toward a new kind of image: photosynthegraphy

Leonardo

Toward a New Kind of Image: PhotosynthegraphyAuthor(s): Céline GuesdonSource: Leonardo, Vol. 39, No. 3 (2006), pp. 193-197, 227Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20206216 .

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Toward a New Kind of Image:

Photosynthegraphy

C?line Guesdon

ABSTRACT

I he author presents a new way of creating images that taps into new interrogations of images. The link between art and tech

nology lies at the heart of her research. She uses a prototype camera that makes it possible to generate a 3D mesh starting from a single photograph. She

presents various photographic creations begun during earlier studies in order to explain how her work leads to the perception of photography as volume

images.

JL^^orn of a remarkable union, photosynthegraphy is the fruit of a hybridization of photography and the virtual

world of the three-dimensional synthesized image. Just as Alain

Renaud speaks of photologie to indicate the move to digital pho

tography, I also make use of a neologism to describe the play between photography and synthesis to advance a possible move

(thanks to data processing tools) from two to three dimen

sions. Given that today the digital element forms an integral

part of photography, why could it not focus on another world

and capture a fragment of a virtual reality?

What Do We Believe We See? What relationship do we have today with the photographic im

age? From the analogic latent image to the virtual image, pho

tography has played with its visual

identity, but can any image take a

photographic form with impunity? Can one photograph a simulated

object? The example of the series of

disconcerting cibachromes by Keith

Cottingham entitled Fictitious Por

traits (Fig. 1) and Maurice Benay oun's installation World Skin per

haps provide a starting point for an

answer.

After looking at the androgynous

young men in Fig. 1, we are sur

prised to learn that they do not ac

tually exist and are the product of

pure computer programming. Their images emerge from al

gorithmic calculations, not from a photographic print as one

might have thought. They were in fact developed from a clay

sculpture of the torso of the artist, which was digitally scanned

and combined with anatomical drawings and photographs of

people of different races, genders and ages. From all these dis

parate elements, Cottingham created an artificial reality. The

realism of these androgynous young men is born of our desire

to believe that the photographic image is capable of truth, that

it can be seen as a trace of reality. In World Skin (Fig. 2), Maurice Benayoun invites us,

equipped with cameras, to a war zone, to circulate in a vir

tual 3D space like a group of tourists on a "photo safari." Each

portion of the virtual landscape photographed literally disap

Fig. 1. Keith Cottingham, Fictitious Portraits, digital print, 1993.

(? Keith Cottingham. Image courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York.)

Wi AJ?

Fig. 2. Maurice Benayoun, World Skin, interactive CAVE installation with cameras and printers, 1997. (? Maurice Benayoun)

Coline (iiicsdon (multimedia anist), Department of Arts & Technology of the Image, Paris University 93526, France. E-mail: <guesdon.coline<fefree.fr>.

Web site: <http://celine.guesdon.over-blog.com>.

?2006 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 193-197,2006 193



Fig. 3. Back of Spines, silver and digital photograph, 2002. (? C?line Guesdon)

pears from the field of vision, leaving

only its white-and-gray outline. The ob

server has the option of preserving the

photographs on paper, like so many tro

phies of a passage through the virtual

world, tearing off its skin along with the

photograph. Looking at these works,

which are examples of the artistic process

possible in contemporary art research, it

is in fact the photographic image itself

and the suspicions aroused by its dig ital manipulation that are at issue. Faced

with these changes to the shots them

selves, must the treatment and the post

processing therefore challenge the whole

concept of photography? The false debate on photography is

provoked by the detractors of digital pho

tography as a result, I believe, of a lack of

knowledge or a refusal to take account of

these changes, which are moreover the

subject of a specific 1995 work, entitled

Art/Photography: The Reinvented Image [ 1 ]. I think that this idea of reinvention

comes into its own in the area of dig itization: Photography reinvents itself

through the transformation of its own

technical specifications, thus leading to

what one might call a "new" theoretical

subject in the history of photography, in

the sense that very few works relating to

this subject have been published to date.

