奇幻攝影：傑夫霍爾的藝術猶疑

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(1)FANTASTIC PICTURE: JEFF WALL’S ART OF HESITATION BY 謝佩君 VIOLA HSIEH. Directed by: Professor Valentin Nussbaum Graduate Institute of Art History National Taiwan Normal University.

(2) TABLE OF CONTENT. Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………........i Chinese Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….iv Acknowledgement…………………………………………………………………………..vi Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter One: Jeff Wall: A Fantastic Approach to Photography……………………………. 5 Disequilibrium………………………………………………………………. 19 The Real and Unreal………………………………………………………… 25 Metamorphosis...……………………………………………………………. 33 Chapter Two: Spectre of Everyday…………………………………………………………38 Spirit Photography…………………………………………………………...42 Faking Death…………………………………………………………………48 Vampire………………………………………………………………………54 Bring to life……………………………………………………...…………...60 Chapter Three: Double Face of Photography……………………………………………….63 Double………………………………………………………………………65 Tracing the index……………………………………………………………71 Fantastic imprint…………………………………………………………….75 In between Reality and Fiction……………………………………………...82 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………...95 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………... 99 Illustration…………………………………………………………………………………. 106.

(3) Abstract. Canadian photographer Jeff Wall is renowned for his large-scale light box narrative photography works, wherein the contents often oscillate between the realistic and supernatural. Having begun his career as a professor and writer of art history, Wall’s early works are dialogues to nineteenth century Romanticist painting. Combining digital technique and his characteristic cinematography, Jeff Wall’s later photography works can be viewed in two broader senses: one with an artifice style which is made obvious by the fantastic nature of his stories, and the other under the framework of “near documentary,” coined by the artist himself, wherein the scene appears in the form of snapshots but has in fact been staged previously. Nonetheless, Jeff Wall’s photography works oscillate between documentary and staged photography, and cannot be fully identified in the respective realms of realism or the supernatural.. Jeff Wall is also regarded as one of the leading practitioners of “tableau photography.” One of the main traits of tableau photography is that the photographic narrative is loaded into a single frame. The tendency of storytelling and Wall’s preference to adapt literary works into photographic works further instigate the affinity between photography and literature. Therefore, this study tries to describe the ambience of Jeff Wall’s photography – the instability between the real and supernatural, documentary and fictional photography – through Tzvetan Todorov’s analysis of the fantastic.. This study may be considered as three different approaches to understanding the ambiguity of Jeff Wall’s art. In the first chapter: Jeff Wall: A Fantastic Approach to Photography, Jeff Wall’s ambiguous photography is described as the fantastic. The mysterious reality shown in Wall’s pictures has a close affinity with fantastic tales, therefore, Tzvetan Todorov’s theory of the i.

(4) fantastic is applied to aid our understanding of Wall’s photography. Moreover, this affinity brings us to further perceive the close relationship between photography and literature, which has survived a long history since the invention of photography and is consequently crystallized in Jeff Wall’s works.. Chapter two is the Spectre of Everyday. Photography has been intertwined with the theme of ghosts since the advent of photography. The idea of spirit photography and that camera can capture spirits was pervasive in the late nineteenth century. However, the sensation of the uncanny has not faded in the modern world, but on the contrary, has only increased in the works of contemporary artists. Wall constantly demonstrates the fantastic side of photography. Through various spooky topics such as the double, vampires, and living dead – the spectra in a state between life and death, animated and the inanimated, Jeff Wall evokes the uncanny and new possibilities in photography.. In chapter three The Double Face of Photography, the discussion of the fantastic is expanded in the pursuit of assessing Jeff Wall’s photography as index or fiction. This inquiry leads us to a larger question: is photography an index or is it something more? This chapter, therefore, focuses at length on the photographic indexicality raised by Rosalind Krauss, in her article, “Notes on Index.(1977)” But contrary to her conviction that index and the accompanied truth claim is the sole essence of photography, I propose that the index is experiencing a metamorphosis. This metamorphosis results from the rise of new art photography, as the artist’s practices alters the index to take on different statuses, the index thus becomes fictional one, arousing the sense of the uncanny, and even points to the future instead of the past. This in turn affords photography its double faces, whereupon the polarities continuously overlap and influence each other.. ii.

(5) Keywords: Jeff Wall, the fantastic, spirit photography, double, the indexicality.. iii.

(6) 中文摘要. 加拿大攝影師Jeff Wall (1946-)以具敘事性，遊走於寫實與奇幻之間的大型燈箱攝影作品聞名於當代。修習藝術史出生的攝影家，早期的作品多挪用十九世紀浪漫主義Delacroix或是印象派畫家馬內畫作，攝影的特徵與敘事畫的傳統交融於The Destroyed Room, Picture for. Woman等作品中。採用cinematography以及數位技術的幫助，Jeff Wall之後的作品主要可以分為兩類，一是具奇幻性質，照片呈現的故事內容古怪並脫離現實感；另一範疇則被藝術家稱為「近紀實攝影」（near documentary），畫面上看似街頭快照（snapshot）的場景，其實為編排後的結果。然而，不論具奇幻感或近紀實的攝影作品，皆未能全然定調於寫實抑超現實，藝術家的攝影畫面徘徊於紀實與劇畫攝影間。. Jeff Wall同時被視為出現於80年代的大型畫型攝影（tableau photography）潮流中的一份子，而畫型攝影主要的特徵是將所有敘事元素集合在單一畫面上。攝影敘事(storytelling)的特徵，加上藝術家改編文學作品成攝影作品的偏好，讓攝影與文學兩種不同的藝術領域，在Jeff Wall的作品裡共享相似性。因此，本篇論文嘗試以Todorv對於奇幻性（the fantastic）的定義以及結構上的分析，描述Jeff Wall作品裡游移於寫實與超現實、紀實攝影與虛構間的曖昧性。在第一章Jeff Wall: a Fantastic Approach to Photography裡，從Todorov對the fantastic在文學作品中的定義：「書中人物與讀者猶疑於所經歷為現實或超現實與否」，並強調the fantastic的精髓在於「猶疑」。Jeff Wall的作品和Todorov所描述閱讀奇幻小說的經驗相當類似，此外，文學作品裡塑造奇幻的方式也和Jeff Wall引起曖昧性的進路不謀而合。. iv.

(7) 第二章The Spectre of Everyday探討Jeff Wall作品的鬼魅。儘管鬼魅在攝影寫實的特質下多被視為無稽之談，然而在攝影起始之時，由於對新機械的知識缺乏，大眾多相信攝影機械如魔術般可以捕捉鬼魅，讓靈異照片(spiritphotography)在當時廣為流傳，使攝影在寫真、科學之外，開啟了虛構操弄、超自然的縫隙。而上述的鬼魅風潮，在劇畫攝影盛行的80年代再度復興。Jeff Wall不斷地在他的作品中展現攝影奇幻的一面，從分身到吸血鬼、活屍等不同介於生與死、生命(animated)與無生命(inanimated)之間的鬼魅主題，以現代的形象延展攝影藝術的奇幻性與新可能。. 第三章Double Face of Photography進一步延伸Jeff Wall攝影作品裡的曖昧性至其中索引 (the indexicality)與虛構的關係。除了重新檢視Rosalind Krauss的Notes one Index一文，並試著透過Andre Bazin, Roland Barthes與Laura Mulvey等人對於索引的詮釋，來釐清索引在當代攝影藝術的發展下是否仍為攝影唯一的本質，或者索引正歷經曖昧的變形(metamorphosis) 過程：索引從過去現實生活下的印記，轉變為攝影中虛構敘事的情節元素、誘發詭奇 (uncanny)的反應，或成為指向未來、未知事件的索引。. 關鍵字：Jeff Wall、奇幻性、靈異照片、雙身、索引性。. v.

