I have very recently become aware of the work of the critic and philosopher Jacques Ranciere. My own interest in criticism is in work which engages fully with the artistic strategies – whether linguistic or aesthetic – used by an artist, rather than focussing primarily on the content of an artwork. That is to say, a strong focus on the way that an artwork is made, rather than primarily focussing on artistic choice of subject, but without resorting to apolitical formalism. For example, Bakhtin’s work, which I have studied extensively, can be used to evaluate the structure of dialogue in the novels of Dickens to see how characters come to terms with the power structures in which they are placed as a means of representing and evaluating those power structures beyond the world of the novel (1984). His work can also be used to consider, for example, editing choices in the film, and to a certain extent where aesthetic choices are brought into collision with a film’s linguistic elements (Flanagan, 2009). 

Ranciere is an easier match for photography than Bakhtin, as he applies his theories frequently to aesthetics (Deranty, 2010). His work rests on his identification of three historical artistic regimes (into which literary art also falls): the ethical, the representative, and the aesthetic. While each progresses from the other to become dominant, with Romanticism making the transition from representation to aesthetics, all three co-exist and artists are influenced by and make use of the intents of each. He collects together the philosophical, economic, political and scientific influences which shape each regime and describes how artists respond to, express and work with such regimes, how these shape and are shaped by intended audiences, relationships to genre, and relationships between art forms. He rejects the identification of an art form with its technical features and downplays the impact of celebrated artists. 

I am interested more in my own work in the aesthetic regime – whereby the language of art itself becomes the predominant subject, rather than being used as a conduit to represent ideas about the world. I am interested in using photography to explore and express my feelings about a place and engaging with place as a locus of aesthetic investigation of form, texture, colour, line and so on. I prefer to leave my photography open to interpretation rather than strictly adhering to genre or being didactic in the politics which are unavoidable when exploring ideas of place. I am also keen to hybridise my work with my skills in film-making and writing, and see my photography not as a thing in its own right, but an iteration of intents that can be and are expressed in a variety of other ways. 

Nevertheless, the representative is, as I have been reminded numerous times by Falmouth tutors, ever-present and I think this is of particular relevance to photography, with its intimate relationship to scientific evidence and photojournalism. Photography is used as ‘evidence’ in a way more assertive than even film, despite its technologically similar heritage. The photograph, therefore, simultaneously categorises actuality (the representational) and interrogates it to tease out open and metaphoric meaning (the aesthetic), and whether or not this is an intention of my work, it will be received by others as having representational force. Acknowledging this and working with it is an important task for me at this point in developing my practice. 

I am very new to Ranciere’s work, and need more time to read it directly, evaluate it, deepen my knowledge of it, and make links to my work and the work or other artists. Nevertheless, it is already a useful way of thinking about my own work not as an either/or aesthetic/representational, but as an interplay. 

Bakhtin, M. M. 1984. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Translated by Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Deranty, J. 2010. Jacques Ranciere: Key Concepts. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 

Flanagan, M. 2009. Bakhtin and the Movies: New Ways of Understanding Hollywood Film. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.