#1, 08/2015

Ensaio Fotográfico is an electronic magazine,

published every four months, distributed free of

charge, whose purpose is to promote the fine

art photography and research in photography

produced in the city of Belo Horizonte, for the

national and international context.

Ensaio Fotográfico is developed with the

resources granted by the Municipal Law

for Cultural Incentive of Belo Horizonte (Lei

Municipal de Incentivo à Cultura de Belo

Horizonte). Municipal Foundation for Culture

(Fundação Municipal de Cultura).

Editor Flávio Valle

Curators

Flávio Valle, Isabel Florêncio, Tibério França

Contributors Alexandra Simões de Siqueira,

Daniela Paoliello, Guilherme Bergamini, Helena Teixeira Rios, Isabel Florêncio

and Laura Fonseca

Reviewer Junia Mortimer

Translator Junia Mortimer and Georgina Vasquez

Production, Design and Graphic Design CultivArte

Cover photographs Helena Teixeira Rios, Laura Fonseca,

Daniela Paoliello and Guilherme Bergamini

Email contato@revistaensaiofotografico.com

Website www.revistaensaiofotografico.com

Facebook www.facebook.com/

revistaensaiofotografico

ABOUT US

This new PlacePhotos and Texts HELENA TEIXEIRA RIOS

Photography and Speed: the paradox of the gaze Texts ISABEL FLORÊNCIO

Letter from the editor

Photography, mediation and biographical research: a teaching experience in the field of visual artsTexts and Photos ALEXANDRA SIMÕES DE SIQUEIRA

Hotel SplendidPhotos and Texts LAURA FONSECA

Education for all Photos GUILHERME BERGAMINI | Texts MARCELO SEVAYBRICKER

ExilePhotos and Texts DANIELA PAOLIELLO

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Over the past few years, artistic photography

and research in photography have been taking

shape in Belo Horizonte. Its citizens have been

awarded national and international awards

and undergraduate and graduate courses on

the subject have been created. Along with the

commitment of the individual professional

towards this art, the good season in photography

is also due to the cultural public policies of

incentive to visual arts. Since 2010 there has

been an increasing number of projects being

presented and receiving the benefits of the

Municipal Law for Cultural Incentive. Some

of these projects, such as this magazine,

aspire, mainly, to encourage photographers

and researchers working on this subject.

In this sense, Ensaio Fotográfico is not just a

magazine, but also a cultural act that aims to

promote artistic photography and research in

photography produced in Belo Horizonte. The

reason for this is that as a result of creating and

maintaining a space in which photographers

and researchers can publish and discuss

their works, the production of new material is

made possible. Produced independently and

collaboratively, the key objective of this platform

is to highlight and introduce the readers to

photographic creations that have artistic,

scientific and cultural relevance. In addition,

in order to ensure access for all to its content,

the publication is released free of charge on

the website www.revistaensaiofotografico.com

and it provides the reader with conceptual

tools for reading the images. Thus, Ensaio

Fotográfico is an instrument for implementing

a cultural policy which aims to spread the

photographic thinking of Belo Horizonte, to

democratize the access to symbolic goods and

also to instruct the public for the visual arts.

Ensaio Fotográfico runs according to an

editorial line that covers distinct approaches of

photography, which range from investigations

into historical processes to experimentations

with contemporary languages. In this first

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edition, four photo essays and two critical

essays are presented: in “This New Place”,

Helena Rios proposes a redefinition of space

through photographic procedures; in “Hotel

Splendid”, Laura Fonseca narrates the daily

lives of women working as prostitutes in hotels

at Guaicurus Street; in “Exile”, Daniela Paoliello

explores the relationship between her body and

the surrounding nature as she performs for

the camera; in “Education for All”, Guilherme

Bergamini records the abandonment of

education in this country; in “Photography,

Mediation and Biographical Research”,

researcher Alexandra Simões presents an

educational action that uses photography as a

tool; in “Photography and Speed: the paradox

of gaze”, Isabel Florêncio proposes a debate

on the temporal aspect of the photographic

gesture as she reviews the work of four

contemporary photographers from Germany.

The value of this publication is due not only to

the excellence of the works published here,

but also to the collaboration of everyone who

enjoys the magazine, the photographers

and researchers who have sent their works,

the curators who selected the most suitable

ones for this first edition, the editorial team

which revised and diagrammed the magazine,

CultivArte which produced it, and the Municipal

Foundation for Culture which sponsored it.

Flávio Valle

Editor

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This new Place Photos and Texts HELENA TEIXEIRA RIOS

The world before the camera is real, but what

permeates the machine is our perception,

captured and transformed into what gives

meaning to that moment, and that can be re-

signified moments later.

The purpose of this photographic essay is to find

a way to expand the communication between

place, image and the individual, turning the

photographs into not a mere collection of

scenes, but into something that gives form to

what I want to convey in the instant I see the

world.

Thus, there is no interest in copying what

has happened, framing and disposing it in

appropriate compositions, but yet to seek,

through the picture, what I feel when I am

inserted in a certain space, constructing

therefore not obvious images, but those that

are incentives to the idea of that site through

my imagination.

Accordingly, I decided to release the camera

from what is usual, not to look at the display and

not to make visual compositions so as to seek

movements, colors, textures and shadows. This

action enabled unstable forms to arise, with no

outline; images that were blurred and unclear,

in which the gestures would be designed and

enlarged in order to transmit and discover this

new place and my own way of representing it

through my perception.

After this process, I took to selecting images

that could interact with each other. I realized

that the captured photographs had not yet

configured or trespassed what I had been

seeking as a result. At post-production, I began

to overlap surfaces, looking for matching colors,

textures, movements, which would help me

chose certain images over others. In this way,

layers of photos were being worked on, allowing

to transform shadows into patches and gardens

into paintings, creating breakups, recreations

and generating fruition. Hence, what I now

show has never actually been seen before, but

it is revealed through my gaze, my imagination.

