to produce Vitamin D and suffered the painful growth deformities caused by the deficiency. The Morlocks are Wells' warning of what the future might be like if such practices are not changed. Wells' time traveler guesses that “thousands of generations ago, man had thrust his brother man out of the ease and the sunshine.” By this he is hypothesizing that the working class was pushed underground, but it could also be seen as Wells describing the thrusting of workers into factories where they get no sunlight.

Even though I think Wells was commenting on English society at the end of the 19th century, it is understandable why he set his book in the future. Time travel allowed him more freedom to hypothesize about what current practices might lead to, and at the same time protected him against being labeled as too critical of contemporary society.