Overcome by Photography: Camera Lucida in an International Frame

Abstract

This article begins with a discussion of two terms in Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida: punctum and satori. A general exposition of the centrality of the punctum to the text points out the subtle way in which it is linked to satori. The term satori is a supplement to Barthes’s text and carries a greater historical weight than Barthes realises. Satori is traced back to its use in popular Zen texts and its place in attempts to modernise Japanese philosophy. Barthes’s understanding of the term is in fact a modern invention with surprising roots in the work of William James. A consideration of this history suggests a revision of some elements of Barthes’s theory of photography, particularly his conception of how the photograph translates reality and the ethical stakes of the photograph. Using the international movements of satori and the critical lens of translation studies, the author argues that the photograph is a surplus of reality and not an equivalent index of it. In conclusion the ethics of the photograph is a demand that we labour carefully with this surplus of knowledge in a global world.