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Photography and Speed: the paradox of the gaze Texts ISABEL FLORÊNCIO

INTRODUCTION

This paper is part of the lecture I gave on July

23, 2015, at the opening of the exhibition “The

day will come when photography will slow

again”, which took place within the Photography

Triennial program, in Hamburg in 2015. The

exhibition brings together the work of four

contemporary German photographers (Oliver

Rolf J. Conrad Schmidt, Hendrik Faure and Ralf)

and can be seen in Hamburg from July 24 to 28,

2015. The four artists use traditional methods

(photogravure, wet collodion) or hybrid processes

involving digital capture and handmade printing

(intaglio gravure). Such processes share the

reference to the origins of photography, a time

when the photographic gesture demanded the

photographer to have previous awareness in

aesthetic and conceptual terms. This paper

proposes to discuss the relationship between

photography and speed considering the impacts

of the technological age on the photographic

gesture and on the perceptive capacity

of the individual in contemporary society.

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SPEED: VICARIOUS EXPERIENCE AND THE

SIGHT WITHOUT GAZING

Today it is possible to perceive how, in so

many levels, the world is organized according

to notions of speed, technological efficiency

and competitiveness. The attribution of great

value to technique, the idea of instantaneity

in making images and in transferring data,

besides real-time communication, all

these aspects make profound marks in our

experience of private life as well as serve as

a parameter in global political and economic

contexts. This triad – speed, technology and

competitiveness – has largely driven our way of

life, both in the subjective and material fields.

Either in micro or macro level, contemporary

life requires from the individuals ever more

accelerated kinds of behavior (SANTOS, 2006).

Given this situation, it becomes difficult, if not

impossible, not to surrender to the permanent

temptation of high speed as a contemporary

way of life. According to Milton Santos, when

effectiveness becomes a creed and rush, a

kind of virtue, we are urged to participate in

this current, which drags us in search for the

“future”. Within this belief, supported by the

extreme competitiveness of today’s society, we

are fed by the idea that being up to date also

means being in possession of all the technique

and information that enables us to be tuned

24 hours a day with the world, connected

with the wide village which the globalized

world has become, as sociologist Marshall

McLuhan theorized in the 1960’s. The idea

of being up to date has become a slogan and

high speed has become a sign of effectiveness.

We must, however, ask ourselves whether this

idea of high speed will be really something

imperative, which one cannot escape from.

Are we indeed encapsulated within this

accelerated craft in search for the future? To

what extent is the idea of high speed actually

a gain for our sensitivity, for our perception of

the world and for intersubjective relationships,

which are the basis for social welfare?

The concept of high-speed that I bring into

discussion here is not only related to the

exposure time for taking a picture or that

of sending it to any corner of the world. It is,

rather, a philosophical notion, or perhaps an

ideological one, that shapes the relationships

and the behavior of individuals and, after

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all, affects our perception and our way

of interacting with the world around us.

The theoretical perspective I present here goes

hand in hand with that of philosopher Paul

Virilio. According to him, today we live under

dromospheric pollution, a consequence of the

high-speed syndrome that affects us all. For

Virilio, visual aids (such as cameras, telescopes,

screencast, among other vision devices) provide

a form of artificial perception that, by replacing

the human eye, they end up generating a loss

in the subjects’ capacity of representation. Still

according to Paul Virilio, the high-speed age

and its visual aids make our vision dyslexic,

cause the fall of experience and the reduction

of perceptive faith. We live in an age marked by

the conquest of light speed, seeking to expand

the scope of our vision and making everything

visible. Through the acceleration of time, it

becomes possible to move quickly in space.

We have shortened space but have flattened

the landscape, as the machine of vision, which

takes the place of human vision, has become a

kind of sight without gazing (VIRILIO, 1951, p. 59).

I believe that this relationship can be applied to our

everyday experience, in which everything seems

to exist in order to be photographed, although

the rush of our contemporary way of life tends to

make us look less and less to our surroundings.

As we do not have time, we photograph,

expecting the stored image to replace, at least

vicariously, the experience that we can no

longer grasp as we run in search for the future.

Nevertheless, there is something in the

opposite direction to the enhancement of

high-speed ideology asking to be looked at

more carefully. Family environment, subjective

relationships and empathy, which all suffer

from the lack of time. This is a planetary

problem. Likewise, the environment, the

institutions and the relationships between

nations suffer from a type of pathology

whose origin is in the resulting movement

that acceleration provokes in our way of life.

It is contradictory to think that, because we

do everything very fast, we fail to enjoy time

thoroughly. We fail to take time to look at

the detail that has been overlooked in the

urban turbulence; to look at other people’s

subjectivity, to perceive the ephemeral aspects

of life and to identify the desire for interaction

that every subject demands. And the result of

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this fast movement in search for the future, for

what has to be achieved as soon as possible

– preferably yesterday – is the blindness in

relation to the present. Blindness related to

the presence, I would say. Being here and

being nowhere have become synonymous.

In the field of arts, we still have the privilege, at

least in part, to count on certain actions that, in

my point of view, may function as a kind of oasis

within the desertified landscape that results

from the compulsion of being up to date, in which

we are all compelled to participate. In these

artistic actions that subvert the technological

fix approach to the world, our subjectivity finds

its way against the exacerbated acceleration in

which we live. In this sense, art has a mission

beyond the aesthetic field. It operates as a

kind of compliment to slowness, since the

field of arts tends to offer symbolic spaces for

contemplation and reflection. It is an experience

of this kind that we have the pleasure to enjoy

through the works of the four German artists

gathered in this exhibition. By distinct means,

they are all an expression of what slowness –

what I call the NO up to date mode – can operate

in the aesthetic and sensitive field.

