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Marco Antonio Cruz. Escuela de Débiles Visuales y Ciegos. Xalapa, Ver., 1998. >
LA PARÁBOLA DE LOS CIEGOS
IX
William Carlos Williams, Pictures from Brueghel and other poems, New Directions Books, 1967.
8
Stéphane Coutelle. Autorretrato 46, 1989.
Katya Brailovsky. Sin título, '998.
La gallina ciega
EVGEN BAVCAR:
EL DESEO DE IMAGEN
Retrato de S.
Desnudo con manos
3 4
5 6 .•.
7 8
Gerardo Deni z
Mil 987 fue para mí un año muy cargado. De todo. Koshka llegó a vivir
conmigo . Rúnika fue bautizada, y sus picos pardos aparecieron a media-
dos de año. Empecé a chapotear en lo que serían Amor y Oxidente y
Grosso modo. Mientras, por supuesto, me ganaba la vida con mi vergonzoso
oficio habitual. Conocí el tercer cuarteto de Revueltas, estuve en
Aguascalientes y, de regreso a fines de julio, me encerré en libros
nórdicos, a escribir groserías y conocer los horrores de la gramáti-
ca irlandesa .
Una mañana, al despertar, vi con el ojo derecho cosas inverosímiles.
Con luz ·intensa todo se esfumaba pero, como en diez días nada cambió,
visité al oculista y supe que tenía una retina desprendida y desgarra-
da. Me operaron en la segunda mitad de agosto y de nuevo al empezar
octubre, aunque nunca quedé bien del todo.
Recién vuelto de la anestesia, me fue encargado por teléfono cierto
soneto. Olvido detalles, si bien al día siguiente estuvo hecho, desde
luego (tampoco era mi primera experiencia) de memoria. Mucho después,
al ir a ser publicado, le añadí agunas notas confesando cómo la fuerza
motriz para elaborarlo fue la lujuria, ese pecado autocatalítico. De ahí
que no quedase en soneto el asunto: durante los siguientes tres meses,
entre reposo en penumbra y ojos cerrados, fueron surgiéndome y con-
cretándose diecisiete textos a cuál más vil (me guardaré de llamarlos
poemas), a los que se agregó todavía otro ("Consulta") a principios de
diciembre, con los ojos recién abiertos de par en par. Los "Fosfenos" que
inician Grosso modo, publicado un año después.
Inmediatamente tras la operación inicial, garabateaba yo telegramáti-
camente mis ocurrencias. Enseguida abandoné aquel papelito absurdo y
confié sólo en al cabeza, la cual a veces sirve. Tiempo me sobraba . El
venidero fosfeno final, número 18, "Allanamiento de violeta", se tornó
el eje del conjunto. (Más tarde narré en detalle su génesis y estruc-
tura, en un comentario detallado que conserva la CIA en mi expediente.)
Diciembre . Todo el mundo ha muerto -el maestro Juan D. Tercero,
Rodolfo Halffter, Cocó- y yo, devuelto paso a paso a luz meridiana,
caligrafío a diario un par de fosfenos, antes fermentados sólo mental-
mente. Casi nada que retocar luego (hoy, dos o tres palabras, para la
edición póstuma) . Releo a Shakespeare, lo aprovecho en tres epígrafes
(Otelo, Romeo, Graciano).
Cuánto ha sucedido desde agosto del año pasado, 1986, cuando me elec-
trocutó aquel anuncio de zapatos deportivos recién puesto en el metro .
Cuánta materia por desgracia inventariada no más sobre papel con tinta
de retina, la cual es, ya se sabe, una viscosa prolongación cerebral
con sus bastones y conos ; desprendible aun sin jeopardo .
Marco Antonio Cruz. Sala de operaciones del Hospita l Médica Sur, 20 de noviembre de 1998.
Lola Álvarez Bravo . Entre la luz y la sombra. México, ca. 1945.
Marco Antonio Cruz. El ciego Marcelo López con su esposa. Sierra Juárez, Oaxaca. 11 de marzo de 1998.
Marco Antonio Cruz. Fe rnando y Al berto v., ciegos por oncocercosis.
Comunidad Nuevo Brasil, Huixtla, Chia pas. 19 de marzo de 1998 .
Marco Antonio Cruz. La ciega Antonia Gómez Pérez con su mad re. Desplazadas za patistas.
Chena lhó, Chiapas. 25 de marzo de 1998.
Marco Antonio Cruz. Plantón de ciegos. Zóca lo de la ciudad de México, 18 de julio de 1993.
Marco Antonio Cruz. Doña Epitacia González. Comun id ad Nuevo Brasil, Huixtla, Chiapas, 19 de ma rzo de 1998.
Marco Antonio Cruz. Don Luz, poe ta y t rovador. San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 199 3.
Eikoh Hosoe . Barakei N" 19. Del libro: Meta, 1961 .
