The very first set of photographs at the advent of photography, Autoportrait en noyé (Self Portrait as a Drowned Man), was taken by the French photographer and pioneer, Hippolyte Bayard in 1840. It is as though the photographs foreshadowed the eternal intersection of photography and the issue of death, declaring photography as a confluence of light and shadow that straddles between the visible and the unseen, through which the departed are evocated and resurrected.
In this issue, Lee Li-Chun describes how photography becomes the spirit that transcends the physical body, preaching the gospel of immortality through post-mortem photography that was most popular during the 19th century. Chen Ya-Wen explores the way the skeleton, the evergreen emblem in visual art, finds its way into magic lanterns and phantasmagoria to the light and shadow projections in films over the past six centuries. Chen Meng-Lan looks at the conceptual potential of the Chinese designation of photography, sheying, as “capturing shadows” and the discourse between the science and spirituality of photography as she looks at the works of the spiritualist group, Shanghai Lingxue Society, that was most active in ‘spirit photography’ during the early 1910s. In East Asia where most espouse a strong belief in the afterlife and practise relevant rituals to anticipate it, Kim Jeehey’s comparative research into the cultural imagery history across different regions through photographs taken of ‘ghost marriages’, death memorials and love-pact suicides reveals the patriarchal social structure behind the images that are driven by the dead. Chen Wan-Yin compares the European avant-garde movement of the early 20th century, spiritual science, and artist Hsu Chia-Wei’s video installation, using digital computing to depict the process of invocating the local deity of Matsu, Marshal Tie Jia. Chang Shih-Lun looks back at Taiwan’s most prominent cases of spiritual manifestations since the 1990s──Sung Chi-Li’s “fenshen” or body-double manifestation photographs──and examines the spectacle universe of “light” and “imagery”, and the cultural meaning behind the trend of spiritual photography that grew in Taiwan after the era of martial law.
In addition, we are also featuring artist Shannon Taggart’s work on spiritism that spanned over twenty years, culminating in her Séance series that documents spiritualist practices and communities in the United States and Europe, showcasing the body and photography as mediums. In “Artist’s Showcase”, we feature artist Zhang Xu Zhan and his recent stop-motion work Compound Eyes of Tropical that has attracted much attention. Through his work, we look at how he transformed the traditional art of papercraft, folk art and folklore into a lively paper puppet theater of fables. Meanwhile, amidst the many layers of illusion, we present art historian Noam. M. Elcott’s analysis on the significance of screens, a key element in the visual medium, for the first time ever. Translated by Hsieh Pei-Chun, we see Elcott’s study of the concept and practice of the European avant-garde artists in the early 20th century as they shifted from canvas to screens, from etymology to practice, and from materialism to symbolism. Elcott’s research on how the medium comes to be provides us with important points to think about as we look into the history of media.
This issue also shines the spotlight on the publishing scene in Japan with interviews with photography researchers Masako Toda and Ivan Vartanian, as they share their vast compilation of work on the history of Japanese photography magazines and the influence that they have left behind in the century since the 1880s when such publications saw their heyday. This new installment in the “Photobook Making Case Study” brings us to independent publisher SUPER LABO’s exclusive exhibition space in Tokyo, as we take a close look at the management style of this unique one-man publisher.
本期目錄 Contents
死亡闇影──淺論攝影與死亡
Shadow of Death: An Introduction to Photography and Death
李立鈞 Lee Li-Chun
光影．骷髏．魔術燈籠──六百年的幻相凝視
Light & Shadow． Skeleton． Magic Lantern:
A Visionary Gaze of 600 Years
陳雅雯 Chen Ya-Wen
鬼影識別──仙靈攝影中的可見與不可見
Spectral Recognition:
Visibility and Invisibility in Immortal Spirit Photography
陳夢嵐 Chen Meng-Lan
攝影、情愛與來世，在東亞
Photography, Love, and the Afterlife in East Asia
金芝潓 Kim Jeehey
起乩落字──「寫」的歧異與複靈媒介
Mediumship: The Divergence of “Writing” and the Medium of Spirits
陳琬尹 Chen Wan-Yin
「出賣光線的人」與他的「不可思議影像」──略論宋七力的分身照片
“The Man Who Sold the Light” and His “Unbelievable Images”:
A Brief Discussion on Sung Chi-Li’s “Fenshen” (Body-double Manifestations) Photographs
張世倫 Chang Shih-Lun
降靈會：Shannon Taggart
Séance: Shannon Taggart
專訪Shannon Taggart
Interview with Shannon Taggart
劉安蓁 Annette An-Jen Liu
Artist’s Showcase
熱帶複眼：張徐展
Compound Eyes of Tropical: Zhang Xu Zhan
專訪張徐展
Interview with Zhang Xu Zhan
李威儀 Lee Wei-I
日本攝影雜誌的時代──
一段歷史考察，1880至1980年代：專訪戸田昌子與Ivan Vartanian
The Age of Japanese Photography Magazines──
A Historical Study from 1880s to 1980s: Interview with Toda Masako and Ivan Vartanian
李威儀 Lee Wei-I
「藝術是對媒材的極致開發」──諾姆．M．艾考特的媒介藝術史導論
“Art is the Exploitation of the Medium”:
An Introduction to Noam M. Elcott’s Media Art Histories
謝佩君 Hsieh Pei-Chun
理想的螢幕？──納吉與必要的平面／投影幕／螢幕
An Ideal Screen?
Moholy-Nagy and the Necessities of Fläche / Leinwand / Schirm
諾姆．M．艾考特 Noam M. Elcott
攝影書製作現場系列7：SUPER LABO
Photobook Making Case Study #6: SUPER LABO
羅苓寧 Lo Ling-Ning