PHOTOGRAPHY, SPEED AND THE

OBLITERATION OF THE GAZE

The acceleration of technical processes and the

high-speed culture of today’s society have an

important impact in our ways of expression and

in our approaches to images, especially in the

aspects related to the photographic gesture and

to the photographic image itself. Many aspects

of the acts undertaken individually or collectively

within the history of photography show that the

increase of speed has a close relationship with

the aesthetic evolution of the photographic

language. But there are nonsensical aspects in

this relationship. I will comment on just a few:

Initially, it is known that the first technical

image, carried out by Niépce in 1826, resulted

from about 8 hours of exposure. The first

photographic process based on silver salts,

the daguerreotype, made public in France in

1839, represented a significant leap regarding

exposure time as it required only a few minutes

to produce a photograph. Urban scenes and still

lives were the main target of the first images.

Nevertheless, the streets would always seem

to be empty, as the low sensibility of emulsion

to light did not allow the image of a passerby

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to be captured. Only by chance in Paris, in the

19th century, was it possible to register, for the

first time, a man shining his shoes in a corner1.

At that time, a blurred photograph was

considered an imperfect photograph, because

it lacked what photography brought as novelty

in the history of representation: the fidelity

made possible by technical resources. Due to

technical restrictions for the low sensitivity of

the emulsion and to the low optical quality of

the lenses, making a photograph required long

exposure times. Therefore, in order to avoid

blur, photographers used to employ many

resources such as props, pose chairs, supports

for behind the head, anything that would

help immobilize the photographed person.

Since the 1850’s, the use of wet collodion

emulsion (the process used by artists Oliver

Rolf and J. Konrad Schmidt) was revolutionary

for photography. Firstly because, given the

high sensibility of that emulsion, reducing

the exposure time to only a few seconds

was made possible; secondly because

the glass holder allowed reproducibility

with extreme fidelity and verisimilitude.

This is only some of the data showing how,

since its invention, photography has tried to

overcome the limits imposed by long exposure

times. As emulsion and lenses have become

more sensible to light, using faster exposure

times has also become possible. Thus,

increasing shot speed has allowed to reveal

aspects of reality that used to escape from

the human eye, for instance, the ergonomics

of the movement of people and animals. In

this sense, the visual investigations made by

Eadweard Muybridge and also by Étienne-

Jules Marey brought important contributions

both in the scientific and in the aesthetic fields,

that is to say, in the history of representation.

On the other hand, the acceleration of the

processes and the flexibility of portable

cameras have also made photography an

easier and more commercial activity. From

the 1880’s on, the launch of portable cameras

has enabled anyone to take a picture. The

first campaign of Kodak brings, for instance,

a young and very elegant woman using a

camera. The idea behind the argument of the

1 Daguerre realizou esta imagem em 1838 em Paris. Cf. ROSENBLUM.pags. 17-20.

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ad – albeit predominantly biased and sexist –

is that every mortal, even an elegant and vain

woman, would be able to shoot with that device.

The acceleration in the modes of apprehending

and distributing photographs was decisive for

the photographic aesthetic throughout the 19th

and 20th centuries, especially when the snapshot

was made possible and reproduction of images

in print media became feasible. These factors

brought the ability to register and circulate

aspects of everyday life, which are now heavily

publicized in newspapers, flyers, magazines and

posters of all kinds. Since then, we have got so

used to images that we have become less able to

actually see within the turmoil of everyday life.

However, the acceleration of technical

processes has also become, in a certain

way, a problem for photography. As devices

have become more agile, lighter and more

automated, the photographic gesture has

become present everywhere and yet nowhere,

as it turned out to be something to be consumed

on a daily basis without much forethought, and

also without consequences. The technological

effectiveness and promptness of the means

of reproduction served, on the one hand, to

popularize photography and, on the other

hand, to create a less compromising way of

observing and making use of the technique.

Looking, gazing and perceiving are not

synonymous. In the digital age, characterized

by increasingly more compact devices,

quantity has taken the place of quality. The

consequent and contemplative act of gazing

and perceiving has been replaced by techniques

of editing, treating and manipulating the

image. Contemplation has been replaced by

the compulsion of the shot. Even before the

image is perceived, it is already captured. This

is a major aspect questioned in the movie

Blow Up in the 1970’s. The film has become an

important reference in the history of cinema and

within the studies of photographic language.

It is, however, paradoxical to think that the faster

one can take a picture, the lesser contact one

establishes with the scene before the camera.

I believe it is now a serious issue for the new

generation, which has grown up in the digital era,

to be able to imagine a time when photography

was done “blindly”, and the image was desired

as a potential and latent form through the

viewfinder, although it was to be seen, materially,

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only days, sometimes weeks, after the exposure.

Let us now go back to the expression I used

earlier in the text to reach the center of my

reflection: I intentionally used the phrase

“photography made blindly” referring to the time

when in order to shoot with a camera one needed

to have not only technical expertise to control

the device and to process the photographs, but

especially one needed to have foresight to guide

the adequate operation of the device and of the

laboratory apparatus in order to achieve their

goal. Each photograph involved much investment

of time and resources. Each shot involved,

above all, perception and prior observation

through the optical viewfinder. That is to say

that each shot involved the act of imagining.

In the technological age what is common is the

paradoxical tendency to select the image not

in the moment of capture, but afterwards, on

the screen, which means that the picture is not

precisely the result of a previous act of perception.

It tends to be, disregarding the feeling of the

photographer, determined by the apparatus.