(8) Acknowledgement/ 謝辭. “That was a long time ago, of course, but I remember those days well, I remember them as the beginning of my life.” Paul Auster, Moon Palace.. 時光的流移少有痕跡，回頭檢視四年半研究生活，只有一些模糊但想來盡興的回憶，幾箱文件資料，和一本薄薄的百頁論文，作為自己和時間存在的證據。這段時間裡，走過的路、讀過的書、歷經的事、相伴的人，加疊起來百頁，銘刻著是過往的紀念碑，聳立著是另一個起點。這本論文完成要感謝很多人，謝謝你/妳們陪我一起刻字。. 給我的爸爸媽媽，謝謝你們對於我的所求與所學從未有絲毫懷疑，心理和經濟上的支持，沒有你們就沒有這本論文。. 給我的指導教授諾斯邦老師，作為我論文的第一閱讀者，謝謝你總是細心的閱讀，並容忍著我的破爛英文；跟著老師一起作研究，其實是一場非常有趣具挑戰性的冒險，路徑從無到有，感謝老師幫我把路指明，提示我途中可以求救的學者與寶物，並適時的給我自由發揮的空間。如同建築師一般，幫我把Jeff Wall的詭奇世界蓋起來。謝謝口試委員曾少千老師、和辛蒂庫絲老師，你們的建議不只讓我看到研究過程中的盲點，與輕忽之處，並提供了研究Jeff Wall新的視角與視野。給助教美智、鄒姐，謝謝妳們的提醒與幫忙，研究生活若是沒有妳們，我一定是卡關連連。 vi.

(9) 給我的好同學與戰友雅雯，可以同期畢業真是太好了，謝謝你總是不嫌麻煩的提醒我工作時程，沒有妳的話我一定會忘記許多該交的表格和待辦事項。希望妳未來的路一切順遂，期待妳的好消息。給一起工作的好夥伴學卿，謝謝妳的幽默，每次都逗到我捧腹，研究之餘還可以跟妳一起說八卦抱怨喝酒，真的很幸福。給知己學妹蝶衣，首先要謝謝妳幫我修正論文，將近三萬字的篇幅真是難為妳了；此外，也很開心能和妳一起分享音樂看表演，期待之後在各大livehouse相聚。. 給我的大學同學、學弟妹、姊妹們，西瓜、秀孟、景培、張峻、國鳳、毓珈、詠芝、君君、詹詹、菁菁、以凡、筱芸、彥筑、佳珮、嚕嚕、張簡、政頤，研究的行路難裡，好像也不能全說是孤獨的，謝謝你們的陪伴關心，讓我擁有許多個最好的一日，在工作一白晝之後，晚上有你們敲門，吃飯喝酒相陪。給咖啡小破爛和早秋/多鬆，謝謝你們乾淨明亮的地方，永遠亮著一盞燈，咖啡貝果或卡魯哇牛奶水餃，讓人飽足。. 最後，給思偉，謝謝你像大海一樣吸納總總起伏不安，還給一片平靜澄澈的海面， you are my weight of love.. vii.

(10) INTRODUCTION. This thesis centers on the Canadian contemporary artist Jeff Wall (1946-), and his relation to the fantastic. Through viewing the fantastic as his mode of image-making, this study further traces the association between photography and the fantastic at the advent of photography and discusses the issue of photographic index. Combining digital technique and his characteristic cinematography, Jeff Wall’s photography works can be viewed in two broader categories: one with an artifice style which is made obvious by the fantastic nature of his stories, and the other under the framework of “near documentary,” coined by the artist himself, wherein the scene appears in the form of snapshots but has in fact been staged previously. Nonetheless, Jeff Wall’s photography works oscillate between documentary and staged photography, and cannot be fully identified in the respective realms of realism or the supernatural.. The year of 1978 could be marked as a shift for both Jeff Wall’s artistic career and the contemporary art movement.1 This was the year Wall made The Destroyed Room[Fig.0-1], his first large-format backlit, cinematography work2. This work signifies both the artist’s departure from the typical procedure of conceptual art to the pictorial mode and a tendency of narrative photography.3 In The Destroyed Room, Wall remakes the history painting of Eugene Delacroix’ The Death of Sardanapalus (1827)[Fig.0-2]. He turns this historical painting, which shows as a. 1. Jean-Francois Chevrier, “The Spectre of Everyday”, in Jeff Wall: Complete Edition, London: Phaidon, 2009, P.112 The term cinematography stands for Jeff Wall’s idiosyncratic photographic works, which are stage photographs that required sets, actors, costumes and the kind of techniques, and are largely associated with film production. Therefore, cinematography is generally used in this thesis to refer to Jeff Wall’s photography works. For further explanation of cinematography, see “Nothing but Photography, interview between Hans de Wolf and Jeff Wall,” in Hans de Wolf ed., Jeff Wall: The Crooked Path, Brussels: Bozar Books; Antwerp : Ludion, 2011, P.69 3 “Typology, Luminescence, Freedom: Selections from a Conversation between Jeff Wall and Els Barents”, in Jeff Wall:Selected Essays and interview, NY: MoMA, 2007, P.194 2. 1.

(11) transitional work from a eroticized ideal of military glory4 into a modern domestic violence scene.5 Moreover, the year of 1978 also represents a new period for photography. Art historians and critics at that time were trying to legitimate photography as an art. While for the artists, they also have begun to employ photography as an art medium, and have explored the potential of photography through many different means. One of the groundbreakers is the American artist Cindy Sherman. In her Untitled Film Still (1977-1980)[fig.0-3], she attempts to imitate the stereotype in the movies, particularly focused on the conventional scenario of female persona, to create her own “film stills.6” Her photography work does not derive from the reality, but transforming into a manipulation of the artist’s fantasy.. Like Sherman, Jeff Wall stages his fantasy and observation in photography, but his manner is more close to the traditional painting, and thus he is regarded as one of the leading practitioners of “tableau photography.7” Similar to its precedents – the tableau painting in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the photographic narrative is loaded into a single frame in Jeff Wall’s works, while the viewers rely on the shared cultural ability to recognize the character and the prop as a pregnant moment in his story. But, the narrative aspect further lies in his preference to adapt the literary works, particularly from the fantastic literature. Except his shift from Conceptual art to the pictorial tradition, Peter Galassi, the former director of Photography department at MoMA,. 4. Typology, Luminescence, Freedom: Selections from a Conversation between Jeff Wall and Els Barents”, in Jeff Wall:Selected Essays and interview, NY: MoMA, 2007, P.186 5 Typology, Luminescence, Freedom: Selections from a Conversation between Jeff Wall and Els Barents”, in Jeff Wall:Selected Essays and interview, NY: MoMA, 2007, P.188 6 Michael Fried, Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before, Yale Univ. Press, 2008, P.7 7 The term of tableau photography, or tableau form is first given by French art historian, Jean-Francois Chevrier to describe a new photographic style emerged in the late 1970s when a group photographers were making large photographs. The photographers singled out by Chevrier are John Coplans, Bill Henson, Craigie Horsfield, Suzanne Lafont, and Jeff Wall. See Jean-Francois Chevrier, “The Adventure of the Picture From in the History of Photography (1989),” trans Michael Glison, in The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography, 1960-1982, exh. cat., curated by Douglas Fogle, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, 2003-4, P.116. 2.

