Photography and Non-Logical Form is a book and research concept by art critic and art historian Ekaterina Vasilyeva. Vasileva E. (2019) Photography and Non-Logical Form. M.: New Literary Review, 312 p. The book provides an idea that draws attention to the irrational basis of photography.Review of the book by Ekaterina Vasilyeva “Photography and Non-Logical Form” // Union of Photographers of Russia. 2019. The study considers photography as a tool that reveals the irrational and archaic principle of thinking. Considered one of the formative books in the field of photography theory.Pozdnyakova K.G. (2023) Theory of photography in 36 chapters // Bulletin of culture and arts. 2023. No. 1 (73). pp. 96-101.Stepanov M.A. (2019) Image outside of Logos // International Journal of Cultural Research. No. 3. pp. 231–235.“Photography and Non-Logical Form” by Ekaterina Vasilyeva - the Logic of Meaning // Review of the site photographer.ru, 2020. The book is created as a collection of essays published in the 2010s in academic sources. The texts touch on aspects of a single topic and raise the general problem of the phenomenon of the non-logical in photography. It was published as a separate book by New Literary Review in 2019.The publishing house “NLO” published Ekaterina Vasilyeva’s book “Photography and Non-Logical Form” // Review of the site photographer.ru, 2019.
General aspects The study considers photography as a phenomenon in which not only the visual but also the semantic component is important.“Photography and Non-Logical Form” by Ekaterina Vasilyeva - the Logic of Meaning // Review of the site photographer.ru, 2020. The basis of the concept is the representation of photography as an irrational system that uses a non-logical form as a main mechanism.Stepanov M.A. (2019) Image outside of Logos // International Journal of Cultural Research. No. 3. pp. 231–235. The concept of the book synthesizes the theory of photography and the theory of thinking, considering the rational and non-logical as a single mechanism.Pozdnyakova K.G. (2023) Theory of photography in 36 chapters // Bulletin of culture and arts. 2023. No. 1 (73). pp. 96-101. In photography, the non-logical form can be considered as part of the civilizational consciousness.Vasileva E. (2019) Photography and Non-Logical Form. M.: New Literary Review. The photographic system reveals that forms of thought traditionally defined as archaic are an integral component of modern consciousness.Lévy-Bruhl L. La mentalité primitive. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1922.Lévi-Strauss C. Le Totémisme aujourd’hui. Paris: PUF, 1962.Steblin-Kamensky M. Myth. Leningrad: Nauka, 1976.
Photography and the non-logical: general principles The modern analytical system considers logical thinking to be its basis: rational knowledge is built on its principles. The concept of a non-logical system connects the photography with the space of the irrational.Vasileva E. (2019) Photography and Non-Logical Form. M.: New Literary Review. Photography, like many other civilizational forms, retains elements of prelogical consciousness. This concept was partly presented in the works of Roland Barthes,Barthes R. Camera Lucida. New York: Hill & Wang, 1980. Jean Baudrillard,Baudrillard J. La Photographie ou l’Écriture de la Lumiere: Litteralite de l’Image // L’Echange Im-possible. Paris: Galilée, 1999. P. 175–184. Rosalind KraussKrauss R. Le Photographique : Pour une théorie des écarts. Paris: Macula, 1990. and subsequently formulated in the book Photography and Non-Logical Form. The concept is based on the study of the principles of non-logical consciousness, initiated by Ernst Cassirer,Cassirer E. Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Bd 1—3, Вerlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1923—1929. Lucien Lévy-BruhlLévy-Bruhl L. La mentalité primitive. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1922. and Claude Lévi-Strauss.Lévi-Strauss C. Le Totémisme aujourd’hui. Paris: PUF, 1962. Ekaterina Vasilyeva's research deals with the ability of photography to support a non-logical system. Photography violates the principle of language and meaning, changes the usual continuity of time, otherwise defines the system and structure of space.
