接觸攝影影像 論金恩《藥河鎮》中的照片與照相機

Abstract

This essay explores the ekphrasis of photographic images in Thomas King's Medicine River, examining the photograph as object in relation to the semiotic representation of the native peoples and cultures of the Americas. While it critiques the semiotic reproduction of photographic images of native peoples, the argument suggests that the presentational forms of the photographs of Indians, established by a cultural environment of making meaning that a visual approach to photographic images cannot accomplish alone, make up for the act of viewing when images are contacted in the process of production, circulation, and usage. As such, photographic images in contact can be incorporated into a form of bodily camera which stands a chance of engaging with mimetic faculty to the native and thus allows contemporary natives to material connections with the tribal past, present, and future.