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00:00:12,160 --> 00:00:00,000
lf one reads the reactions
provoked by Daguerre,

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00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:00,000
notable by Daguerre

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l think that the first historical
reaction is stupefaction...

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00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:34,670
but stupefaction a bit like
with primitive peoples:.

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stupefaction at seeing
oneself and....

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00:00:40,759 --> 00:00:46,100
seeing the world represented
objectively, scientifically.

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So the first effect was one
of absolute stupefaction.

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Later you saw completely
opposite reactions -

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00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:05,019
intellectual reactions, to use a
word from the 1 9th century;

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you saw reactions, for example,

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Lamartine's, who said:.

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''Photography is stupid...
it's a mirror;

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it doesn't teach anything,
it doesn't give us anything

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it's stupid... it has no soul.

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When one paints nature or
paints a scene, there is soul;

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00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:40,829
when one just stupidly takes the
sun, the light,

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then there's no soul
it's a mechanical reproduc! tion.''

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So you have this first reaction
from Lamartine.

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After that the reactions become
more and more subtle.

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You have the symptomatic
reaction, that of Baudelaire.

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Baudelaire says, that's not art,
worse, it will vulgarize art;

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there will be no more soul
because everyone will thin!k

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00:02:17,240 --> 00:02:21,139
he sees his own soul in the
photo.

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lt will suffice to disguise oneself
as a matador

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Baudelaire wrote terrifying
exposés about disguise

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and the photographic apparatus

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in which he said, this is all a
vulgarity,

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this will end in the withering of
art.

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So the photo is experienced as
a kind of vulgarization

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and a profound danger for art.

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Why? Because it's a
mechanical reproduction,

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and therefore a reproduction
without soul.

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00:03:03,680 --> 00:02:54,629
This lasts -in France, at least-
until about 1 860 or 1 870.

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After that, with the evolution of
photographic technology,

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and the evolution of people's
minds, and this evolution

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of minds is most conscious of
the mechanical arts-

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you have to see photog,raphy
not in and of itself

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but in an ensemble of the
development of industrial arts,

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notably kitsch, you know...

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Anyway, the industrial arts are
developing,

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and photography will be caught
up in this development.

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Then one can say, it's not, the
machine that creates

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but the person who creates by
means of the machine.

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Thus the machine becomes a
sort of projection

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of the person and of the artist.

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This is absolutely fundamental.

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lt's a taming of the machine,
and of industrialization

48
00:04:30,120 --> 00:04:35,490
around the end of the
nineteenth century.

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And then photography can
become something artistic

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because the machine is tamed
by the human, and the human

51
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in a way, gives its soul to the
machine.

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The human gives its soul to the
machine

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and the machine becomes-
animate.

54
00:05:04,829 --> 00:05:08,689
lt loses its mech, anical
character

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the character of stupid,
mechanical reproduction,

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00:05:14,040 --> 00:05:16,779
and becomes a s, imple
instrument

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00:05:17,319 --> 00:05:19,389
it replaces paintbrushes.

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One no longer paints, one takes
photos- well, not like this

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00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:23,670
at the time, but... There you go.
This can be seen as an entry

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of industry into art.

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What is put in question in
photography is

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At the very moment when
photography is born,

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French copyright law is forged
in parallel

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and takes the form that it will
have until the twentieth century.

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That is, little by little one starts
to say

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that a work is somehow the
expression

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00:06:21,319 --> 00:06:26,240
of the personality of the author.

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Now, the law is confronted with
a difficulty:.

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in order for a photograph to be
a work,the author's personality

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00:06:42,839 --> 00:06:47,720
A machine has no personality.

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So, as long as there is distance
between the person

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and the machine

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photography cannot be a work
of art.

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Or rather, it is a w,ork of the
machine

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but if the machine has no
personality,

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then it can't be a work!

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So for photography to g, ain the
status of a work

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00:07:15,079 --> 00:07:21,019
the machine has to be invested
with the subject,

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has to become an instrument of
the subject.

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00:07:26,199 --> 00:07:32,839
lt has to become the subject,
it has to be subjectivized,

81
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so that it no longer exists in its
mechanical objectivity.

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So the whole problem

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and this is what l was just
saying

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the problem is in accepting that
the machine is at the service

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00:07:53,519 --> 00:07:58,680
of the subject, not the subject at
the service of the machine.

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So you have a real reversal:.

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00:08:02,399 --> 00:08:04,819
up to then, the machine was the
master;

88
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this master must now become
the servant of the subject

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00:08:08,560 --> 00:08:11,230
to be brief, that is, in Hegelian
terms:.

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The master-slave relation must
be inverted;

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00:08:17,839 --> 00:08:16,110
the machine becomes the slave
of the subject,

92
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and the subject is no longer the
slave of the machine.

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And when the machine

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becomes the slave of the
subject,

95
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then the subject can say,
when l make a photograph,

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l 'm the master of that
photograph,

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the machine is at my service.

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So it's the same type of
reversal.

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One can see the same thing
more generally

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if we call it a manner of taming
industry,

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that is, rendering it humane
rightly or wrongly.

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But how to render industry
humane

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that was the problem at the
heart of photography or cinema.

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How to render i,ndustry
humane

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and how, in recognizing
photography as an art,

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we recognize that the machine
has been humanized.

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That, in a few words
is the process at work!.

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So the whole question would be
to know

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how to create on the basis of
the real;

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that is, law itself wo,uld permit
SOmeOne

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00:09:52,789 --> 00:09:54,860
by way of photography,

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to become the owner of the
image of the real.

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That is something rather
extraordinary.

114
00:10:03,399 --> 00:10:07,750
We've had recent decisions
from the Court of Appeals

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00:10:08,669 --> 00:10:14,039
that grant a building, in some
way, the right to its image.

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That is, l own my building

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and you can't take an image of
my building

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because that building is me,

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and if you take the building's
image

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you take my image as well
because l'm in the building.

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So you have this perpetual
swinging

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between the thing and the
person.

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00:10:41,909 --> 00:10:45,000
The building is a thing,but it has
an image like that of a person,

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00:10:45,669 --> 00:10:48,929
and as its owner l can be
against the taking of the image

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00:10:49,519 --> 00:10:50,960
of that building.

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And where is the soul
travelling? Between the obejct...

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Absolutely.

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the soul drifts between the thing
and the person.

129
00:11:03,759 --> 00:11:09,840
The thing is subjectivized, the
person subjectivizes.

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There's a drifting between the
two. The thing can have a soul,

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00:11:18,639 --> 00:11:21,240
and the soul of the subject can
be placed in the thing.

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00:11:21,799 --> 00:11:21,240
Hegel already said all this...

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00:11:24,759 --> 00:11:26,620
it's property law:.

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00:11:27,759 --> 00:11:32,360
my will is in the thing; the thing
is at the same time my image.

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And the thing can behave like a
person ;

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00:11:38,600 --> 00:11:41,230
we have its image, it is
personifed.

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So you have a perpetual drifting

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00:11:45,879 --> 00:11:48,860
between the thing and the
person, and that's...

139
00:11:49,679 --> 00:11:55,120
lt's possible that photography
amplified this movement.

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Because a photo is a thing...

141
00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:05,320
but at the same time, there's a
person in it.

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00:12:06,600 --> 00:12:08,350
There's a real aporia there.

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00:12:20,360 --> 00:12:24,080
l would say we're at a point

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00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:28,039
where the very notion of reality
has changed.

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00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:33,000
When you have photos on the
computer...

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00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:38,350
What are you representing?

147
00:12:39,559 --> 00:12:43,669
You present the virtual upon the
virtual.

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00:12:44,960 --> 00:12:47,350
lt's the very notion of reality

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00:12:47,759 --> 00:12:49,620
that's in the process of
changing.

150
00:12:50,440 --> 00:12:55,389
Up till now, we've said
the photo is the mirror of reality.

151
00:12:57,759 --> 00:13:00,990
Now the photo transforms
reality itself.

152
00:13:01,639 --> 00:13:05,080
Reality becomes an effect of
photography.

153
00:13:05,759 --> 00:13:07,929
There too you see a reversal

154
00:13:08,440 --> 00:13:11,210
it's the photograph that makes
reality.

155
00:13:11,799 --> 00:13:12,960
The question is:.

156
00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:16,080
what sort of reality does a
photograph make?