144
IIORRon"sos ASESINATOS
COOlplidos por Cristúbal P¡flllcras (,JI Fuente Alvilla. provrnria ti,. 4Ibacetp., el
liia 4 dI' octubre dci pre,f)llt,~ :lito; habiendo encontrado á un JO\'cn amaDce·
bado con su cSJlo ~ a. di"l muerte á él Y á cuatro hijos. y él mismo se ahorcó,
,:om,) lo VPrá el lector .
. -:-~~~.~:~:~
- ---:--4'
173
Evgen Bavcar: a Desire for Images Benjamín Mayer Foulkes
II.._--
proof that must be obscured is the I¡~~~:=:-
one relating to the blind, the one t~i;
that keeps bi-ocular perspective well
:.~;'
enlightened:
"Proof is an interesting film, but it
has aspects that follow the
filmmaker's logic rather than the
blind person's. This is quite
significant. It's a good thing for film
to free itself of the blind person's
ghost, but it would also be good if it
gave us a voice. Filmmakers are al so
blind when they let clichéd images
speak for them."
In contrast to ocularcentrism's
toxonomic impulse, whose
effectiveness and purity are always
merely appearances, Bavcar's
iconography is explicitly and
irreducibly a practice of mediation iconography (whose classic
and synergy. It bears no trace of the definition is to be a "description of
practice of photography as a "pencil images, portraits, paintings, statues
of nature," a fantasy of the medium or monuments, especially ancient
by which nature captures its own ones") is an undeniably interpretive
raw essence without the arto This is perhaps why Bavcar
intervention of mano On the never dates his photos, which can't
contrary: the hand-and the eye- be considered snapshots beca use
are obligated to intervene with the their temporal existence is really
blind photographer's camera: that of their successive viewers.
"1 depend on others to make my The blind, and people who
photos. They have to describe the think they aren't, face the constant,
landscape or whatever is in front of radical threat of what is seen-or,
me. Other people tell me what they at least, of what is apparently seen .
see and I act accordingly. I pick my Bavcar always attempts to obscure
photos on a contact sheet the same these appearances and throw
way everyone else does, the only clichés back in the direction of
exception being that I have to hope and becoming. As he says
control the physical gaze of those about himself: "1 don't see the
who serve as mediators between world as it is but as it could be."
the contacts and my own inner Bavcar's iconographic art is the art
reality." of revealing shadows; if
By the same token, and against photography is writing with light,
the fundamentals of photography, the art of the blind, which Bavcar
181
despite the weakness of the means
at our disposal."
Any image, whether it pertains
to the realm of the "sighted" or the
"blind," creates a latent cliché, and
for this reason it always has the
potential to dazzle, to blind; and
the iIIusion of light, in the end, can
also blind the blind. Thus Bavcar
takes advantage of the antidote for
the invisible, and describes himself
as "a darkroom behind a camera"
that in turn conjures "another dark
chamber that can capture any kind
of outer reality inaccessible to my
gaze." This other dark chamber is
the third eye:
considers "almost a mysticism of "Our desire for images is
photography," establishes, in consequently our response to the
return, that any image is an image existence of a third eye which is
of something, and primarily of aware of the misfortunes of our
something invisible. To sum up, as physical gaze, 'of our eyes of clay
we have already glimpsed, Bavcar's which cannot see the invisible' in
iconographic activity is guided by the words of Kazantzakis. The third
that inaccessible star known as the eye alone has the privilege of seeing
third eye. even further."
The third eye is the point of
The Inaccessible Star contact between the sighted
"Today we are witnessing an person's eyes and those of the blind
expansion of the visible world, one, as well as this contact's
which causes a similar expansion of simultaneous disintegration, the
the invisible world. Perhaps we original, boundless blind spot of all
must accept this dogmatic vision and all blindness. Then the
deduction in order to refute invisibility Bavcar goes in pursuit of
modern man's supposed ability to isn't merely a potential or deferred
see the infinite, a notion that serves visibility, but truly an original and
only too well the ideology of uncontrollable invisibility which
technics. I'd make a distinction here Merleau-Ponty (in the
between light (Iumiere) and aforementioned work) describes in
illumination (éc/airage); I believe the following terms: "Principie: not
that the play of light is what to consider the invisible as an other
prevents us from reaching the real. visible 'possible', or a 'possible'
IIlumination is different from light visible for an other ... The invisible is
produced by modern methods there without being an object, it is
because it is always excluded from pure transcendence, without an
the field of obvious perception-it is ontic mask."
something we must strive to grasp Likewise, the third eye Bavcar
182
,.