Admittedly, technical works bearing such

titles as Beginner's Guide to Digital Photog

raphy abound on bookshop shelves, but

it is still with reluctance that theorists de

vote themselves to reflection on this sub

ject. Jacques Clayssen [2] distinguishes between two types of images: the wet im

age (that of silver-based photography) and the dry image (which refers to the

magnetic format on which digital pho

tographs are stored). However, Pascal

Convert's protean images of liquid mer

cury present to me a more interesting

compromise. His images exhibit, to use

his words, "a Terminator effect with a

body of liquid mercury with no defined thickness, which can take on any ap

pearance and which can become, as the

need arises, tiling, a wall, a puddle or a

human being" [3].

Although this polymorphic character

can be both worrying and dangerous for the credibility of photography in the news and the media, it is a source of

great richness in the arts, allowing a cre

ative process to take place that could not

be experienced previously in the mor

phogenesis of the image. The multiple

changes in aspect and the malleability of the images, which I will describe as

fluids, and the changes from body to

shape are only possible under the aegis of digitization and its promises of hy bridization [4].

A Digital Alchemy

My research springs from a desire to give one single body to two different forms of

images: photography and 3D synthesized

images.

My method was initially like an exper imental graft, involving the "implanta tion" of shapes or computer-modeled

objects, which became in some sense pro

longations and extensions of women's

photographed bodies. A fantastical se

ries came to life from this first union, giv

ing birth to creatures with steel wings, tentacle-like arms and spiked backs (Figs 3 and 4).

Photography in these works becomes

a sort of corrupted trap contaminated by

foreign bodies. Between the flesh and the

synthetic graft, the organic and the in

organic have seduced each other to cause

uneasiness and to create suspicions about

what can be photographed and what can

194 Guesdon, Toward a New Kind of Image



fs

>

/

Fig. 4. Tentacles, silver and digital photograph, 2002. (? C?line Guesdon)

not. The ultimate stage of this process is the printing of the images on photo

graphic paper, which makes this digital

alchemy tangible.

The Photographic Flesh of the Synthesized Image As my research continued, the discovery of a prototype digital camera, borrowed

from France Telecom's research and de

velopment department in Rennes, able

to generate a synthesized 3D mesh from

a single shot, modified and renewed the

field of 2D-3D hybridization in which I was working. This very different process is no longer that of a succession from

the second to the third dimension in or

der to return to a photographical bi

dimensionality. The input of the two

types of data is simultaneous. This cam

era is, in my opinion, the agent of a new

way of perceiving photography: as a

volume-image. It generates a kind of vir

tual mold in three dimensions, without

weight, floating, which one can visualize

from every angle. Starting from the pho

tographed body, the image takes on a

body, builds itself its own individual

anatomy and becomes a synthetic skin

woven from a collection of photographs shot from many angles.

The volume-images in Color Plate E

and Fig. 6 were created using this camera

and then produced using 3D software. Al

though close to graphics, engraving or

photogravure, they have, nevertheless, a

photographic origin. These strange bod

ies built with geometry and held in a

polygonally faceted net are caught in a

web of lines, weaving little by little the

network of their growth and their trans

formation. The body is deformed, caught

by what makes it grow but can also de

stroy it. The skin is shredded, stretched

in places and frayed as if falling off into

pieces, leaving a hollow interior.

To return to the process of creating these pictures, the camera shot takes

place in two stages: The first photograph is used to obtain the texture and the col

ors. The second, for which the subject is

lit by laser scanning, forming horizontal

bands of different colors, is intended for

the calculation of the shapes. This basi

cally hybrid camera is a way of decon

structing the image and of infiltrating it in order to change it. Between pho

tography and the synthesized image, or

rather from their union, the potential im

age of something else appears: perhaps the quest for a third dimension to defy the bi-dimensionality that characterizes

the image becomes possible. As so ele

gantly put by Jean-Louis Weissberg, "The

window no longer opens on the world, it

opens in the image and sometimes inside

itself [5]. It is this work with what I call the "bodies of images" in a virtual scenog

raphy (in a scenic space) that introduces

a modification into creation by means of

a very sculptural approach, as though I

were modeling or sculpting. If I make it

a point of principle that this work is a

photograph (which is clearly 2D), it is be cause the photograph makes tangible a

kind of ectoplasm. It is also, above all, an

aesthetic choice. To realize this experi mental process on photographic paper is to make concrete what a photograph

really is, a "sensitive" paper skin, while

at the same time placing it in a porte-?

faux, in a state of disequilibrium regard

ing what is being seen. To start from a

photographic view and then to plunge or travel into a world of three virtual di

mensions and to return to a 2D "reality" in its presentation as a photograph can

appear paradoxical. Nevertheless, it is a

choice, a viewpoint adopted to twist and

transform the potential of movement or

3D animation in order to concentrate on

the fixed image, because it retains mem

ory of its initial volume and depth, how

ever virtual these may be. The artistic

richness is born from this hybridization. It leads the image toward another aes

thetic: that of trouble and doubt. Pho

tography would be in "trans-situation," a

kind of enveloping membrane, an or

ganism in its reversible transfer from 2D

to 3D, like a skin, a flesh covering the or

ganism with a synthetic gestation that in

vites one to bore or see through its body.