Today, the shot takes place even before the

perception is triggered. One tends to shoot tens

or hundreds of times and the act of perceiving,

which is the great power and great skill of the

creative act, is delegated to the device. The digital

screen has thus become, not only an instrument

of viewing the image, but also the means by

which the world is observed. The screen offers

the world being captured as a trophy, as a

certificate of presence to be exhibited in the

future. And that is how we go by. We please

ourselves with the stored image on the chip,

without thinking that photography is just the

skeleton (or the mummy) of the perceptual act.

What we observe is not the scene any longer,

but a second order representation of the

scene. In Plato’s terms, we are living in an

age of projections, in which images replace

our relationship with the world. In doing so,

we lose contact with the referential world and

tend to prefer the secondhand relationship

to the world that the image offers. The haptic

relationship with the world is replaced by the

anxiety in capturing life through the screen

that displays dozens or hundreds of shots.

Shot and capture. These are terms of combat

that have nothing to do with contemplation. They

have nothing to do with accurate perception,

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which is mandatory for every photographer,

at a time in which the photographic act would

still require a certain aesthetic awareness

as well as a certain awareness of the

consequences of using the apparatus as

a means of expression of inner sensibility.

In analog photography, the latent image

is comprised of the poetics involving the

photographic gesture. It is an image that is

there, invisible, the result of imagination and

technical expertise, but silently awaiting to

be revealed. I was initiated into the world of

photography still during the analog age and

I can very well understand what it means to

wait for hours, sometimes for days, to see the

result of a shot. It would be a mix of mystery

and anxiety. A space of tension and expectation

that comprised the relationship between what

was imagined, what was sensed and what was

actually performed and that can only be savored

when the picture is not presented immediately

to the eyes. Today it is no longer common to

make photographs blindly. But blind photos

are commonly made. The high-speed and the

technical effectiveness bring to photography

the warranty and the agility of the results, but

they also remove from the photographic act the

ability to imagine, to foresee and to create images

even before they are actually taken by the device.

If, on the one hand, the high-speed age

offers us the possibility of quick capturing

and transmitting images, on the other hand,

it removes the contemplative and ritualistic

aspect involving the gesture of making and

viewing images. This visual exercise that allows

an image to be present virtually before our eyes

prior to being captured by the camera is what

the high-speed culture steals from us in terms

of imaging potentiality. A type of blindness

stands in between our sensibility and the world.

Undoubtedly, technical innovation has brought

to the photographic language new expressive

features and it has also allowed the creation of

new aesthetic forms. The reduction of exposure

times and the acceleration of the processes

(capture and transmission) allowed, as outlined

earlier, for capturing aspects of life that were not

visible to the naked eye. And these aspects were

distinctive to enhance the unusual, metonymic

and specific nature of the photographic

language. But it is important to bear in mind

that the increased speed of the processes and

the use of ever more technological devices can

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also lead to the obliteration of the gaze, if the

device lacks to be in the service of a sensibility,

a perceptive gesture prior to the shot.

PRAISE TO PERCEPTUAL GESTURE

It is not my intention to attribute more importance

to the “no up to date” mode of producing

images than to all the issues surrounding the

photographic language. Neither do I intend to

place the process or the technical apparatus

ahead of the conceptual and aesthetic aspects,

which I consider to be the core of the figurative

power of a photographic image. The reflection I

propose intends to contribute to the realization

that, in addition to the traditional methods

(which are complex, cumbersome, slow and

tend to refer aesthetically and technically to

the early days of photography), what brings

together the work of these four photographers

is the awareness of the perceptive gesture that

precedes the photographic act. What brings

them together is primarily the way in which

the processes they use tend to collaborate with

respect to another kind of relationship with the

gaze. Thus, in different ways, each artist leads

us to think of the photographic gesture itself,

of its relationship with the gaze and of the

impact of high-speed in the perception of our

surroundings: in the perception of the other, of

symbolic spaces in everyday life, of the details

in urban life, and of our own act of imagining,

understanding and producing images.

The great message of this aesthetic encounter

is to lead us to speculate on the photographic

gesture as an act of contemplation that demands

from us perceptual involvement and aesthetic

and conceptual awareness. In addition to the

traditional methods involved here, these artists

show us that the acceleration of photographic

techniques puts our perception at risk: the risk

of being run over by agility and by the lack of

reflection implied in an accelerated way of life,

that is to say, the risk of obliterating the gaze and

the perception through technical acceleration.

These artists not only rescue handicraft

processes from early photography through the

processes they use, but they actually rescue

the attention and the perceptual power we

all ended up losing in the current accelerated

way of life we find ourselves in. The attitude

of involvement, commitment and aesthetic

contemplation, in which the technical and

plastic decisions are slowly taken, is more than

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a simple restraint feature of the processes

they used. It is actually a philosophical, ethical

and aesthetic option before the photographic

gesture and the image to be achieved. In these

terms, the greatest contribution of this show

is not only the historical rescue of laborious

techniques or their resulting aesthetics; it is

rather a philosophical and aesthetic attitude

concerning how a high-speed culture affects

our lives and, more specifically, what such

kind of culture implies to the potentiality of the

gaze. These artists tell us, after all, that the

gestures of looking and perceiving have become

anachronistic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BURGIN, Victor. Photographic practice and art theory. In: ___ (Ed.). Thinking photography. London: MacMillan Publishers, 1982a. p. 39-83.KRAUSS, Rosalind. O fotográfico. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2002a.___. The optical unconsciouns. London: MIT Press, 1994.___. Anmerkung zum Index: Teil I. In: WOLF, Herta (Hg.). Paradigma Fotografie: Fotokritik am Ende des fotografischen Zeitalters. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2002b. p. 140-157.FLORÊNCIO-BRAGA, Isabel. Figuralidades: da tradução ao poético na fotografia contemporânea. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2009. FLORÊNCIO-PAPE, Isabel. Andreas Müller-Pohle: poesia visual e de-figuração. In: ALETRIA: revista de estudos de literatura, v.6. Belo Horizonte: POSLIT, Faculdade de Letras da UFMG. Pp. 151-168. SANTOS, Milton. A natureza do espaço: técnica e tempo, razão e emoção. São Paulo: EdUSP, 2006.VIRILIO, Paul. “Echtzeit-Perspektiven”. In: Christos M. Joachimides [et.al.] (ed.), Metropolis (Katalog zur Internationalen Kunstausstellung, Matrin-Gropius-Bau), Berlin 1991, p. 59.ROSENBLUM, Naomi. A world history of photography. New York: Abbeville, 1984.

