differentiaL i ConograPhyYet, the deconstructive detail breaking through an arranged order still does not
make us grasp the essence of photography, says Barthes. after all, painting can also
simulate the reality of the detail without having been actually observed. That discourse
connects a series of signs based on referents, but those referents could eventually turn
out to be linked to chasing shadows. Conversely, photography can never deny that
something has indeed been there. Therefore, photography is characterized by the
double condition of past and present which really signifies the pre- eminent essence
touching the heart of photography. photography does not tell what is no longer there,
but emphatically underscores what is there. With that, photography demonstrates its
establishing power which is not so much related to the object as to time. indeed, the
issue is a punctum different from the above discussed detail. The novel punctum is the
existential given of time, the distressing emphasis of the photographic noeem.
however, the twentieth- century distinction of two clear punctum effects, a punctum
of space and a punctum of time, seems to have lost its persuasiveness in the topographic
turn that characterizes photography today. Current photographic images show how a
hectic street life and a form of density have substituted emptiness and openness where
physical closeness has given room to distance and aloofness, and slowness and the
decisive moment have been dissolved in speed and repetition. These images seem to
unambiguously demand a critical transformation of the concept of punctum.
indeed, the image no longer needs a punctum fastened to an ontological awareness
of space or time. a twenty- first- century image requires a dynamic punctum producing
flexible, vibrating, and fluent connections between the categories of time and space.
exactly that necessity of fluidity in temporal and spatial concepts could be signified
by the notions of flashing and cubing and their interconnected movement of flash
cube as a promise of serial, instantaneous exposures. Therefore, the introduction of
a novel punctum indicated as a flash cube punctum might redefine the absolute and
functional definitions of time and space while transforming them into operational
forms of intensity and potentiality.
The operational flash cube punctum specifically emerges in elastic, reflective images
claiming an investigation of how the photograph as an iconographic medium produces
various forms of realities and worlds still based on perspectivist capacities. These images
are produced by a novel generation of photographers with a researching attitude focused
on spatial environments and architectonic constellations. such artistic research in
the photographic realm is connected with interesting, topical forms of photographic
criticism on functionalist ways of thought paralleling perspectivist- based photography
where a three- dimensional world subdivides into transparent, comprehensible, and
instrumental entities. With this, a centralizing perspective has cleared the way for
fragmentary entities, where functionality makes room for forms of dysfunctionality.^6
The work of south- Korean artist Kim sang- gil is a fine example of such an
artistic approach. What is the artistic strategy the artist adopts for fragmenting the
programmed character of our knowledge of the world? or put more concretely, how
does Kim sang- gil adequately select artistic images in the context of that desire to
demonstrate the logical conditioning of our consciousness? For Kim sang- gil only
one criterion constitutes each of his artistic decisions and that is the exposure of the
functional presence of solidity. his photographic images tell us again and again about
the solid way in which the societal order succeeds in displaying its organizing capacities