invokes is the radical formlessness disintegration of the visual. For this
that's the origin of all form, that reason it constitutes the punctum
"invisible center" Derrida refers to caecum in which the history of
(in Memoirs of the Blincf), which Western visual art and the history of
from an absolute withdrawal its own self-destruction converge:
"ensures from a distance a kind of "1 admire painters like Malevich,
synergy. It coordinates the Picasso, Modigliani, Kandinsky, but I
possibilities of seeing, touching and feel more of a kinship with
moving. And of hearing and sculpture. I'm really interested by
understanding." Duchamp and the spirit of the
Thus it's the third eye that negation of arto The whole history of
inspires Bavcar's deployment of art consists of the gaze's renewal by
synergy on every level of his means of the third eye."
iconographic practice. Not only does Of course, as the lacks an "ontic
he photograph landscapes based on mask," any attempt to portray it
other people's descriptions-for results in nothing but the portrayal
instance children's indications or of its own afterimage and remains.
passages from books, like when he Thus in Bavcar's imaginary the third
photographed his friend Peter eye is portrayed successively as an
Handke's native town. Not only angel, a swallow and wind. Like the
does his iconography deal with angel, the iconographer sees just as
things he or the viewers of his work clearly in the light as he does in the
have never seen-the intense dark. Swallows then establish the
darkness that a stairwell leads to, difference between light and dark
the clarity that a tree's branches while not being subjected to it:
point to, the pure transcendence "As a child I learned that swallows
concealed by a carnival mask, the fly low when it's gloomy and fly
enlightening contemplation of a much higher up in the sky when it's
cloudy stream. Like an echo of bright. These birds form part of my
Merleau-Ponty's description of childhood landscape."
vision as "touch by sight," Bavcar's And concerning the wind, he
iconographic gaze is intrinsically, refers to the Gospel:
though not exclusively, tactile- "No one can tell you where it comes
indeed he sometimes calls his prints from or where it goes, or how it is,
"tactile views" and sta tes that "the but it undeniably exists. Wind can't
sense of touch is the logic of be, but it can be heard, it can be
vision." felt."
If the field of the image doesn't But Bavcar also refers to the third
overlap with the field of vision, then eye in the case of the stairway that
neither is the operation of the third ascends and descends, the tree that
eye essentially visual. Just as both blocks our sight and allows us
memory and imagination are to see through it, the mask that
conditions for the possibility of any manifests and conceals, and the
perception as well as the water that is at once transparent
inescapable source of all sensory and cloudy. Furthermore, Bavcar
"distorsion," the third eye is deals with time, writing, portraiture,
simultaneously the source and and light itself in the same fashion:
183
time generates its own never ceases to provoke in sighted
representations but hides behind individuals? What causes these
them; writing, both as image and reactions if, essentially, Bavcar seems
word, is at once the cause and effect to operate like any other
of figuration; portraiture confronts photographer or sighted person?
and challenges both the observer Like Bavcar, photographers in
and the person being observed; and general have a desire for images,
light, while pretending to make and this desire cannot help but be
something visible, dazzles. for the invisible, for something that
Angel, swallow, wind, staircase, remains dark and obscure at the
tree, mask, water, time, writing, moment it is experienced. As the
portraits, light... AII of these and blind photographer says about love,
none: Bavcar is the first to point out "when you approach a woman, you
that any figuration issued from the reach a point beyond which you see
third eye is defective, which is why nothing." In effect, perhaps the
his work is "fundamentally impulse behind any click of the
unfinished." And so many more: all of shutter is an attempt to possess
Bavcar's icons-each one an attempt something that can't be seen. Like
to represent what líes beyond the Bavcar, every photographer
gaze in the gaze-are also defective necessarily makes a pact with
figurations of the third eye. By virtue darkness and the invisible, and his
of this, as we see more and more art resides precisely in the conditions
clearly, upon looking at Bavcar's of this pacto If, unlike other blind
prints our own gaze also discovers people, our iconographer doesn't take
itself as the desire and figuration of pictures with the hope of some day
the formless. It's not surprising then seeing again, it's not because he
that Bavcar conceives of his fully accepts his blindness, but that
photographic act as a "Iay prayer," sighted people, he points out, are
and that "a kind of theology of also at least partially blind. Like
light" is part of his practice in the Bavcar, all photographers imagine
sense that "just as theologists don't and remember their images much
know God, my awareness of light is more than they actually perceive
also relative." Surely, as Derrida them: the necessary intervention of
notes (in "How to Avoid Speaking: the dream in any photographic
Denials"), "the name of God would intellection is inherent to the desire
suit anything that can only be for images. In other words, like
approximated, approached or Bavcar, all photographers, in the
designated in an indirect and end, see things with their eyes
negative manner. Any negative closed. For this reason, as we can
sentence would already be haunted clearly see in the case of this artist,
by God or the na me of God." the grounds for any photographer's
speculum mundi are the images of
The Invisible Gaze their childhood . Like Bavcar, every
What, then, is the source of the photographer stumbles
surprise, the bewilderment, the synergistically and simultaneously
peculiar kind of resentment and through countless sensory and
anger that the blind photographer intelligible frames of reference. Thus
184
it seems that to question a blind
photographer's possible existen ce, to
question his "method" and
"Iegitimacy," is nothing less than to
question the possible existence of
photographers in general.