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Hotel Splendid Photos and Texts LAURA FONSECA

The photographic project called “Hotel

Splendid” was carried out in order to register the

context of the everyday life of women working

as prostitutes in hotels at Guaicurus Street,

a place known as a point for prostitution in

Belo Horizonte. It decisively follows a feminine

and compassionate perspective, refusing the

banal exploitation trends and focusing on the

human condition of the portrayed subject.

Therefore, the emphasis of this project is in the

context of the everyday life of prostitutes, not

just in the activities and attitudes inherent to the

profession. In order to do so, this work records not

only the women but also the environments, the

objects, the situations “dismantled” into a more

intimate time, that of the “in-between”. It is a time

when the artist, as a woman and photographer,

gained access to such ambiance and had the

ability to document along the numerous visits

to hotels in Guaicurus Street, during the year

2011. This strategy was essential for describing

the lives of those women, and contributed to

the construction of their bodies differently

from what is recorded in the traditional media.

In this context, the project aims to bring the

public closer and to modify the way one sees

the everyday reality of prostitutes by showing

a distinct approach, a more humanistic and

respectful one, free of the usual sensationalism

often associated with works dealing with

this theme. It is an opportunity to change the

conventional view of society on prostitution

through audiovisual arts by providing an

alternative perspective that goes far beyond

legal, moral and religious prejudice, which

unfortunately continues to prevail in society

today.

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31Hotel Esplêndido

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33Quarto No 207 / 1

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35Quarto No 210 / 4

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39Quarto No 210 / 3

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45Quarto No 117 / 1

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47Quarto No 234

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Exile Photos and Texts DANIELA PAOLIELLO

In the images of Exile, a relationship between

photography and performance is established, in

which the body acts exclusively for the camera,

away from the direct gaze of the public. Thus

staging contributes to the photographic

narrative, as part of its two-dimensional logic, of

its static and silent time. To shoot without seeing

the scene: it is a picture of the before (image-

projection) and the after (image at random). In

the genesis of photography, the camera sensor

is invaded by light, without the guidance of the

eye; the photographic image comes from an

anonymous instant, in the abstention of the

subject. There is no hunting, there is no decisive

moment nor decisive act of seeing. It is like a

shot in reverse. It is not the camera that goes

to the encounter of the object, but a body that

throws itself to the shot: a projectil-body.

In the relationship between the human body

and nature, the body takes back its essence,

what is more of its own, its pain at the meeting

with the externality, its condition of affected

body by the forces of the world. It goes through

the experience of being swallowed, processed,

reinvented within the relational action

according to which the body deprograms itself,

and becomes again a field of living forces that

affects the world and is affected by it.

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Photography, mediation and biographical research: a teaching experience in the field of visual arts

Texts ALEXANDRA SIMÕES DE SIQUEIRA

1.VISUAL LANGUAGE

Images have always been influential in man’s

existence. We have been producers of images

since our emergence as a species. In the

contemporary world, images are ubiquitous.

We live under a continuous rainfall of images,

particularly of technical images, such as

photography. Today everyone has at least

one kind of camera and they use it to take

photographs. Nevertheless, this does not mean

that people understand the processes involved,

nor do they have the guarantee that the images

produced are the result of their intentions.

Technological changes have altered not only

the modes of circulation and reproducibility

of images, but they have also altered our

subjectivity towards the way we see. Nowadays,

media convergence falls upon our choices. Ana

Mae Barbosa

raises awareness about this issue in an

interesting way:

“Technology has transformed not only our daily practices, but also the methods of intellectual production [...]. Perception, memory, mimesis, history, politics, identity, experience, cognition are now mediated by technology. Technology is assimilated by the individual so as to strengthen his/her authority, but it can also mask domination strategies coming from outside. The distinguishing factor between these two hypotheses is critical awareness.” (BARBOSA, 2005: 111)

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Flusser also addresses the danger of man’s

alienation before technology. Departing from

the photography in order to denounce the

domination that we suffer, often unknowingly,

the author states that the person “dominates

the device, without, however, knowing what

happens inside the box. Through input and

output, the photographer dominates the device,

but due to the ignorance towards the processes

inside the box, he/she becomes dominated by

it “(FLUSSER, 2002: 25). Nevertheless, Flusser

also suggests other possible outlets:

“The Photographic apparatus is the first, the simplest and relatively the most transparent of all devices. The photographer is the first ‘servant’, the most naive and the most feasible to being analyzed. [...] So, the analysis of the photographing gesture, this complex-motion ‘machine-photographer’, can be an exercise for analyzing human existence in a post-industrial situation, being equipped.” (FLUSSER, 2002: 28)

In this sense, our proposal was to conduct a

mediation action-research and to create pictures

through the unveiling of a technological device

such as photography, in an attempt to raise

critical skills in the individual and to promote

awareness of their choices, their subjectivities

and their role as creators and consumers of

symbols.

