htv magazine

1. There is a well-known myth according to which indigenous people believe that when a camera takes a picture of them, it captures a part of them, if not stealing their soul. This has been repeated often enough, by the pioneers of ethnographic photography as well as in online forums by today’s amateur photographers; so-called natives have been credited with this belief in every part of the world and across time. Like many other popular assumptions from the field of ethnography, the idea of the theft of a soul by image has become a commonplace, free from critical reflection and questioning.

It proves what is supposed to be evident: the primitiveness of the other, of those who are unfortunately doomed, as well as their originality as a rare, still available and not yet fully exterminated example to whom the privilege of possessing a soul has only recently been granted; the naivety of those who are not familiar with new technologies, as well as the correlate power of those who know how to handle them properly; the spiritual innocence of the noble savage, as well as the guilty conscience of those who intrude upon their reservations...

»It is well-documented that the philosophical justification of copyright is premised on the idea of the romantic author, the sole suffering genius sitting in isolation and producing works of genius. The first serious challenge to the idea of the romantic author emerged with the invention of photography. Bernard Edelman states that "the eruption of the modern techniques of the reproduction of the real - photographic apparatuses, cameras - surprises the law in the quietude of its categories." Initially the law was not ready for the challenge that would be posed to it by this new technology. Faced with the question of whether a photograph could be considered on the same plane as a painting, the initial response of the courts was in the negative. For French law, the crucial question was whether or not the mechanical product could be said to have anything of the soul in it at all. An authored work (it was argued) is imbued with something of the human soul, but a machine-produced work is completely soulless. 18. Ibid. Yet, this soulless craft had at the same time also become an important economic activity, with thousands in France making a living through photography and photographic technologies. France itself was exporting photographic images, and demands were soon made for the protection of these images, predicating that "the soulless photographer will be set up as an artist and the filmmaker as a creator since the relations of production will demand it".« (Lawrence Liang)