Photography and the performance of history

Abstract

Starting from an analysis of a series of photographs taken in the Royal Navy expeditions to the Pacific in the nineteenth century, this essay examines the theatrical and performative aspects of photography, suggesting that it can be used as a heuristic device in historiographical exploration. The author points that the photographical frame has a “heightening effect” that forces images into visibility while creating points of fracture that forces a concentration of semiotic energy in the edge of the photograph, making the viewer conscious of what lies beyond the image, allowing thus a confrontation of the generalizing historical narratives. The framing also intensifies the tensions contained in the very act of making photography, and allows, through the performance of the bodies inside the image, a confrontation of the historical narrative imposed on them (a colonial narrative, in this case).