2. ACTION-RESEARCH

This work was developed with a group of 13 10-to-

12-year-olds, in the second half of 2013, during

the Art workshops at Escolápio Educational

Center1, in Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil, a center

which offers continuing education to schools.

The course lasted 30 hours, with two weekly

classes, during the 2nd half of 20132.

2.1 THE EXPERIENCE

An important starting point for the research was

the proposition formulated by Jorge Larrosa

,which was to “think education from the duo

experience/sense” in order to explore a more

existential way and aesthetics without falling,

however, into existentialism or aestheticism

(Bondia, 2002, p. 19). To this end, we proposed

1 Itaka-Escolápios is a Foundation created by the religious order of Pías Schools and by the “escolapic” fraternities. From the social work developed by “Pastoral do Menor” since 1995, “Escolápio” Educational Center was inaugurated in June 2010 and it serves a territory of about 10 neighborhoods in Belo Horizonte.

2 The present research was approved as a Graduation Final Exam in order to obtain the title of specialist in LatoSenso Post-Graduation in Mediation in Arts, Culture and Education at Guignard in the State University of Minas Gerais, under the coordination of Professor Rosvita Kolb Bernardes.

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three concurrent workshops: a biographical

workshop, a photographic workshop and a

mediation workshop. The workshop is intended

as a place of provocation, as Malaguzzi

proposed, which allows “new combinations and

creative possibilities among different (symbolic)

languages” (Malaguzzi, 1990: 84).

2.2 THE BIOGRAPHICAL WORKSHOP

According to Jorge Larrosa, “the subject of

experience is above all a space where the

events take place” (Bondia, 2002: 19). Thus,

this proposal was conceived as a place for

welcoming the subjectivities and narratives

of each participant, a methodological choice

in which “the narrative is the place where the

human individual takes shape, where he/she

formulates and experiences the history of his/

her own life “(DELORY-Momberger, 2006, p.

363).

Already in the first meeting, students were

encouraged to voice their relationship with

photography. It showed up as a link to the space

of memory and to the territory of affection. They

were all invited to take to class a photograph

which they liked a lot, so they could talk about

them, about the stories related to them and

about the feelings they would evoke. Half of

the class brought pictures of themselves with

their siblings, from which one could realize

the importance of this relationship in the

constitution of those subjects. That is what we

see in the words of Davi, aged 11, who chose a

picture of himself at the age of 3, in the backyard

of his house, next to his older brother: “I brought

this picture because it represents me too much

[sic] “.

Delory-Momberger, thinking about

photography, about the work on memory and on

the constitution of the self, states that “facing

the images of the past allows for the retrieval

of memories, providing a meeting place for the

individual with their own image and that of those

close to them, thus triggering a biographical

work that participates in a movement of

constructing the self”. (DELORY-Momberger,

2010: 96).

At the same time, all the images produced

during class would portray the neighborhood,

the classmates and the relatives and would

build a new repertoire of images and meanings

for those subjects. This new repertoire would

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always be shared when the images were

displayed in the mediation workshops, following

“a methodological pathway in which the stories

experienced and shared do not always present

themselves in the form of writing (the most

ordinary way, within school procedures),” but

through the offering a space “in which the word

joins other kinds of materiality” to the narratives

of the self”. (Bernardes, 2010: 75).

2.3 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKSHOP

In this space, students were introduced to the

procedures that gave rise to photography, such

as the physical process of image formation and

the chemical process of developing and fixing a

photographic image.

The first moment was the intervention called

“The Renaissance Experience”, which consists

of repeating an action spread from the sixteenth

century on: the act of observing inside a

camera obscura. A collective “oh” would always

accompany this moment in the studio when

children looked at the projection of outside

images on the translucent screen inside the

camera for the first time. It is a moment of

unveiling a device that enabled the emergence

of what we call objective picture, which is the

dominant type of image in the modern and

contemporary worlds. The construction of small

dark cameras, one for each student, followed,

so that they could thoroughly take possession of

the process and knowledge intertwined with it.

In a second moment, we built a small photo lab

and the first activity to be developed in there was

the realization of photograms, which consists of

directly printing objects on the black and white

photo paper. Over a towel stretched on the floor,

we put up a lot of dry plants (leaves and different

small tree branches), and each student could

choose those which most appealed to them in

order to compose their photograms. According

to Bernardes, “at times such as these, of

making choices regarding the materials to be

used, that the aesthetic perception manifests

itself” (Bernardes, 2010: 79). In the pictures

below, we can see Fabrício, aged 11, carefully

and attentively picking the leaves to compose

his photogram, which reflects his sensitivity

and his aesthetic choices.

The activity that followed was a merger of the

two previous practices, with the completion of

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FIGURE 1 - Fabrício picking leaves and branches to the realization of his photogram. Source: Alexandra Simões photo - 2013

FIGURE 2 – Scanned photogram by Fabrício. Source: Frame of Fabrício (negative and positive) - 2013

pinhole photographs taken in photographic black

and white paper inside a tin can with a pinhole.

This is a process which requires the subject to

stop and think: stop to look, to miss, to hit, to

observe, to examine each other’s work, to think

more slowly, to suspend action automatism, to

cultivate action, to learn slowness, to be patient

and to give him/herself to time and space. In

the following photos, we see Thalia, aged 10,

preparing her pinhole camera, posing for it and

the result of this self-portrait, made digitally

positive for the mediation workshop.

Children quickly took over the lab. They would

discuss the variables that determined each

FIGURE 3 - Thalia placing her pinhole camera to take a photo. Source: Alexandra Simões photo - 2013

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FIGURE 5 – Thalia’s pinhole scanned photo displayed in the mediation workshop and printed for the exhibition. Source: Thalia pinhole photo - 2013

photo and in possession of their analysis and

conclusions, they set out to the next shot with

a more defined and conscious intention. The

empowerment of a process was visible in them,

handling its consequences and its products.