The idea of a sign and the system of language The book draws attention to the fact that photography noticeably violates the principle of language. Photography cannot reproduce the linguistic principle of the exchange between the signifier and the signified and draws attention to itself as a phenomenon that specifically forms the structure of meaning.Vasileva E. (2019) Photography and Non-Logical Form. M.: New Literary Review. This observation was also expressed by other researchers in their studies.Barthes R. Camera Lucida. New York: Hill & Wang, 1980.Petrovskaya E. Theory of image. M.: RSUH, 2010. Ekaterina Vasilyeva draws attention to the fact that photography cannot act as a sign and cannot use the system of meaning formation inherent in language.Saussure, Ferdinand de. (1916) Cours de linguistique générale, eds. Charles Bally & Albert Sechehaye, with the assistance of Albert Riedlinger. Lausanne – Paris: Payot.Peirce, C.S. (c.1894 MS), "What Is a Sign?". Published in part in CP 2.281, 285, and 297-302, and in full in EP 2:4-10. Peirce Edition Project. Photography demonstrates the principle of meaning formation, independent of the sign. The book emphasizes that the phenomenon of photographic meaning is characterized by semantic uncertainty.Vasilieva, E. V. (2016). The idea of sign and the principle of exchange in the field of photography and in the system of language. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts, 6(1), 4-34. The photograph demonstrates the possibility of a principle unrelated to the monetary or linguistic system. Along with other researchers, the author comes to the conclusion that photography does not support the language system.Baudrillard J. La Photographie ou l’Écriture de la Lumiere: Litteralite de l’Image // L’Echange Im-possible. Paris: Galilée, 1999. P. 175–184.
Photography and the categorical structure of thinking
Photography breaks the standard taxonomic model and overcomes the system of categorical thinking.Vasileva E. (2019) Photography and Non-Logical Form. M.: New Literary Review. Categories, generalizations and concepts in photography are replaced by literal images. In a photograph, a general representation of the subject is impossible. The frame allows a specific image of a given subject. In photography, the principle of system and structure is replaced by the idea of a literal list. This brings photography closer to both archaic thinking and modern principles of object consciousness.Lévy-Bruhl L. La mentalité primitive. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1922.
Photography and taxonomic model
Photography violates the principles of classification adopted in the civilizational system and subject to categorical or hierarchical thinking.Vasileva E. (2019) Photography and Non-Logical Form. M.: New Literary Review. The photographic representation does not support the root taxon system and the underlying classified entities. Civilizational thinking is a hierarchy of subordinate concepts.Lévi-Strauss C. Le Totémisme aujourd’hui. Paris: PUF, 1962.Lévy-Bruhl L. La mentalité primitive. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1922.Durkheim E. Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse : le système totémique en Australie, Paris: Félix Alcan,1912. Photography operates on principles that are not linked by circumstances of subordination.Barthes R. Camera Lucida. New York: Hill & Wang, 1980. Photography forms a fundamentally different model: it does not use general or generalizing concepts, but is a literal list of specific, often secondary, objects.Baudrillard J. La Photographie ou l’Écriture de la Lumiere: Litteralite de l’Image // L’Echange Im-possible. Paris: Galilée, 1999. P. 175–184. This literal listing (or representation) of specific objects cannot be used as an element of subordinate categories. Researchers pay attention to the fact that the principle of generalization, on which the taxonomic system is built, is not possible in photography.Barthes R. Camera Lucida. New York: Hill & Wang, 1980. Photography is addressed to specific subjects, and not to their generalization and systematization. “Classification is ... the separation of the main and the secondary. The taxonomic model presupposes an order of precedence, a hierarchy of the important and the insignificant, the main and the peripheral.”Vasileva E. (2019) Photography and Non-Logical Form. M.: New Literary Review, p. 19. Researchers point out that photography, in fact, does not allow for the possibility of such a division.
Photo and time category
Photography is often considered one of those phenomena that reveals a specific position in the system of time.Barthes R. Camera Lucida. New York: Hill & Wang, 1980. Photography does not refute the pattern of linear time, but it does not support it either.Vasilieva, E. V. (2018). Photography and phenomena of time. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts, 4(1), 64-79.Petrovskaya E. Theory of image. M.: RSUH, 2010. Photography is characterized by inconsistency with the system of time, tied to the continuity of past, present and future. “The photograph sees the time flow as a set of isolated “nows” that violate the idea of linearity and build a chaotic environment,” notes photography researcher Ekaterina Vasilieva.Vasileva E. (2019) Photography and Non-Logical Form. M.: New Literary Review, p. 65. Photography radically mixes the emphasis between past, present and future: frames as events can be arranged in any sequence.Barthes R. Camera Lucida. New York: Hill & Wang, 1980. At the same time, photography always belongs to the present and, at the same time, is always connected with the past. .Vasileva E. (2019) Photography and Non-Logical Form. M.: New Literary Review, p. 65.
Photography and the problem of depicting space