What 's more, not only does
Bavcar operate like any other
photographer but also like any other
sighted persono Not only beca use,
just as in the case of photographers,
if a sighted person looks, he or she
does so driven by a desire for
images. Not only because he or she
who looks does so beyond visibility.
Not only because seeing is bringing
imagination and memory into play.
Not only beca use seeing is falling
prey, befo re the fact, to an
overwhelming synergy. Beyond all
these concerns, Bavcar operates like the rediscovery-as here we are
any sighted person beca use, like dealing with something that could
Bavcar, any sighted person can only only have been discovered
look from, and towards, the third beforehand-of the fact that they
eye. What else could the are originally and structurally blind .
"shortcomings" and vacancy of our As Bavcar says:
"physical gaze"-as it lands upon "If people are perplexed, it's because
angels, swallows, winds, stairways, their own relationship with blindness
trees, masks, waters, times, writings, comes into focus, and sometimes
portraits, lights, images and other their fear, in the sense of a castration
blindnesses-be due to? complex or an immediate
Despite first impressions, Bavcar recollection of their own Oedipus
does not represent the simple complex. From some people's point
inversion of a photographer's and of view, and this is something I've
any sighted person's characteristic confirmed through numerous
function, but rather the opposite- experiences which are shared by
his or her total entrance into the many of my blind friends, I represent
light. Why, then, do sighted people a kind of Oedipus after the tact."
feel uncomfortable when faced with If to contemplate Bavcar's images
the image of someone else like is to face an unbearable flash and a
themselves? Precisely beca use of blinding revelation, it his art isn't one
the former. By contemplating of light but of bedazzlement, this is
Bavcar and his work, due to the fact that his iconography
photographers and sighted people does nothing more than reflect his
contemplate nothing more than viewers' desire for images-and then
their own selves, and what makes folds back in upon itself.
this unbearable is that it consists of And if indeed one can only look
185
at me. The gaze is a response to a
certain gaze that has always-
though not since all eternity-
settled on me."
Not only does every image look
at us, but every gaze does as well,
and thus always looks at us more
than we look at it. Of course, this
fact usually remains
unacknowledged. However, again
with Bavcar, it becomes totally
clear: by looking at images taken
by his blind gaze, we discover that
we are being looked at by our own
gaze. Thus the photographer
places us before an odd mirror that
confronts us with the ominous
experience of finding ourselves
looked at by our own gaze. Having
mentioned the fact that Bavcar
welcomes guests in his home in the
dark, we must add that his
apartment is also covered in
mirrors. The experience's
ominousness issues from the
structural intensification that
creates it. Following Freud's
indications relative to the
unheimlich (in "The Ominous"), we
from and towards the third eye, see that the experience of the
then when looking at Bavcar's ominous arises from the revival of
images, these same images look the previously repressed intuition
back at uso For the gaze cannot of the viewer's own integral
settle on the third eye, as it is blindness: all of us are Oedipus after
invisibility itself; in any case, the the fact. We all know the outcome
gaze is at once penetrated and of this unbearable revelation,
gazed upon by it. As Lacan states which the psychoanalyst describes
about Merleau-Ponty (in his in terms borrowed from Heine:
Seminar, Book 71): "We are beings "after the fall of their religion the
that are looked at, in the spectacle gods took on demonic shapes."
of the world ." But, as Paul-Laurent Light, previously desired, becomes
Assoun explains (in his Lerons dazzling, as there is nothing more
Psychanalytiques sur le Regard et la blinding to the gaze than the
Voix), this occurs with any image, monstrous spectacle of its own
as it looks at us much more than blindness.
we do at it: "When I look, it cannot At this point we must
but follow that, ipso facto, 'it' looks reconsider ocularcentrism in all its
186
institutional weight to risk the bedazzlement of what is
hypothesis that, though its apparently seen-with the hope
effectiveness is never more that the former will eclipse or at
apparent, its "pure" taxonomic least dim the latter-which will
impulse and its attempt to always be more blinding to the
dissociate what cannot be gaze than the renewed
dissociated-the blind person's eye confrontation with the mirrar of
from the sighted person's eye, light dreams.
from darkness-carry out a very
specific function : to intercede in For a partial bibliography refer to
the Spanish on p. 59
the experience of the ominous,
prevent its spread, stop anything
from happening in the place where
everything happens. How else do
we explain the obstinacy of
ocularcentric guidelines that
permeate the photographic
industry? How else do we account
for the lack of blind students in
photography, film and television-
production schools? Thus we must
also reconsider the transcendence
of what Bavcar brings into play
with his iconography. If indeed his
work produces a kind of tautology
in which sighted people see
nothing but themselves looking at
their own selves, this tautology is
far from sterile. To paraphrase
Derrida (in "How to Avoid
Speaking: Denials"): "To
experience what occurs within
sight through sight itself, on the
trail of a kind of quasi-tautology, is
not quite to look in vain and not
see anything."
Quite the contrary: like a
disturbed and disturbing
bedazzlement, Bavcar's
iconography "intervenes" here-
that is to say, everywhere-where
ocularcentrism's institutions refuse
to see and do nothing but play
blindman's buff. Bavcar patiently
contrasts one bedazzlement with
another-the bedazzlement of the
gaze that looks at itself with the
187
Gerardo Nigenda's Intersecting Photographs
Every day a few years ago, aman' been checking the newspaper
with a white cane and a seeing-eye listings because he wanted to take
dog entered the subway station at his girlfriend to the movies.
14th Street in Manhattan. Oddly • On Sunday afternoons, it's
enough, besides his cane and dog common to see street performers
he also had a camera 2 slung around improvising in Washington Square.
his neck. Sometimes he'd have that Usually after about three o'dock a
dais newspaper folded and tucked woman 6 would go mime for an hour
under his armo He'd descend the and then collect the money left by
stairs to the platform, wait for the passers-by in a hat she'd placed at
train and then take the seat reserved her feet. The woman was always
for the handicapped . accompanied by a blind man who
• One morning a police officer1 carried a camera 7 around his neck .
sporting a blue uniform-who was They visited the park with a seeing-
familiar with blindness because his eye dog, a Golden Retriever. This
mother had lost her eyesight years particular breed of dog once trained
befo re in an accident4-decided to never strays from its masters side for
follow the man with the camera, the a momento This dog was no
same man who passed by every exception, following the man loyally
morning like dockwork, his cane while he took photos of the woman
leading the way. The officer watched as she mimed. On more than one
him enter the subway station and occasion, the photographer brought
followed him as he went down the along a bottle in a paper bago He'd
stairs. He got on the same train . The then alternate taking photos with
blind man took his seat and then, drinking hearty swigs of vodka. The
minutes later, opened the New York couple were friends with other
Times. This was enough to make the buskers and a few drug dealers who
policeman rush him, cuff him and pretty much lived in the park8 •
call for back up with his walkie talkie. • One hot and humid night on the
The dog barked, but didn't attack outskirts of Bangkok, in brothels full
the officer. Before the man was able of young girls much like those that
to produce his card officially fill the city center, a group of
identifying him as blind, the European tourists was looking for
policeman had already accused him action. These men had eagerly paid
of mocking other people's disabilities the fare all the way to Thailand,
and taking advantage of the good enticed by the idea of sexual
faith of trusting citizens. So yiolent encounters with oriental children. At
was the apprehension that it seemed the back of a large room, a man in
like the policeman wanted to make dark glasses secretly took photos of
this impostor pay for the dark world the goings-on 9 • Because the light
in which his mother had ended up was dim, he couldn't see exactly
living. Terrified, the blind man, now what was happening around him,
immobilized on the ground, but he could hear music'o, laughter
managed to sputter out that he had and the dinking of glasses and
196
bottles. He was just barely able to he consoled
make out bits and pieces of while she vainly
conversations in German and Thai. awaited her
Now and again a waiter, who agent's call
helped him make sure no one about a role
noticed him, served him rice with she'd
coconut mil k to accompany the beer auditioned for.
he was drinking". The photographer In her stead her
would only find out what had was a young
happened the night befo re when, in painter'~hom
the light of the next day, he saw the the blind
photos he'd taken. photographer
• There are still some places left in had married on
the world that have managed to the spur of the
remain unspoiled by human hands. moment in Las
Perhaps one of the most amazing is Vegas.
the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest12 • During one
where vast areas of the environment of his visits to
have maintained their natural Mexico, the
balance for several hundred years. man with the
This region is perhaps one of the few cane and the camera slung around
virgin land sanctuaries on the planet his neck walked from the former San
today. One morning in April, birds, Jeronimo Convent to the Plaza de la
monkeys and wild cats inhabitating Ciudadela under such an intense sun
the region fled in terror at the sound that he couldn't see anything at all.
of a motorboat approaching on one As always, he peaked the curiosity of
of the large rivers lJ • The craft carried those who crossed his path beca use,
a group of travelers who were after all, it wasn't common for a
deeply moved by the thought of blind man to carry a camera . From
exploration. One of them was aman time to time he'd stop, raise his
clenching a camera'· , his thoughts camera and snap a shot of the urban
lost in the jungle undergrowth. Just scape. Then he'd be on his way
a few days earlier, he'd told his again. That particular day he spoke
friends about his dream of turning to some people about his blindness.