A fourth moment in this workshop was the

construction of small cameras made with

matchboxes and color negative roll films. This

occasion was a very interesting one as it was

the first time they had seen a roll of film and

later on a film negative, as they had all been

born in the digital era. Sometime later, one

student took a photo with a cell phone applying

the digital filter of negative effect, clearing

transforming the knowledge he had gained into

a work intentionally created (see Figure 8).

2.4 THE MEDIATION WORKSHOP

The mediation workshop was a place for the

circulation of discourse, of the subjects, of art

and culture, and so, it was a place for listening

and speaking.

As the images would be produced and

scanned, they would all be projected, and a

collective reading was held, which allowed

FIGURE 4 - Thalia performing a self-portrait with her pinhole camera. Source: Alexandra Simões photo - 2013

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FIGURE 6 - Ana Guilia and Fabrício commenting on a pinhole photograph during the mediation workshop. Source: Alexandra Simões photo - 2013

each participant to have the opportunity of

commenting on the images, on their symbolic

meanings as well as of revealing their

experiences with that form of expression.

At the same time, the works of some

photographers would be displayed so students

could have access to references of a visual

culture from an artistic point of view, not a

commercial one. The exhibition of these works

was always accompanied by collective readings

in which they would all be encouraged to review

and comment on the images.

For much of the work, in every class one

student would be selected to make the

documentation of the activities with a digital

camera made available. These images would

also be projected for analysis and reflections

of the group, which led to a meta-language

experience. Students at this point started to

include their images and themselves in the

photographs of others, generating images of

great visual power and symbolic appropriation,

as we can see in the following pictures.

3. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Metalanguage seems to emerge as a

FIGURE 7 – Photograph by Davi, whose shadow is inserted in the picture, made with a cell phone while covering the mediation studio, when a photo by Glauber was being projected, who in his turn had already exhibited his shadow superimposed on the picture that he had made of his younger brother with the matchbox camera. Source: Davi’s photo made with a cell phone - 2013

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manifestation of symbolic otherness, when

those children include, through the image of the

other, their own vision or their own image, in

a dialogue that greatly expands the possibilities

of meanings of an image. It was a creative

exercise of otherness, in which some inserted

their authorship in the authorship of the others.

The whole of the proposal based itself on the role

of the participants as main characters, on the

role of the “experience” and on the welcoming

of each student’s subjectivity and their individual

wisdom in order to build collective knowledge.

All of us were involved with the techniques and

material used, with the ideas to be explored and

FIGURE 8 – Photograph by Junior while covering the mediation workshop, in which he uses the negative filter of the cell phone to make a picture of Fabrício next to his self-portrait done with a matchbox using negative film. Source: Junior’s photo made with a cell phone.

with the development of each other’s works,

that is, we all shared workshops.

The workshops offered the necessary

atmosphere for experiencing different gestures

of inventing, observing, listening, repeating,

suspending action automatism and talking

about what happens to us. Fundamentally,

everything was done collaboratively, which

showed to all participants the importance

of social interaction for cultural and artistic

production.

What I realize is that the creative and sensitive

experience can subvert the fascism of language,

referring back to the speech of Roland Barthes

in his essay “The Lesson”: “But the tongue,

as performance of all languages, is neither

reactionary nor progressive; it is simply:

fascist; for fascism is not forbidding to say, it is

compelling to say” (Barthes, 2007: 14). For him,

only literature would be able to achieve this

system, in other words, the art.

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REFERENCES

Barbosa, A. M. Dilemas da arte-educação como mediação cultural em namoro com as tecnologias contemporâneas. In: ______(org.). Arte-educação Contemporânea: consonâncias internacionais. São Paulo: Cortez, 2005. cap. 2, p. 98-112.Barthes, R. Aula. 2 ed. São Paulo: Cultruix, 2007. 185 p.Bernardes, R. K. Segredos do coração: a escola como espaço para o olhar sensível. Caderno CEDES. Campinas, v. 30, n. 80, p. 72-83, 2010.BONDÍA, J. L. Notas sobre a experiência e o saber de Experiência. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, n. 19, p.20-28, 2002. Delory-Momberger, C. Formação e socialização: os ateliês biográficos de projeto. Revista Educação e Pesquisa, São Paulo, v. 32, n. 2, p. 359-371, 2006.Delory-Momberger, C. Álbuns de fotos de família, trabalho de memória e formação de si. In: VICENTINI, P.P.; ABRAHÃO, M. H. (Org.) Sentidos, potencialidades e usos da (auto) biografia. São Paulo: Cultura Acadêmica, 2010.Delory-Momberger, C. De onde viemos? O que somos? Para onde vamos?. In: Eggert, E.; Fischer, B. D. (Org). Gênero, geração, infância, juventude e família. Porto Alegre: EDIPUCRS, 2012.Flusser, V. Filosofia da Caixa Preta. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará, 2002. 82 p.Malaguzzi, Loris. História, Idéias e Filosofia Básica. In: EDWARDS, C. (org). As Cem Linguagens da Criança: Abordagem de Reggio Emilia na educação da primeira infância. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 1999. cap. 3, p. 59-104.

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Education for all Photos GUILHERME BERGAMINI e Texts MARCELO SEVAYBRICKER

Democratic societies presume educated

citizens, that is to say, it presumes well-informed

and critical people, both because it requires

them to be able to determine their preferences

and choose among different alternatives, and

also because it is assumed that they should

supervise their representatives and act directly

in politics when necessary. In this context,

education is considered a universal right and

hence a duty of the State, which should provide

it for free and at high standards to the whole

community.