(12) considers the year of 1994 as another fresh departure for Wall.8 This is the year Wall made Odradek, Tàboritskà 8, Prague, 18 July 1994[fig.0-4], his first photographic work that made from a specific passage of Franz Kafka’s short story: “The Cares of Family Man.” Later he made another two pieces that also based on literary fictions : After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue (1999-2000)[fig.5.] and After “Spring Snow” by Yukio Mishima, chapter 34 (20002005)[fig.6.].. The tendency of storytelling and Wall’s preference to adapt the fantastic literature into photographic works further suggest the affinity between photography and literature. Thus, this study tries to describe the ambience of Jeff Wall’s photography – the instability between the real and supernatural, documentary and fictional photography – through Tzvetan Todorov’s analysis of the fantastic. In his book, The Fantastic: A structural Approach to a Literary Genre, the French structuralist, Tzvetan Todorov rejects the traditional idea of fantastic but illustrates that the fantastic is a duration of hesitation which is as a pure act or behavior pattern.9 He purposes that the fantastic lies in the reader’s uncertainty between what is apparently real and what is apparently unreal.10. So here I suggest that Jeff Wall’s photography works can be described as fantastic for his picture oscillates between the duality of real and unreal, photographic index and fiction. To further emphasize this point, this study will focus on Jeff Wall’s photography works especially after the year of 1991 as the supernatural elements are more apparent, and those which are based on 8. Peter Galassi, Jeff Wall, exhibition organized by Peter Galassi, Neal Benezra, New York : Museum of Modern Art : Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, 2007 P.52 9 In order to view Tzvetan Todorov’s study as the filter to understand and describe Jeff Wall’s art, my study has avoid the controversial issues in Todorov’s book and only use his general ideas that are accepted by the follow theorists of fantastic literature. See Christine Brook-Rose, A Retoric of the Unreal: Studies in Narrative and Structure, especially of the Fantastic, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981 10 Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic : A Structural Approach to a Literary genre; translated from the French by Richard Howard ; with a foreword by Robert Scholes, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1975, P. 157. 3.

(13) fantastic literary works, such as Odradek, Tàboritskà 8, Prague, 18 July 1994 and After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue (1999-2000).. This study may be considered as three different approaches to understanding the ambiguity of Jeff Wall’s art. In the first chapter: Jeff Wall: A Fantastic Approach to Photography, Jeff Wall’s ambiguous photography is described as the fantastic. The mysterious reality shown in Wall’s pictures has a close affinity with fantastic tales, therefore, Tzvetan Todorov’s theory of the fantastic is applied to aid our understanding of Wall’s photography. Moreover, this affinity brings us to further perceive the close relationship between photography and literature, which has survived a long history since the invention of photography and is consequently crystallized in Jeff Wall’s works.. Chapter two is the Spectre of Everyday. Photography has been intertwined with the fantastic figures, such as ghosts ever since the advent of photography. The idea of spirit photography and that camera can capture spirits was pervasive in the late nineteenth century. However, the sensation of the uncanny has not faded in the modern world, but on the contrary, has only increased in the works of contemporary artists. Wall constantly demonstrates the fantastic side of photography. Through various spooky topics such as the double, vampires, and living dead – the spectra in a state between life and death, animated and the inanimated, Jeff Wall evokes the uncanny and new possibilities in photography.. In chapter three The Double Face of Photography, the discussion of the fantastic is expanded in photographic double and its fantastic aspects. The dematerialized reality and the endless reproduction that photography produces evoke a feeling a uncanny and supernatural. And this ability has become a theme Jeff Wall and the film director Christopher Nolan explored in their 4.

(14) works, and discussed by Sigmund Freud and the film historian Tom Gunning. This inquiry leads us to the double face of photography. Its realism and the fantastic perspective is like the two sides of the same coin. This photographic duality both shown in Jeff Wall’s works and the contemporary art practice and even the theoretical debate of the ontology of photography.. 5.

(15) CHAPTER ONE JEFF WALL: A FANTASTIC APPROACH TO PHOTOGRAPHY. When I saw A Sudden Gust of Wind . . . at the Hayward Gallery’s group show ‘The Epic and the Everyday’ in the summer of 1994, I was confused, unable to figure out how it worked. I realized soon after that Wall was, by that time, an internationally recognized artist whose use of computer-generated effects in his photography were quite well known, […] However, at that moment, standing in front of the picture, I was fascinated and bewildered by the seemingly incompatible temporalities it depicted. The picture clearly placed itself in the tradition of the aesthetic of the instant, the snap that captures the Cartier–Bressonian ‘decisive moment’. At the same time, the perfection and simultaneity of nature and gesture was more reminiscent of the carefully composed effects of a Hollywood studio. I was disorientated and unsure of what I was actually seeing11.. As Laura Mulvey suggests, Jeff Wall’s work, A Sudden Gust of Wind[Fig.1-1.]—as are all of Jeff Wall’s other works—is a fascinating and disorientating picture. This large-scaled color photograph is displayed in a light box. It depicts a flat, open landscape in which four foreground figures are frozen as they respond to a sudden gust of wind. Jeff Wall’s work is based on a woodcut, Travellers Caught in a Sudden breeze at Ejiri (1832) from a famous portfolio, The Thirty-six Views of Fuji, by the Japanese painter and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Wall photographed actors in a landscape located outside his home town, Vancouver, when similar weather conditions prevailed over a period of five months. He then digitally collaged elements of the photograph in order to achieve the desired composition. The result is a staged 11. Laura Mulvey, “A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai): from After to Before the Photograph,” in Oxford Art Journal: Special Topic on Jeff Wall, 2007, Vol: 30:1, PP.27-37, P.30. 6.

(16) tableau in the manner of a classical painting. As in Hokusai’s original, two men clutch their hats to their heads while a third stares up into the sky, where his trilby is being carried away by the wind. On the left, a woman figure is halted in a state of shock, her head concealed by her scarf which is blown around her face. A sheaf of papers in her hand is dispersed by the gust and their trajectory, spread over the centre stage of the image, creates a dynamic sense of movement. Two narrow trees, also in the foreground, bend in the force of the wind, releasing dead leaves which mingle with the flying papers. In Hokusai’s image the landscape is a curving path through a reedfilled area next to a lake, leading towards Mount Fuji in the far distance. But in Wall’s version, flat brown fields abut onto a canal. Small shacks, a row of telegraph poles and concrete pillars and piping evoke an imagery of industrial farming in the far distance. The unromantic nature of the landscape is reinforced by a small structure made of corrugated iron in the foreground. The pathway on which the figures stand is a dirt track extending along the front of the photograph from one side to the other. There is no sense of connection between the characters, whose position in the landscape appears incongruous. Two wear smart city clothes, adding to the sense of displacement.. All in all, the force of the wind, the distorted movements, and the floating papers and cherries are frozen in front of our eyes. A Sudden Gust of Wind is a photograph work mixed with movement and stillness, reality and fantasy. Everything is contradictory with each other in this picture, which induces Laura Mulvey to state, “I was disorientated and unsure of what I was actually seeing12” when she first encountered this picture. Jeff Wall’s photographs are always a puzzle for its viewers. There is no exception for the critic, Mulvey, who is also victim of this hesitation instigated by Wall’s photographs and not being able to distinguish whether or not she is. 12. Laura Mulvey, A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai): from After to Before the Photograph, in Oxford Art Journal: special topic of Jeff Wall, Vol.30:1, 2007, PP.27-37, P.30. 7.