the region into a wildlife refuge, He said he could see a bit, but it was
setting a precedent for first-world like looking through a periscope,
countries to follow. The seeing-eye and even then the light conditions
dog that usually accompanied him had to be just right. Because of this,
was no longer at his side; it had he had to reduce reality to
jumped overboard while the man compressed expressions-like photos
sailed on one of the lakes around or videos-in order to appreciate it
Austin . Rather, he had a pair of Jack in its entirety. He talked about the
Rousell Terriers'5 with him that he'd notion of photography as a
bought in a store in Brooklyn. Nor prosthesis: only through virtual
was his wife with him, the mime images could he be part of the
from Washington Square with whom world. He experienced an inverse
he liked to go see movies, or whom process to that of the rest of us who
197
'I!
,1' jil are used to seeking a that, under normal conditions, is
fictional version of difficult to satisfy. Before becoming
II~~'II daily life in artificial
representations of it.
ill, Flo Fox had studied psychology at
a prestigious university in the south
",lMl'! ' • A person who can
only understand the
end of the city. She eventually
beca me a regular at leather bars,
I 1,: 'fl¡ natural world by where some of the clientele even
means of technique, enjoyed posing for her in kinky
a person who must scenes. At that very moment, Flo Fox
wait the time it takes had been developing the photos
to develop a she'd taken the night before. She
photograph in order opened the door in a state of
to know precisely reverie-which was partly due to her
what his relationship illness and partly due to
to the world is- concentrating on her work-but this
what would their , didn't stop her from petting the
subconscious be dogo No one could figure out why
like? According to the man with the camera shared a
what other blind photographers dark room with Flo Fox. It would be
have said, their psyche bases itself on too simple to answer that it was
the need to create more and more beca use neither of them saw like the
realities, on the obsession with being rest of us do. Rather, together in that
everywhere at once. Maybe this small bathroom, they had discovered
peculiar subconscious is the key to a special way of developing film. The
understanding the insatiable hunger incident in the subway led them to
for fiction we all have. talking about what people think of
• In the subway station, after the blind folk. It didn't occur to them
policeman had seen his I.D. card and that there are degrees of blindness,
apologized 17 profusely, the man with so discovering that a blind person
the camera went on his way. As he could see, even if it were just foggy
did everyday, he headed to his friend patches or only at certain hours,
Flo Fox's apartment. He knocked could come as a tremendous shock.
severa I times, but she was busy in • That same day while he was on his
the makeshift 9arkroom she'd set up way home, the photographer
in her bathroom. When she finally popped into a photocopy store to
answered the door, she stretched enlarge the photos he'd printed.
out her hand to pet the seeing-eye He'd then stuck these to the floors
dogo She was completely blind-she and walls of his home. Thus visitors
had been born with impaired vision could walk into a room completely
which had progressively worsened wallpapered-including the ceiling-
over time. Five years earlier, when with images of child prostitutes from
her condition was declared Bangkok, or a kitchen covered with
irreversible, Flo Fox started taking her buskers from Washington Square or
camera to the city's heaviest S/M a bathroom plastered with the lush
bars'8. Maybe she felt that not being vegetation of the Amazon Rainforest.
able to see freed her from the guilt The photographer put up the copies
associated with a natural curiosity so he could look at them at all times.
198
He believes he's one of the few • James Olsen's mother was involved in a
foorteen-car highway pile-up.
photographers who never stops
s They had been thinking about seeing
looking at his own work. He knows Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa.
the idea's paradoxical, but he says 6 The female mime was Jessica Lange, who
you never see more than when you beca me famous for her part in King Kong
can't see anything at all. directed by Dino de Laurentiis.
, At the time, Paco Grande had a Nikon F3 .
• On one of his last trips to Mexico
• It's common to lind all kinds of drugs in this
City, the man with the camera asked park, especially marijuana and hash.
an airport employee to do him the , Paco Grande did this on one of his trips
favor of pressing the button at around the world.
customs for him. He got the green 10 The place played an odd mix of traditional
he then asked her to help him make Madre de Dios near the Brazilian border.
a telephone call. The photographer " They crossed a river known by the native
arranged to meet someone an hour people as Puputuyu.
,. Paco Grande then owned a Hasselblad 500
later at a restaurant on Durango
Classic.
Street '9 . Besides a small suitcase, he 1S An American dog breed Irom the straight-
carried a small green plastic bago He haired Fox Terrier lamily. It was named after
entered the restaurant at the agreed Reverend Jack Rousell who bred them as guard
time, feeling his way up the steps of dogs for the church he was in charge of.
" The painter was Lolo Miro Quesada, whose
the entran ce with his caneoAman
work dealt mainly with bullfighting scenes.
waited for him at the counter and 17The apologies are registered in the report
greeted him politely. The blind that Sargeant James Olsen submitted at the
photographer handed him the bag end of his shift.