Today Brazil, a country marked by its deeply

unequal and unjust past, has been facing the

challenge of ensuring that essential good to its

people.

Thus, Brazilian democracy appears to be a

dream further away when one notices that,

on the one hand, the precarious conditions of

public education begins in its most elementary

dimension – the physical space of schools – and,

on the other hand, the ones who are deprived of

education are those who could benefit from it

the most: the country’s children.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Alexandra Simões de Siqueira

Flávio Valle

Daniela Paoliello

Guilherme Bergamini

Helena Teixeira Rios

Alexandra Simões de Siqueira holds a degree in History from UFMG and a Postgraduate Lato Sensu Degree in Mediation in Art, Culture and Education issued by Guignard (UEMG). She has been a researcher at the Museum of Natural History of UFMG and at the French- Brazilian Archaeological Project “Prehistory and Paleo-environment of the Paraná Basin”, coordinated by the Natural History Museum in Paris and USP. She has also been a history teacher in municipal schools in Belo Horizonte. Since 1994 she has been working as a professional photographer, at the disposal of the editorial market in Minas Gerais, and she is currently working with photography in both the artistic and educational levels.

Doutorando em Comunicação Social na UFMG. Mestre e Bacharel em Comunicação Social, habilitação Jornalismo, pela mesma instituição. Professor com experiência em atividades de ensino, pesquisa e extensão nas seguintes áreas: Cultura Visual, Fotografia, Imagem, Narrativa e Jornalismo. Editor e Curador da revista Ensaio Fotográfico. Produtor Cultural com experiência na realização de projetos fotográficos. Colaborador do Núcleo de Estudos Tramas Comunicacionais: Narrativa e Experiência. Membro fundador do Fora das Bordas, coletivo de artes visuais integradas.

Master’s student at the UERJ ARTS program. She was awarded the 13th Funarte Marc Ferrez Photography Award. She has also participated in exhibitions at the Pampulha Art Museum, Madalena CEI, Curatorial Laboratory SP-ARTE, Galpão 5 Funarte, Cultural Winter in São João del Rei, among others. She also has virtual publications in international magazines such as LatPhotomagazine and L’Oeil de la Photographie, and other spaces like the Photo Latin American Forum, Paraty in Focus and Olhavê. She published her first book: Exile in April 2015.

Guilherme Bergamini, 36, was born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. He graduated in journalism 10 years ago, he has been working with photography for a long time now. Through his art, Bergamini seeks to express his personal experiences, his way of seeing the world and his anguish. Passionate about photography since childhood, he is an enthusiast of new contemporary possibilities that photographic technique allows one to develop. Critical and persistent, the artist uses photography as a means of political and social criticism. Bergamini was awarded prizes in national competitions and festivals and he participated in group and solo exhibitions. In addition, he has also published photographs in the Brazilian and foreign media.

Helena Teixeira Rios holds a degree in Architecture and Urbanism issued in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. She holds a masters degree from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain. In 2012 she began working with photography, aiming to develop photo essays. In September 2014, Rios completed the Complete Course in Photography at Escola da Imagem, and graduated from the PDP in Photography, Art and Culture at Puc Minas, in July 2015. Also in July 2015, she participated in a collective exhibition at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, entitled “Culture and Freedom”, coordinated by professor and photographer Guto Muniz.

Isabel FlorêncioResearcher in the field of intermedia, photographer and curator in the axis Brazil / Germany. PhD in Comparative Literature and Semiotic Systems Faculty of Letters / UFMG. Her thesis entitled “Figuralities: from translation to poetics in contemporary art photography” discusses intermediality in contemporary photography and establishes a relationship between the discursive strategies of art photography and literature from the 1970’s onwards. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Communication / UFMG and a degree in Fine Arts from the School of Fine Arts / UFMG.

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Junia Mortimer

Laura Fonseca CultivArte

Tibério FrançaFotógrafa, professora e pesquisadora em Teoria da Arte e da Arquitetura. É doutora em Arquitetura pelo NPGAU, UFMG (2011-2015), mestre em Artes e Humanidades pela Université de Perpignan, University of Sheffield e Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Erasmus Mundus, 2008-2010) e graduada em Arquitetura pela UFMG (2007).

Laura Fonseca is a young Brazilian visual artist; her work focuses on documentary and contemporary photography. Born in Belo Horizonte, she has a degree in Economics from Face / UFMG, majoring in Philosophy at Fafich / UFMG. She has devoted herself entirely to photography since 2011.

A CultivArte é um coletivo que trabalha com projetos culturais na área das artes visuais. Formado em 2013 pelos fotógrafos Beto Eterovick, Déia Quintino e Madu Dorella vem atuando na produção de exposições, de publicações, workshops e na organização de eventos ligados à fotografia. A CultivArte participou do Festival de Fotografia de Tiradentes nas edições de 2014 e 2015 com instalações e produção de exposições, além de ser a responsável pela realização das mostras fotográficas e dos eventos culturais que acontecem no Espaço Cultural Sou Café, no CCBB-BH.

Fotógrafo e professor de Fotografia da Escola Guignard/UEMG. Entre 2003 e 2006 foi curador da Primeira Fotogaleria de Belo Horizonte realizando exposições. Co-fundador do Núcleo Imagem Latente, coordenador do Forum Mineiro de Fotografia Autoral e realizador da Semana da Fotografia de Belo Horizonte. Membro do Colegiado Setorial de Artes Visuais do Ministério da Cultura no período de 2010 a 2013. Atual Presidente Nacional da Associação de Fotógrafos Fototech e Diretor Administrativo da Rede de Produtores Culturais de Fotografia no Brasil.

Sponsorship:

Projeto 123/FPC/2013

Production: Support: