Joan Fontcuberta is a well known photographer, mainly for his stranger than fiction images. In fact, his work was exhibited in a 'Stranger than Fiction' exhibition.
This image, The Miracle of Levitation (2002), is quite obviously edited to make the man appear as if he's levitating. The image perhaps isn't put together in the best way, however Fontcuberta never claims to be a good photographer. His work is more about what they represent and the weird and wonderful.
Levitation is obviously not something that we are familiar with as we cannot do it in real life, and so this image screams 'fake'. However, because of this we presume the image is supposed to have a feeling of some supernatural force.
Looking further into the image, we can see a horned person depicted on the walls, which could suggest work of the devil. The other illustrations are similar to those of religious depictions and when combined with the architecture resembling churches (especially the windows), it has a very religious feeling about it. Yet because of something so unnatural it perhaps has an anti religious method; going against what's in the image.
Or perhaps it suggests that this religious figure (a pastor/priest perhaps?) has some otherworldly talents given by a higher power.
I feel that the message of this image changes with who is interpreting it and perhaps their religious views.
Born in 1955, the Spanish photographer claims he doesn't believe in documentary approaches, stating that “Reality does not exist by itself. It's an intellectual construction; and photography is a tool to negotiate our idea of reality.”
I really admire this way of thinking, as somebody not too keen on simply portraying the obvious and the real within photography.
The Guardian states "Although he is often defined as a conceptualist, Fontcuberta is as much a contextualist, whose projects adopt and borrow from the authoritative tones, languages, contexts and constructions that are used to legitimize photographic materials (and vice versa) – archival materials, scientific jargon, journalistic articles, academic texts, and so on – in order to subvert them"
I feel this is also relevant to my own work, as I too have taken contexts and ideas from historical quotes from the women who were prosecuted, and read about the history and emotion and chaos of the time and further attempted to replicate those feelings into my photography. I perhaps do not subvert as much as Fontcuberta, however.
This image, The Miracle of Levitation (2002), is quite obviously edited to make the man appear as if he's levitating. The image perhaps isn't put together in the best way, however Fontcuberta never claims to be a good photographer. His work is more about what they represent and the weird and wonderful.
Levitation is obviously not something that we are familiar with as we cannot do it in real life, and so this image screams 'fake'. However, because of this we presume the image is supposed to have a feeling of some supernatural force.
Looking further into the image, we can see a horned person depicted on the walls, which could suggest work of the devil. The other illustrations are similar to those of religious depictions and when combined with the architecture resembling churches (especially the windows), it has a very religious feeling about it. Yet because of something so unnatural it perhaps has an anti religious method; going against what's in the image.
Or perhaps it suggests that this religious figure (a pastor/priest perhaps?) has some otherworldly talents given by a higher power.
I feel that the message of this image changes with who is interpreting it and perhaps their religious views.
This image was a part of the artist's project called 'closure', in which the artist claimed to find the archives of a German zoologist who has some questionable archives of off animals that we have never seen, including a snake with 6 pairs of legs. It's been said many a time that the zoologist never even existed and was also the invention of Fontcuberta.
This image aims to question the truthfulness and documentary aspect of photography.
He showed the images at multiple exhibitions, but displayed those that had relevance to the "legends, traditions, and superstitions" of where he was exhibiting.
I feel that this is also relevant to my work, as I am showing it in East Anglia, where most of the witch hunting occurred. I am also researching these legends and truths that came alongside the alleged witchcraft.
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