18 Flo Fox used a Kodak Instamatic camera.
and then left for a nearby hotel the
" The chosen restaurant was the Vips located
airport taxi driver20 had
on the corner 01 Durango and Salamanca in
recommended". The plastic bag the Colonia Roma.
contained a hundred thousand 20 The photographer traveled in an airport taxi
dollars in cash that someone in that charged him 75 pesos lor the ride.
21 The recommended hotel was the Roosevelt,
Europe had asked him to deliver in
located a lew blocks Irom the meeting place.
exchange for a ten percent
commission. It started to rain. The
photographer took out his camera
and snapped a few shots which, the
next day, would show him trees
being lashed by the rain.
NOTES
1 The man was Francisco (Paco) Grande, a
Spanish photographer who moved to the
United States when he was a teenager and
later specialized in travel photography.
2 The camera was a Leica M2 which had a
my artist's books.
Is being a blínd photographer a
tragedy?
I don't dramatize my visual
isolation. My situation has
something of Cantinflas or
Charlot about it-I find it
comical. I like not fitting in with
the crowd, and I've often been
told that blind photographers are
one in a million . I see myself as
the last amateur.
What does it mean to be a
professional photographer?
A professional exists to sell the
public what they want, what
market demands dictate. But an
amateur keeps doing what he or
she likes to do best.
203
Flo Fox: from Negative to Positive
For Flo Fox, "passing from the details when she looks at a picture
negative to the positive" has been of her surroundings." However, the
the result of her life's work, which is purpose of her realism isn't to
a model for blind and disabled catalogue past events, but rather to
people. She was born in Miami, show her own point of view.
Florida, blind in one eye, or as she Her work is an ongoing
likes to say, "uneven". After the documentary begun in 1972. In
death of her father when she was many of the sixty thousand images
two, she and her mother moved to she has captured, the world
New York. Twelve years later her beco mes an improvisation and is
mother died. That's when her rewritten in an urban language
education really started-in the beca use, as she says, "I've had the
streets, that is. She was a wife and freedom and good fortune to travel
mother by eighteen and already extensively." Her themes cover
separated at twenty-six she took up everything from urban scapes to
photography. Her main objective nudes to photos whose objective is
has been to capture with her lens to make the world more accessible
"ironic reality" in the widest sense: a to disabled people. Even in her
reality in which most of the actors photos of penises, the elements are
are homeless and anonymous and characteristic of the urban order of
the streets their stage. things: one of them becomes a hot-
Her photographs have been dog, another sticks out of a
published in Life, Modern computer screen and a third is
Photography, Playboy, Der Spiegel, shown being fingerprinted.
and Photo Magazine among others, Although a fighter by nature, she
and she's mounted around twenty says that both her photography and
solo shows in New York, Paris and her life "Iost focus" when in 1976
London. She says that photography she was clinically diagnosed as
is her nature. She jokes that, blind due to multiple sclerosis.
beca use of her blindness, her talent What has made her an example
is innate as "1 never have to close within the photographic
one eye or convert the two- community is her constant desire to
dimensional things I see through show disabled people that it's not
my viewfinder into three necessary to be physically perfect to
dimensions." This is obvious in her enter the work force of a highly
work: the lens doesn't substitute competitive society but rather to
the eye but rather takes on the discover, through pure force of will,
qualities of an external organ. one's calling, creativity and
Her photographs (but not sensibility. A few years ago, she
photography as a genre) express a refused to commit herself to a state
generic point of view. For Fox, her hospital and after a long battle with
photos are akin to a light source the authorities, finally convinced
that illuminates the world for a split them to provide her with a
second, beca use she can "see more homecare worker. This and no
204
other is the message in the
workshops she's led and in
her conferences and
statements to the press:
"Whatever the effects of
paralysis may be, Ideal with
them in such a way as to
remain active, taking the
negative and converting it
into a positive, in my life and
in my work."
Maya Coded,
photographer and contributor
to Luna Córnea, visited Flo Fox
in New York last June and
reports that "Flo lives in an
enormous building for the
blind and the disabled. The
intercom panel and the
elevator buttons are in Braille.
There was a lot of activity
while I was there: a security
guard at the door, and all the her apartment without having his
people greeting one another, penis photographed using settings
somehow recognizing each other in her home. We went up to the
by smell, warmth or sound. Flo roof where I took her picture and
lives in an apartment with high then back in her apartment, she
ceilings, mostly in darkness and asked me to get out a slide sheet
shadows despite the large from under the table and one of
windows . When I opened the door, her books from a shelf, while she
I saw her sitting at the opposite herself pulled out a pornographic
end in a fully equipped wheelchair. file from a drawer and some
She's a wonderful woman, full of photocopies from another box. She
energy. Every room, hallway and gave me the material for Luna
closet is full of negatives, slide Córnea and before I left, showed
sheets, heaps of photos, but all me a photo that had appeared in
very well organized. She has the New York Times of her
complete control over everything in shovell ing cement onto a curb to
the house-she knows exactly make a rampo It's something she
where things are and has an does on a regular basis, she told
incredible memory. She receives me, "beca use a city should think
numerous visitors and telephone about all its citizens. If there's no
calls and works by computer and ramp, I make one."