(17) witnessing an improbable scene. Is it an actual natural force, or a fabricated one? This held-insuspense has almost become a common syndrome for the viewers of Jeff Wall’s works, and the experience of disorientation and uncertainty is shared by critics and art historians. A similar complaint is filed by critic Mark Lewis:. I found myself almost frozen in front of this photograph (War Game)[Fig.1-2.], just as I’d been some twenty years earlier in front of Woman and her Doctor, I have to confess that again, standing there and looking at this large black and white photograph of children playing war games in an urban landscape, I didn't really understand it either; more precisely, I know that I was misunderstanding it, that every reading or interpretation that I made (and probably still make) of the image was continually being undermined by the image itself. These misunderstandings, I think, are actually, part of the picture’s genuine invention, what kept me looking at it for such a long time and what keeps me returning to it again and again13.. Mark Lewis admits that he always pauses in front of Wall’s work trying hard to figure out what Wall is trying to express in his picture, which is also the case for Susan Sontag. In her book Regarding the Pain of Others, she describes the re-animated scene presented in Dead Troop Talks [Fig.1-3.] as a creepy fantasy:. The figures in Wall’s visionary photo-work are “realistic” but, of course, the image is not. Dead soldiers don't talk. Here they do. […] Engulf by the image, which is so accusatory, we could fantasize that the soldiers might turn and talk to us14.. 13. Mark Lewis, “Jeff Wall: Photographer, 2009” in Jeff Wall: Photography, 2009, in: Thierry de Duve, Jeff Wall, London ; New York : Phaidon Press, 2nd 2009, P.180 14 Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003, P.77. 8.

(18) Imagining dead soldiers come back to life, and have a chat with each other, death and life are constantly contradicting in Dead Troop Talks. These improbable scenes, supernatural characters, as observed by many critics, own a supernatural nature. This is what makes Jeff Wall’s photography enchanting and fascinating. The challenge for critics is that the difficulty in describing or interpreting the reality presented by these dead soldiers, the doll-like woman, or the bizarre gust of wind. Wall’s photography does not provide a clear distinction of its own nature. Because they combine documentary and fictional elements, these pictures are stuck between interpretations.. Describing and explaining the origins of this ambiguity is equally problematic for photography theorists and critics. Laura Mulvey, for example, suggests that there is a “technological uncanny15”: a sense of uncertainty when confronted by a phenomenon that can actually be easily explained by the use of a new and unfamiliar technology. It is Jeff Wall’s use of digital montage that provokes the confusing while improbable temporality. Thierry de Duve shares the same opinion with Laura Mulvey. In his article entitled, “The Mainstream and the Crooked Path (1996)”, de Duve notices that since Wall started to use digital montage, the issue of beauty in his works has given way to that of the grotesque.16 De Duve did not provide more precise explanation about the sense of grotesque, but it is sure that he is also aware of the bizarreness or even monstrosity shown in Wall’s pictures. Still, De Duve considers it as a significant character since he mentions that this prominent shift deserves a full discussion in another book of its own.. 15. Laura Mulvey, A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai): from After to Before the Photograph, in Oxford Art Journal: special topic of Jeff Wall, Vol:30:1, 2007, PP.27-37, P.33 16 Thierry de Duve, “The Mainstream and the Crooked Path” in: Thierry de Duve, Jeff Wall, London ; New York : Phaidon Press, 2nd 2009. P. 32. 9.

(19) The term uncanny and grotesque are in this respect significant, since they contain a strong connotation related to the sense of uncomfortable strangeness produced by Wall’s works. Some theorists believe that this strangeness is originated from adaptation of computer technology. But, the grotesque or unrealistic ambience has already been presented in the digitalfree works such as Dead Troop Talk and Vampire’s Picnic. These re-animated soldiers and vampire family seem to come from the artist’s own fantasy and imagination instead of being inspired by digital technology. Besides, no matter the term uncanny or grotesque, both of these words cannot fully describe the feeling of suspense and instability of interpretations when looking at Wall’s pictures. It is the feeling of in-between which made it hard for photographer Mark Lewis to decide what this picture exactly means, and felt the need to return to it over and over again.. There is probably something left unsaid in both Mulvey and de Duve’s articles. As the French art historian Jean-Francois Chevrier suggests in his article entitled “The Spectra and Everyday,” the strangeness originates from “the irruption of the untoward in the banal.17” Jeff Wall does not try to depict a supernatural event, the strangeness in his work does not emerge from an untimely or an unusual event, but is provided by a deviation from the present and common place18, such as the magic-like wind in A Sudden Gust of Wind. Chevrier names this strangeness the fantastic, a term that is derived from Roger Caillois’s Anthology of the Fantastic. In his opinion, the fantastic stands not for a completely supernatural event, but more like an irruption in common life.19. 17. Jean-Francois Chevrier, “The Spectra and Everyday” in: Thierry de Duve, Jeff Wall, London ; New York : Phaidon Press, 2nd 2009, P. 117 18 Jean-Francois Chevrier, “The Spectra and Everyday” in: Thierry de Duve, Jeff Wall, London ; New York : Phaidon Press, 2nd 2009, P.116 19 “At Home and Elsewhere: A dialogue in Brussels: between Jeff Wall and Jean-Francois Chevrier” in Jeff Wall: Selected Essays and interview, NY: MoMA, 2007, P. 290. 10.

(20) This fantastic mode, as suggested by Chevrier, especially exists in Jeff Wall’s black and white photographs, mostly in the pictures produced after 1990s. According to him, these pictures provide a combination of uncanny and archaic documentary tradition.20 Housekeeping (1996)[Fig.1-5] for example, corresponded to the theme of the “haunted room.” The deliberated neutrality and cleanness of the hotel room makes this picture strange and uncanny. Presented like a snap shot, the moment shows the newly spick-and-span bed room about to be frozen into an image of vacant space, an empty, lifeless interior. The human (guest) traces of lived-in, the stuff s/he has used, have been carefully rubbed out, effaced. It evokes a sense of haunted room: a lifeless space. And the hotel maid with only her back shown to the viewer turns out to be like a living dead, a specter.21. Chevrier’s interpretation does not come from nowhere. In one interview with Jeff Wall, the artist confessed that the reality we live in is very unstable. There is a thin line between real and unreal. And this acknowledgement leads to his characterized cinematography :. That shows up in ordinary language, say, when you call someone a ‘devil’ or a ‘martyr.’ This process of identification, and maybe mistaken identity, which we’re always involved with, is central to the literary or thematic aspect of pictorial art. Through these phantom identifications, we react to our experience of other people, other being, and this is always present when we’re witnessing occurrence, things apparently happening right in front of our eyes. I’d claim they’re also happening elsewhere at the same time, maybe behind the eyes. So I can't draw a sharp distinction between the prosaic and the spectral, between the. 20. Jean-Francois Chevrier, “The Spectra and Everyday” in: Thierry de Duve, Jeff Wall, London ; New York : Phaidon Press, 2nd 2009, P. 116 21 “At Home and Elsewhere: A dialogue in Brussels: between Jeff Wall and Jean-Francois Chevrier” in Jeff Wall: Selected Essays and interview, NY: MoMA, 2007, P. 290. 11.

(21) factual and the fantastic, and by extension between the documentary and the imaginary. ‘Cinematography’ is my way of working on this.22. Cinematography becomes his way to present an unstable reality. As defined by Wall himself, cinematography are in a sense staged photographs that require sets, actors, costumes and the kind of techniques normally associated with film production.23 The photographer is like a film director. The actors, techniques, and assistances have no difference with the real film-shooting. And the mise-en-scene is based on the photographer’s own imaginary or fantasy. Cinematography provides the flexibility for the artist to create the ambiguous reality he desires. The only difference is that Wall adopts the film technique to create a still image, a tableau photograph. This way of making photography is considered as a manipulation and thus both challenge the traditional concepts of photography: a truthful document, and the photographer as an objective recorder. Hence, Wall’s pictures have two kinds of ambiguity: on the one side, we do not know whether he depicts a real or unreal scene; or on the other, whether photograph can be seen as an authentic record. As we can see, Jeff Wall intends to push his photography works into this ambiguous state. His intention has been explained in interviews or speeches. Not only is Wall constantly trying to provide an unrealistic interpretation of his own works, but he also considers his ambiguous photography as “fantasy picture”:. I feel there has always been a grain of the “improbable” in my picture and in my characters. For example, I thought of the woman in Woman and Her Doctor[Fig.1-6] as a porcelain figurine, and tried to make her a bit like one, very glossy, so that the “clinical gaze” of the doctor would have something to work on. I made a “double” in 1979 (Double Self22. Jean-Francois Chevrier, “The Spectra and Everyday” in: Thierry de Duve, Jeff Wall, London ; New York : Phaidon Press, 2nd 2009, P. 292 23 Tate glossary. http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/jeff-wall/resources/jeff-wall-glossary. 12.

(22) Portrait[Fig.1-7]). The man in No seems to have only one leg – how is he moving alone the street? The woman in Abundance always seemed sort of hallucinatory to me. The Thinker [Fig.1-8] is an impossible being, too. I have always thought of my “realistic” work as populated with spectral characters whose state of being was not that fixed. That, too, is an inherent aspect, or effect, of what I call “cinematography”: things don’t have to really exist, or to have existed, to appear in the picture. So, I see my more recent “fantasy” pictures as just extensions of the elements that have always been present.24. Coincidently, both the artist himself and Jean-Francois Chevrier use the word “fantastic” or “fantasy”, words that are normally used to describe a certain literary genre, to depict the ambiguous atmosphere of Wall’s pictures. Different to what Chevrier says about the fantastic as the deviation of our common life, Jeff Wall seems to refer to an ambiguous situation between the real and unreal. From the interview, it is noticeable that Jeff Wall considers his way of making photography, cinematography as he named it himself, to create “things that don’t have to really exist”, and to achieve an ambiguous state between “the prosaic and the spectral, between the factual and the fantastic, and by extension between the documentary and the imaginary.” Moreover, the recurrent use of terms in his interviews, such as hallucination, spectral, devil, and improbable, encourages us to question the links between this picture and the fantastic genre. As well as the uncanny scenes, and improbable figures such as vampires, living dead, and female giant, these characters are easily associated with the characters in fantastic literature.. The affinity Jeff Wall’s photography shares with fantastic literature makes it possible to apply Tzvetan Todorov’s theory of the fantastic here. In his book The Fantastic: A Structural Approach. 24. Jean-Francois Chevrier, “The Spectra and Everyday” in: Thierry de Duve, Jeff Wall, London ; New York : Phaidon Press, 2nd 2009, P. 254. 13.

(23) to a Literal Genre, Todorov explores the boundaries between the real and unreal in fantastic fictions, which is also the same problematic issue in Jeff Wall’s pictures. Todorov defines the fantastic as a behavior pattern from both the main character in the stories and the readers. It is a hesitation between the real and unreal:. The fantastic, we have seen, lasts only as a certain hesitation: a hesitation common to reader and character, who must decide whether or not what they perceive derived from “reality” as it exist in common opinion.25. By this definition, Todorov marks the fantastic as an ambiguous perception between the real and the supernatural. This scenario occurs when the main character encounters some incidents that is beyond our common perception or knowledge to the reality. Here, Todorov provides a literal example from the Saragossa Manuscript by Polish author Jan Potocki. Alfonso van Worden, the chief character of this story, experienced a series of strange events which makes him sway back and forth between real and supernatural explanations of his adventures. But even until the very end of the story, Alfonso is nearly convinced that someone has set him up to this series of strange events, but he cannot completely rule out the supernatural explanations.26. The word nearly signifies the point of the fantastic. It means that Alfonso is neither convinced in the supernatural explanation nor the realistic one. This indecisive attitude bred the existence of fantastic. According to Todorov, the pure fantastic resides in the remains of the hesitation, and thus the fantastic occupies only a very short lifespan since once the character/reader decides. 25. Tzvetan Todorov, Richard Howard trans., The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Connell Univ. Press, 1975, P. 41 26 Tzvetan Todorov, Richard Howard trans., The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Connell Univ. Press, 1975, P.156. 14.

(24) whether the event is supernatural or not, whereupon the narrative will fall into other categories.27 Therefore, the essence of the fantastic would be the remains of hesitation. “The book closed, the hesitation persists.” is the highest principle of the fantastic. Despite the highly scientific ways of distinguishing pure fantastic and its sub-genre has often been criticized by other literary critics,28 Todorov’s concept of the pure fantastic can be very helpful for us to understand and to describe Jeff Wall’s pictures. We can first notice that Todorov’s idea of the fantastic coincides with Jeff Wall’s idea of photography-making. In the interview already cited, Wall says that in his creative process he “can't draw a sharp distinction between the prosaic and the spectral, between the factual and the fantastic, and by extension between the documentary and the imaginary.” What we experience in the fantastic fiction finds its counterpart in Jeff Wall’s photography. The viewers are experiencing a hesitation between real and unreal exactly like those fantastic fiction readers.. Since Todorov’s definition of fantastic can perfectly describe Jeff Wall’s photography works, and moreover, provide a distinctive description, the next question would be: could literature theory be applied to photography practice? This application wont be inappropriate at all if we recall the affinity of photography with literature, or the realm of writing. Literature and art already has a long history of interaction, as suggests by Francois Brunet. In his book Photography and Literature, photography’s affinity with literature can be traced back to the earliest case of William Henry Talbots’ Pencil of Nature (1844-6), who views photography as a light-writing.. 27. Tzvetan Todorov, Richard Howard trans., The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Connell Univ. Press, 1975, P.157 28 See Barton Levi St. Armand, Review: A Superior Abstraction: Todorov on the Fantastic, in NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Spring, 1975), P.267. 15.

(25) The close relationship between photography and literature is even more evident in the works of contemporary artists, such as Cindy Sherman and Sophie Calle.29 Since the late 1970s photography has experienced a literary turn. Photograph has moved away from the documentary and record, and turns into a liberated medium for artists to express their ideas and imaginations. This new regime of art photography has also been named as “tableau form.” Discussed by JeanFrancois Chevrier in his article, “The Adventure of the Picture Form in the History of Photography30” (1989), the tableau photography shows a tendency toward large-scaled displays which are not designed to be read in photo books, but to be hung for the wall and to be viewed at like painting.31 The practice of tableau form is further associated with this literary turn, as we can see from Jeff Wall’s first photography work The Destroyed Room looks back to the tradition of narrative painting. The pictorial narrative is rather than played out in sequent photograph, but concentrates into a single picture. In her book Photograph as Contemporary Art, Charlotte Cotton indicates that tableau photography has its precedents in pre-photographic art and figurative painting of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the viewer’s understanding relies on “the same cultural ability to recognize a combination of characters and props as a pregnant moment of story.32” Therefore, photography in this period is performed like a visual story or a narrative. Image shows the traces, and depends on a mutual understanding of how a scene could be choreographed for the viewer so that they can realize that the story is being told.. 29. François Brunet, Literature and Photography, London: Reaction Book, P.7 Jean-Francois Chevrier, “The Adventure of the Picture Form in History of Photography,” in The Last Picture Show, Douglas Fogle, ed., Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2003, P.113-127 31 The issue of tableau photography has also been discussed by Michael Fried, as a response to Jean-Francois Chevrier. it has rediscussed recently by Michael Fried. In his book Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before, Fried further dated this literal shift in the period between 1978-1981, and particularly expressed by the photography works of Thomas Ruff, and Jeff Wall. in Michael Fried, Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before, Yale Univ. Press, 2008, P.14 32 Charlotte Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, London; New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004, P. 49 30. 16.

(26) Needless to say that Jeff Wall himself has huge interest in literature, and himself is also a writer.33 The attempt to rebuild a bond between literature and photography is also shown in his artworks.34 In his early practices, Landscape Manual(1969)[Fig.1-8], Wall combined texts and photographs in a way that resembled articles in magazine. But later Wall desired to find a more profound connection between these two artistic fields. He starts to choose his motifs from the characters or from the plot of literary fiction. After the Invisible Man (1999-2000), for instance, is based on the fiction Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. In his interview with Jean-Francois Chevrier, Wall confirms there is a literary shift in his artistic practices:. When I begun to read Roland Barthes, around 1968, I sensed that he was developing a concepts related to that thought, especially in Writing Degree Zero. So it seemed to me that, within the rejection of literature in modern art, a new relation to literature was being hypothesized. Maybe it’s more precise to say that a new relation to the sense that there was a relation, even if it was denied, was being hypothesized. Anyway, that had something to do with making textual experiments around 1969. What I did wasn’t Conceptual art and it wasn’t an overly literary activity, it was just some kind of experiment, using a kind of novelistic but reflective writing in connection with photographs. It was influenced by Burroughs, by Smithson, and Andre Breton’s Nadja, which includes that documentary-style photographs by Boiffard. I saw Nadja as a kind of model for a possible writing practice, as art.. It is not a coincidence that Jeff Wall views the surrealist work, Nadja as a model of novelistic, photography-connected writing. Andre Breton can be considered as the first artist to combine 33. Jeff Wall is a productive writer of art. His essays in many ways reflect his idea toward photography and reflections on its history. 34 Peter Galassi, Jeff Wall, New York : Museum of Modern Art, 2009, P.52. 17.

(27) literature and photography, while the surrealists were also the first artistic group that exploited the fantastic potential of photography.35 Photography, according to the surrealist writer, Pierre Mac Orlan’s mind, is a perfect vehicle for exploring “social fantastic.36” In his article entitled, “Literary Imagination and Photography (1928),” Mac Orlan suggested that photography has the potential to expand our perspective of the world and fulfill the paucity of realism: “At this moment, photography is the most accomplished art, capable of realizing the fantastic and all that is curiously inhuman in the atmosphere that surrounds us, and even in man’s very personality37” Man Ray or Kertesz’s works present a reality that is beyond our common perception, such as “the fantastic restlessness of the street, most in keeping with the tastes of central Europe, interprets the secret elements of shadow and light, deriving romantic flavor from them.38” Photography, for Mac Orlan, can not merely be seen as a document of reality, but has the power to express the artistic and imaginary in a fantastic mode.. The triangular relation between photography, literature, and the fantastic which is presented in most surrealist artworks, seems to reappear in Jeff Wall’s works. So now, is it possible to assume the fantastic as the perfect description for the ambiguous perception and the instability of interpretation in Jeff Wall’s picture? Under the classifications of Todorov, does the fantastic described by Jeff Wall echo the different genres of literature? And what is the distinctive element of the fantastic shared with literature and photography? Can we ask how the fantastic works 35. Pierre Mac Orlan, “The Literary Art of Imagination and Photography” in Christopher Phillip edited, Photography in the Modern Era: European documents and critical writings, 1913-1940, New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Aperture, 1989, P.28 36 Pierre Mac Orlan, “The Literary Art of Imagination and Photography” in Christopher Phillip edited, Photography in the Modern Era: European documents and critical writings, 1913-1940, New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Aperture, 1989, P.27 37 Pierre Mac Orlan, “The Literary Art of Imagination and Photography” in Christopher Phillip edited, Photography in the Modern Era: European documents and critical writings, 1913-1940, New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Aperture, 1989, P.29 38 Pierre Mac Orlan, “The Literary Art of Imagination and Photography” in Christopher Phillip edited, Photography in the Modern Era: European documents and critical writings, 1913-1940, New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Aperture, 1989, P.29. 18.

(28) between literature and photography, as a field of art? Through the interaction between literature and photography, Todorov’s systematic classifications might help us obtain a more precise idea about Jeff Wall’s fantastic characters. Therefore, in the following discussions, the specific characters of the fantastic selected by Todorov will be further explored with concrete examples of literary works. While these characters will also be compared with different photography works of Jeff Wall.. 19.

(29) Disequilibrium. In one of his most recent work, Boy Falls from Tree (2011)[Fig.1-10], Jeff Wall challenges himself by capturing the free fall: a boy plummeting from tree to the ground. The instable composition catches our eyes at the first sight of this picture: we see a nice summer day afternoon, the tree casting a shadow on the grass with a ray of sunlight. Everything in this garden is in a tranquil state. The grass of the lawn is carefully cut and the rest of the garden tools are arranged in order. But, a boy is free falling from tree. A fall that breaks the peaceful atmosphere of the summer garden, and disturbs the composition of the picture.. The instability of the composition further brings us to worry about the falling boy. What would happen when he hits the ground? Would he be seriously injured? Would he break his legs or arms? According to the artist, this theme of a boy falling from a tree began from his childhood memories.39 Indeed, a boy playing in the yard and then dropping from a tree seems such a common incident that could happen to everyone. Yet the huge contrast between the tranquil atmosphere and the dramatic free fall provokes a sense of discomfort and strangeness.. Besides the contrast between safety and danger, Jeff Wall also presents a conflict between stillness and movement. Stillness versus movement is a familiar theme in Wall’s photography works, whether it is found in Milk[Fig.1-11], A Sudden Gust of Wind, and A Stumbling Block, just to name a few. In these pictures, it is oftentimes the force of violence that destroys the original inanimate scene. For instance, in Milk, the grid-like order of the brick wall background, and strong vertical bands that stripe the left side of the image contrast sharply with the tension in the man’s arms and the uncontrolled arc of milk. But what makes Boy Falls from Tree remarkable is 39. In the white cube interview, http://whitecube.com/channel/in_the_gallery_past/jeff_wall_on_boy_falls_from_tree/. 20.

(30) the difficulty of capturing a free fall person, as the artist himself admits, “Capturing a free fall is very difficult, objects accelerate very quickly. Gravity is a powerful force. I didn’t want it to be blurred. In order to do that, it took time. It’s all very prosaic.40” However, this prosaic process brings us a marvelous frozen moment of a free-falling boy. Furthermore, by presenting a Muybridge-like stop-action of a falling boy, Boy falls from Tree is more or less a reference to history of photography. Wall reproduces a frozen movement that only camera can capture but remains unseen to human eyes. It generates a contrast that only photography can achieve.. The suspense Jeff Wall illustrates his photography finds its counterpart in fantastic literature. This is probably the most important approach for fantastic stories. Even though suspense can be seen in various literary genres, it is in the fantastic one that we can find its most extreme expression. In order to provoke an emotional response like fear, shock, worry, and expectations, or to create an intensified atmosphere, suspense is the crucial element for writers to build their story. In The Fantastic, Todorov signals out the way fantastic novelists achieve the suspense or intensity in narrative structure. His basic principle is that “all narrative is a movement between two equilibriums which are similar but not identical.41” In the beginning of the narrative, there is always a stable situation, yet subsequently, something occurs which introduces a disequilibrium. Here Todorov provides a very simple example of a child who is living with his family. This family participates in a micro-society which has its own laws, and then a certain incident (disequilibrium) will cause the child to leave his house. Yet in the end of the story, after having overcome numerous obstacles, the child returns to the family house. The equilibrium is then reestablished. In other words, Todorov concludes that the elementary narrative therefore contains. 40. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/culture/2011/12/4657500/jeff-walls-new-photos-are-characteristicallycinematic-script-feels41 Tzvetan Todorov, Richard Howard trans., The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Connell Univ. Press, 1975, P.163. 21.

(31) two types of episodes: those which describe a state of equilibrium or disequilibrium, and those which describe the transition from one to another.. The basic narrative schema is more pivotal in fantastic story than in any other literary genre. Most fantastic writers focus on the development of the action. That is to say, they emphasize on the structure and story plot. The organization of the plot with contrasts is much more significant than developing characters in the story since their goal is to surprise the readers and to arouse hesitation in them. For instance, Edgar Allan Poe is more accomplished at creating incident and narrative effects than in meticulous delineation of the characters.42 The supernatural event contributes to the disequilibrium of the fundamental narrative schema. It destroys the stability of the plot and provokes a transgression in story. In that sense, the supernatural event intervenes in two ways. First, it contradicts the natural laws, and second, it breaks the equilibrium of the narrative.. This kind of contradiction is presented in Wall’s Insomnia (1994)[Fig.1-12] as well. A man in pajamas is lying down under the kitchen table. He is sweating, and his hair is disheveled. This man looks sleepless, his vacant eyes wide open, without a single focus on anything. His mind seems to be wandering at a distance. It seems that this man is experiencing something terrifying. Something makes him rush to the kitchen, and hide under the table for some cover. Or because he couldn’t sleep on his bed, so he walked around the kitchen room and finally lied down on the floor to get some rest. The light on the ceiling, which can be seen through the reflection of the kitchen window, lights up his face and also casts a sharp shadow of his body on the ground. The kitchen table and chairs are messed up and disordered. It suggests that this man ran into this room. 42. Tzvetan Todorov, Richard Howard trans., The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Connell Univ. Press, 1975, P.163. 22.

(32) in a hurry. All the kitchen settings are painted in light green, except for the oven and the refrigerator which are white. There are no photographs, paintings, or any decorations to indicate the personality of this man. This kitchen is plain and dull. On the left side, the storage is opened. We can see from the window a wall which is the set from the studio, deliberately shown by Jeff Wall.. A feeling of restlessness pervades in Insomnia. Everything in this picture is instable: from the man’s mental state to the composition of the image. We see from our first glimpse that this man is ill at ease. This man looks tense and troubled from sleep, even though he is already in his own house and lying down with his pajamas. We have no idea what he is thinking, only with knowledge that his mind is struggling. Strangely, he is not comfortable even in his own house. When looking at the picture, we cannot be sure whether this room is providing this man a safe shelter. But his tension and insomnia makes us wonder whether it is his own house that frightens him. The house is restless as well. The messy kitchen is one thing. The other is that of the messy settings, like the open closet door, the dining table and chair together, forms multiple diagonal lines in the picture. The dining table is not parallel to the picture plan as we expect to see. It makes the overall composition of this picture as disturbing as the expression and behavior of the man.. Here, once again this picture is ambiguous. Contrary interpretations can both explain this picture well. No one knows for sure whether this man is still in the condition of insomnia or whether he is about to have a nice dream. Even for the critic Jean-Francois Chevrier, who has studied the works of Jeff Wall for a long time:. 23.

(33) Jean-Francois Chevrier (JF-C): I think it’s rather difficult to present Insomnia as an image of rest. The house isn’t refuge offering protection from urban (i.e. social) violence anymore when it becomes a haunted place, a place of sleepless.. Jeff Wall (JW): The state of wakefulness, even of the sleeplessness, isn’t necessarily negative, or violent. Think of the language of the Enlightenment. Benjamin worked with the trope of awakening in an extremely positive, emancipatory way.. JF-C: Yes, but in the fantastic, the inverse is true: hyperlucidity becomes hallucination, insomnia, horror, and the surfacing of hallucinatory and alienating dreams.. JW: The man in Insomnia is at home, and he has a home. He is comfortable enough in the house to wind up on the kitchen floor, and maybe he’ll fall asleep there.. JF-C: Now you’ve convinced me that it really is ambiguous.. JW: But I think we should remember, too, that the beauty of the image derives in part from the fact that we never know exactly what we are feeling when we look at it. In phenomenological terms, the modern sense of beauty is characterized by energy, mobility, an energy we cannot avoid experiencing. What I mean is that the experience of beauty is unstable, or an experience of instability; so ambiguity is part of the structure of that experience, and part of the structure of an image.43. 43. “At Home and Elsewhere: A dialogue in Brussels: between Jeff Wall and Jean-Francois Chevrier” in Jeff Wall: Selected Essays and interview, NY: MoMA, 2007, P. 292. 24.

(34) This interview shows that the ambiguity lies in the fact that Wall’s picture is always oscillating between supernatural and realistic explanation. Besides, the interpretation of his picture is never settled, and the artist seems rather to keep his picture in this way. As the example from Insomnia, no one can be sure whether this man is suffering from sleep deprivation due to the fear of the unknown, or feels comfortable lying down on the kitchen floor to enjoy a nap. Despite the fact that Jeff Wall himself provides a realistic explanation for Insomnia, he does not fully deny the possibility of a supernatural interpretation. Somehow the realistic solution is far-fetched, while the fantastic one sounds more persuasive. Wall believes that the beauty of the picture derived from its inner ambiguity and corresponds to Dostoyevsky’s comment on Allan Poe, “He almost always chooses the most exceptional reality, puts his character in the most exceptional situation, on the external or psychological level.44” Whether in Poe’s tale or Jeff Wall’s picture, the narratives would provide or imply a realistic explanation, yet the extreme experience of reading is shown in both cases: to put the reader or viewer into expectations of human life and nature.. 44. Tzvetan Todorov, Richard Howard trans., The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Connell Univ. Press, 1975, P.48. 25.

(35) The real and unreal. As Christine Brook-Rose points out in her book A Rhetoric of Unreal: Studies in Narrative & Structure, Especially for the Fantastic, that in Todorov’s study on the fantastic genre, he strictly contends that the true fantastic lies in the ambiguity between real and supernatural.45 In literary examples such as The Fall of House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, or Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, various kinds of mystery stories are told in their works, such as intermarriage, resurrection of the dead, or human’s metamorphosis to insects. These stories end with an experience of indecisiveness. Sometimes, despite the writer having himself provided a realistic explanation, it is still hard to rule out the possibility of supernatural existence for the readers. For example, in The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe provides a rational explanation in the end of story. But nonetheless, the reader’s curiosity is already roused by the persuasive details and the suspenseful plots and thus hard to believe the rational explanations. They have already entered the fantastic world created by Poe.. As suggested by Francois Rigolot in his article entitled, “Ekphrasis and the Fantastic: Genesis of an Aberration,” the reason why we easily hesitate between the real and the unreal in fantastic texts is because of the description of the supernatural event is full of realistic details.46 “In the fantastic tale (more, perhaps, than in any other genre), the line of demarcation between the descriptive and the narrative tends to be blurred precisely because it is through the actualizing power of situational details that the narrative unfolds.47” Rigolot suggests that in fantastic fictions the actualizing details are as convincible as in realistic ones. The realistic details help us to 45. Christine Brooke-Rose, A Rhetoric of Unreal: Studies in Narrative & Structure, Especially of the Fantastic, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981, P.63 46 Francois Rigolot, “Ekphrasis and the Fantastic: Genesis of an Aberration,” in Comparative Literature, Vol. 49, N.2, (Spring, 1997), P.101 47 Francois Rigolot, “Ekphrasis and the Fantastic: Genesis of an Aberration,” in Comparative Literature, Vol. 49, N.2, (Spring, 1997), P.101. 26.

