Reality Abstracted

When considering the effect of the photograph and the souvenir in the field of memory, it can be seen how they occupy the same space- the immediate experience of the viewer is impacted closely to, if not, in the exact same way by each of the objects. The photograph and the souvenir substantiate each other, they are both distant from their origin and intimate in their meaning. While the photograph and the souvenir may contrast in the context of their referents, Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography and Susan Stewtart’s Objects of Desire: the Souvenir, perpetuate the idea that both photographs and souvenirs are placeholders of reality; they are distant experiences construed into tangible, yet abstract, forms. 

Both the souvenir and the photograph are distant and intimate through their referents. In Barthes’ Camera Lucida, we begin to understand the notion of what a “referent” truly is. In the case of the photograph, the referent is the thing itself to which the photo refers- i.e. the face in the portrait or the landscape in the distance. However, the referent is not just the subject matter, but also all of the complexities of the subject matter. It is that which the photo refers to, may it be political, cultural, or the like, the referent goes beyond what the image shows. Barthes states, “A specific photograph, in effect, is never distinguished from its referent (from what it represents) or at least it is not immediately or generally distinguished from its referent… it is as if the Photograph always carries its referent with itself… they are glued together, limb by limb…” (Barthes, 5–6). Yet, despite how Barthes explains why a photograph and referent can never be separated, we see a vast gap between the past of the image, in its taking, and the present of the image, in its viewing. This gap in time is what allows for the viewer to be distant, while the referent allows for the viewer to feel a sense of intimacy in respect to the context of the image. Stewart argues that souvenirs, in their removal from a particular experience, have that same void in distance while also providing a sense of intimacy. “The present is either too impersonal, too looming, or too alienating compared to the intimate and direct experience of contact which the souvenir has as its referent.The referent is authenticity. What lies between here and there is oblivion, a void making a radical separation between past and present.” (Stewart, 139). The souvenir exists, similarly to the photograph, because it is a representation of something that has already passed. The referent of authenticity, as Stewart claims, is what connects the souvenir to the experience, making the object intimate. Does this not also ring true for photographs? It is through this distance from an experience that the photograph and souvenir are able to gain an aspect of recollection, which in turn is the intimacy of experience. 

Both the photograph and the souvenir are the abstraction of reality. They are comparable because the objects transport the viewer into a dissociated state. “In this process of distancing, the memory of the body is replaced by the memory of the object, a memory standing outside the self and thus presenting both a surplus and a lack of significance” (Stewart, 133). Looking at both the souvenir and photograph in theoretical form, they are both the encapsulation of memory- they hold within them a moment, or a collection of moments, in time. However, one cannot disagree that there is an aspect to photography that the souvenir can never touch. Photography, looking specifically here at Barthes’ focus on portraiture, reaches a level of intimacy and a version of reality that a souvenir never could. The photograph “reproduces to infinity [what] occurs only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially” (Barthes, 4). In this way, photography is contingent on fleeting moments, therefore giving it the ability to be real, to convey to any viewer its evasiveness, or its significance due to its lack of permanence. Furthermore, it is able to cause the viewer to think or to discern the photographer's thoughts. Barthes speaks about the punctum of photography- the ability of an image to “prick” a viewer (Barthes, 26). His argument here is that our interest in photographs is prompted by studium, a general desire to look at “the faces, the gestures, the setting, the actions” as “political testimonies” or “historical scenes” bound by one's own cultural knowledge (Barthes, 26). Because a photograph can prick us, push us, or stir our own thoughts and feelings, the image itself takes on a pensive role, encouraging the viewer to question its context and meaning. 

The greatest disparity between photographs and souvenirs in the realm of memory is how we as viewers are able to take them in. The souvenir captures a stream of moments that must be supported by a narrative. While a photograph is able to be pensive, as described by Barthes, a souvenir is the embodiment of “private time”: the idea that the antiquity of the past can be brought to the present, and our experiences that span more than just mere moments can be stored in a singular object (Stewart, 138). A souvenir does not have any punctum, it cannot “prick” anyone who was not involved in the experience for which it encapsulates. However, we must acknowledge that the souvenir, as described by Stewart, is intended to be selfish and self-serving, whereas the photograph is not. 

My argument here is not that the photograph and souvenir must occupy the same space in the context of placeholders for past experience, but merely that they can. Though they have their differences, both souvenirs and photographs allude to past experiences or past events that have happened and that which the viewer is now distanced from. They are tangible moments for the viewer or experiencer. Furthermore, they provide a particular viewpoint on the referent: the photograph doing so through what the photographer chooses to capture, may it speak to socio-political issues or just the mere fact of human existence, and the souvenir by being the choice of the experiencer, typically an object that in no way alludes to anything more than a place, where narrative must suffice for the rest. In these ways the photograph and the souvenir cannot exist without the intimacy and distance of immediate experience, for both objects are the embodiment of individual vision based on personal experience.

Works Cited

Roland Barthes,Camera Lucida:Reflections on Photography (1981 English translation)

Susan Stewart, “Objects of Desire: the Souvenir” in On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the 

Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, (Duke University Press, 1993, 132-151.)