Go?t(t)e (Color Plate E) is an extract

from the interactive photographic in

stallation Ondine (which mixes photo

graphs, synthesized images and sound)

Guesdon, Toward a New Kind of Image 195



fiSw?B^v

Fig. 5. Corpsfilaire #i, digital photograph, 2004. (? C?line Guesdon)

Fig. 6. Image-Sisters, from the Ondine installation, digital photograph on aluminum, 26.5 x 35.5 in, 2004. (? C?line Guesdon)

196 Guesdon, Toward a New Kind of Image

presented at the School of Fine Arts in

Rennes, France, in March 2004 during the Meeting festival. The installation On

dine explores the concept of the fluid im

age and the linkage of the photographic

image, the synthesized image and sound

with water. It is presented in the form of

a narrow corridor about 5 m long, which

becomes narrower and narrower, instill

ing a feeling of oppression owing to the

lack of space.

Eight photographs, each measuring 26.5 x 35.5 inches, hang from the ceil

ing, creating a passage. There are four

on each side, quite distant from one an

other in order to allow the visitor to nav

igate this corridor. They are placed so

as to converge according to a perspec tivist axis. As soon as one enters the cor

ridor, one can hear a mixture of fluid

sounds cued by a sensor. These sounds

change as the visitor progresses through the passage.



The first photograph is of a lady stretching out her arm, showing us the

way. With this corridor, my intention was

the exploration of a body in transforma

tion. The skin of the bodies becomes

translucent, colored with a reddening

flow, referring to hemoglobin, the fluid

that gives life to a synthetic skin. Some

thing visceral goes to the surface and

flows through the skin. The bodies are

agitated: Drops of water are punctuating,

streaming, covering them. Are they in

front of the drops, behind the drops or are they made of water themselves? Am

biguity remains. The bodies are liquefied,

joined together as Siamese twins.

Seeing through the inside of the agi tated body, or a skin already contain

ing the internal life on the surface of

the organism, is perhaps most affecting for me. The body starts floating, but does

it seek to be at ease or ill at ease? What is

striking is this hesitation between the hu

man and the nonhuman, the touch of a

doubt about the species of these bodies.

The haptic senses are aroused, the skin

awakened, as breathing wakes up a con

tact, the touch of the glance, but beyond

that, if I wished to put this work onstage in an installation, I would have it act di

rectly on the moving body of the specta

tor, to act on what is felt in the body. I

question the experiments and the body modifications in "impossible images." 3D

is for me a space for the extended imag

inary of the body.

References and Notes

1. Paul Berger, Art/Photographie num?rique, l'image r?invent?e (Cypr?s, France: School d'Aix-en-Provence, 1995).

2. Clayssen was co-organizer of the 1992 Paris exhi bition l'Epreuve num?rique and co-founder of the Ob

servatory of the Image in Paris.

3. Pascal Convert, "Protean Images of Liquid Mer

cury," Art Press, No. 251 (November 1999) pp. 39-43.

4.1 refer here to Edmond Couchot, "Promises of Nu merical Hybridization: Prolongation and Renewal of the Representational Arts," in Edmond Couchot,

Digital Images: The Adventure of the Glance (Rennes, France: University Presses, 1997) pp. 29-35.

5. J.L. Weissberg, "A New Mode of Visibility," Cahiers du Centre de Cr?ation Industrielle, special issue, "The

Ways of the Virtual: Data-processing Simulation and Industrial Creation," (1989) p. 98.

Manuscript received 23 February 2005.

Guesdon, Toward a New Kind of Image 197



Color Plate E

C?line Guesdon, Gout(t)e, from the Ondine installation, digital photograph on aluminum, 26.5 x 35.5 in, 2004. (? C?line Guesdon)

227



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