(36) construct a world based on our imagination and common knowledge, meanwhile, these details prepare us for our entrance into the realm of the fantastic. He uses Merimee’s Venus d’Ille as example here. The strange Venus status in the story is described many times through different people. The concrete details and objective data are fully described by Merimee for readers to imagine and to throw themselves into the story.48 In the story, the author first tells us the appearance, the weight and the height of this Venus statue. But then the description of the Venus reaches a transitional point when the guide finally says that the statue not only looks wicked, but is so as well. His saying arouses the curiosity of the readers. Gradually, we are transported from the realistic world to another realm, the fantastic sphere. The actualizing details become the motivation.49 Thus, as Rigolot concludes at the end of his article: “the ‘fantastic’ remains deeply indebted to its aesthetic origins: the ambiguous rhetoric of "eye-ravishing art.50” Those actualizing details leads the readers step by step enter into the story, and then slip into another reality.. The same literary rhetoric of “eye-ravishing” has been used in Jeff Wall’s photography as well. His first photography work, The Destroyed Room[Fig.1-13], was made of ravishing details. The scattering female belongings, mattress, and other pieces of furniture are piled up to make us believe that this is a room after some violent destruction. The artist used the details to persuade the viewers that it is a documentary/realistic photography. Photography’s ability to capture pervasive details has long been considered as the photographic aesthetic, and supports the truth claim of photography. Here photography’s authentic condition becomes Wall’s way to make believe. But, if we look more carefully to the picture. We see that everything has been destroyed 48. François Brunet, Literature and Photography, London: Reaction Book, P.7 Pierre Mac Orlan, “The Literary Art of Imagination and Photography” in Christopher Phillip edited, Photography in the Modern Era: European documents and critical writings, 1913-1940, New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Aperture, 1989, P.28 50 Francois Rigolot, “Ekphrasis and the Fantastic: Genesis of an Aberration,” in Comparative Literature, Vol. 49, N.2, (Spring, 1997), P.110 49. 27.

(37) and turned over, except the little porcelain-made dancing doll. Standing on the crumbling cabinet, it is left completely intact. Why hasn’t the doll fallen to the ground? Why is it the only thing undamaged? Our curiosity is raised because it is the sole survivor of this scene. As if the doll is wicked.. The wickedness does not vanish after we know The Destroyed Room is in fact a stage scene. On the contrary, these faking details generate a sense of wickedness and uncanny. The destroyed room is like an illusion between our common reality and fantasy, an illusion that is created by a false truth.51 The accumulating details in the photography and the actualizing descriptions are the false truths which lead the viewers to trespass into another reality. This is particularly the case in The Destroyed Room, because we know this picture is fake, a staged photograph that provokes a sense of the uncanny. The uncanny feeling will not disappear after we know the picture was not taken from reality, as suggested by Laura Mulvey.52 The false truth holds us restless in front of Jeff Wall’s picture. Similar to the readers of fantastic fiction, we know perfectly that the plot as been made up by the author, but the story won’t lose its attraction because of that.. Wall’s Odradek, Taboriska 8, Prague, 18 July, 1994 is probably the most comprehensive expression of “eye-ravishing” rhetoric. The accumulation of actualizing details to achieve a hyper-reality is more epitomized when Jeff Wall tries to bring Franz Kafka’s short fantastic story, “The Care of Family Man (1919),” into the real world. “The Care of Family Man” is a story about a strange creature named Odradek. It is a spool in a star shape. Despite its lack of a permanent residency, Odradek always comes back to the household’s (also the narrator in the. 51. Francois Rigolot, “Ekphrasis and the Fantastic: Genesis of an Aberration,” in Comparative Literature, Vol. 49, N.2, (Spring, 1997), P.111 52 Laura Mulvey, “A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai): from After to Before the Photograph,” in Oxford Art Journal: Special Topic on Jeff Wall, 2007, 30:1, PP.27-37, P.30. 28.

(38) story) abode. It lurks in the garrets, stairways, and lobbies of buildings, and oftentimes is invisible to passers-by, except the narrator. That is the reason why the narrator can provides us the name, the appearance of Odradek, and his immortality. As the narrator says in the end of the story that “he will always be rolling down the stairs, with ends of thread trailing after him, right before the feet of my children, and my children's children? He does no harm to anyone that one can see; but the idea that he is likely to survive me I find almost painful.53”. Kafka gives his fantastic figure, Odradek, a strange but precise description. The bizarreness of this figure first starts with its name. The author cannot be sure whether the origin of the name Odradek is from Slavonic or German. Despite neither of these interpretations is credible, the reader still have a slight impression that Odradek might have an Eastern European origin. Kafka goes on to describe the physical character of Odradek:. At first glance it looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread, and indeed it does seem to have thread wound upon it; to be sure, they are only old, broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together, of the most varied sorts and colors. But it is not only a spool, for a small wooden crossbar sticks out of the middle of the star, and another small rod is joined to that at a right angle. By means of this latter rod on one side and one of the points of the star on the other, the whole thing can stand upright as if on two legs.54. Odradek is a live being with a strange combination: a star-like spool. It appearance is bizarre, but very precisely described by the novelist. He provides more actualizing details to this fantastic figure, like the way Odradek twined around with different kinds and color of thread, which are 53 54. Franz Kafka, “The Care of family Man,” in The Complete Stories, Schcoken Books, 1995, P.74 Franz Kafka, “The Care of family Man,” in The Complete Stories, Schcoken Books, 1995, P.74. 29.

(39) snarled together. Also, he describes how Odradek stands up by one points of the star and the small rod on its side. These realistic details pile up to support a strange but actualizing image of Odradek. It is also based on these details that Jeff Wall is able to bring Odradek to the real world: from a fantastic description in the book to a real being in our world.. The presence of Odradek is first shown in his near documentary photography, Odradek, Taboriska 8, Prague, 18 July, 1994. Based on the clues the narrator provides, Jeff Wall was able to find Odradek in almost the end of twentieth century. “In 1994, I went to Prague to hunt for Odradek, I was fortunate to be able to get a shot of him in an old building there.55” Unlike most people, who cannot see Odradek, the photographer, as he claims, was fortunate enough to see the presence of Odradek, and capable to present the image of Odradek. This is how Jeff Wall collaborates with the fantastic narratives of Kafka. He is like a hunter, waiting for the “decisive moment” as described by Henri Cartier-Bresson. But the “capture” was in fact a constructed scene. The details of Odradek’s appearance and its habits which are provided in Kafka’s texts supports Wall to create a real Odradek in an apartment of Prague. Thus this picture can be seen as the actual visualized sequel to the “The Care of a family man”. Odradek, Taboriska 8, Prague, 18 July, 1994 first looks like a documentary photograph of a woman walking down the stairs. (A homage to Duchamp’s A Woman Descending from Stairs? ) Yet this picture is different from other documentary pictures. It is a document of a supernatural event: the fantastic being, Odradek is lurking down the stairs, hiding in the shadows. This picture holds the viewer in suspense. We cannot recognize any facial expression. The woman is walking with her head down. Her mind seems to be occupied. Behind her is a big sharp shadow and the route in front of her led to a dark door whose destination is unknown. Under the stairs, the lurking Odradek provokes a sense of. 55. “At Home and Elsewhere: A dialogue in Brussels: between Jeff Wall and Jean-Francois Chevrier” in Jeff Wall: Selected Essays and interview, NY: MoMA, 2007, P. 292. 30.