The Referent Was There. The Referent As Flesh

Abstract

We set out from the observation that, even though mediation involves and defines the modes of relationship between individuals and the real, reality is unavoidable. However, considering the diluting importance of the referent to legitimizing image production between the 19th and the 20th century, and despite the emergence of photography as a medium involving the referent's presence, the relationship between individuals and images is argued to be largely grounded on a connection between these two entities. These do not need the referent, and this relationship, when specific, may justify approximations such as Roland Barthes' punctum. Thus, the image provides a space that allows the subject to project itself beyond it. That space stands as a definition of the image as surface and depth. In contrast, the situation of the images is brought closer to the body's condition. Through this comparison, the importance and reality of the referent, as a "thing in itself", is argued to exist when the image cannot control the excess the referent is, just as the body, when it cannot control the flesh, makes it visible. The image is to the body as the referent is to the flesh. The images of loved ones or war atrocities exemplify this emergence of the referent as a symptom.