Internet, carrying out a multitude
of activities. She asked me if I liked
pornographic photos, informing
me that no man has ever entered
205
Toun Ishii and the Enchanted Mountain
1987 was a busy year for me-in with my eyes closed. To these a
every way. Koshka moved in with final one was added ("Consulta") at
me, Rúnika was baptized, and the beginning of December, but
halfway through the year Picos now with my eyes wide open.
pardos appeared. I started to play These were the "Fosfenos," the first
around with what would become part of Grosso modo, published a
Amor y Oxiden te (Love and Oxident) year later.
and Grosso modo while, of course, Right after the first operation, I
making my living at my menial day began jotting down all my ideas
jobo I heard Revueltas's third quartet telegraphically. 500n I forgot about
for the first time, spent sorne time in those ridiculous scraps of paper
Aguascalientes and when I returned altogether and relied solely on
at the end of July, delved into memory, which actually works
Nordic literature, wrote vulgar texts sometimes. I had time on my hands.
and learned the horrors of Irish The forthcoming and final
grammar. phosphene, number eighteen,
Waking up one morning, I "Allanamiento de violeta", has
noticed I was seeing strange things beco me the nucleus of the
with my right eye. They went away collection . (Later, I gave a detailed
in intense light but as there was no description of its origin and
change in ten days, I went to the structure to the ClA for their files.)
eye doctor and was told I had a December. Everyone has died-
detached and torn retina. I was Juan D. Tercero, Rodolfo Halffter,
operated toward the end of August, Cocó-but 1, returning little by little
and then again in October, but my to the world of light, jot down in
vision never really returned to my journal every day a few
normal. phosphenes that I'd just thought of.
Barely out of anesthesia, Almost nothing has to be touched
someone called to commission me up (only a few words written today
to write a sonnet. I forget the for the posthumous edition). I read
details, but the next day it was 5hakespeare again (Othello, Romeo,
finished-in my head, of course and Graciano) and use him in three
(after all, it wasn't the first time I'd epigraphs.
written a sonnet). Just before So much has happened since
publication, I added a few words August last year-1986-when I was
confessing that the driving force for shocked by that new advertisement
having written it was lust, that self- for running shoes recently put up in
fulfilling sin. To take it beyond the the subway. It's unfortunate that so
level of a mere sonnet, seventeen much information is registered on
texts-each one more vile than the paper with the ink of the retina
other, I hesitate to call them which is, as we know, nothing more
poems-took shape and were than a viscous mental extension
refined over the next three months composed of rods and eones that
of my repose in semi-darkness or can be detached harmlessly.
208
Identity as a Mask
Through the door facing west, the is a word whose etymology is full
glowing rays of the sunset mix with of combat imagery-to take
the shadows of the night spreading someone's portrait is to "reproduce
across a cloudless sky. The neon on a shield the face of the person it
light scatters the gloom . My eyes has protected" (Art History Texts).
adjust to the darkness and I try to Here as with a shield, photography
make out an object Iying on the doesn't just depict a face but also
ground between two car bumpers, helps the owner of that face
a gutter and the rough bark of an discover his or her identity in the
elm. It appears to be something it's image-our identity is our shield.
noto The small object has lost its Looking at these portraits, I
identity, which will only return with discover an
the light of day. affinity between
I turn away from the window the
and go back to my desk. I look at representation of
the portraits of blind people blind people's faces and
scattered about; they smile or stare masks in general.
fixedly at who knows what. What Faces are like masks.
do blind people envision, unseeing The etymology of each word
and aware that the photographer is helps illustrate this concept,
viewing them through a explained here in as much detail
mechanical device? Do they as space permits. In Spanish, rostro
identify with the camera lens as if it (fa ce) can mean either a bird's beak
were their own eye blindly or a person's face; the word mask
watching them as they blindly is synonymous to persona, Latin
watch an anonymous spectator? for player's mask,
They are conscious of being derived from per,
observed, like women, children and through, and
teenagers are. Maybe in a photo sonare, sound . In
taken without bias or pity, the any of the idioma tic
myth of narcissism takes on an variations of the word examined by
altogether new meaning. Corominas in his remarkable /
The photos spread before me dictionary, mask is a word in which
under the lamp's white light were the idea of hidden or disguised
taken by Lola Álvarez Bravo, José identity figures prominently.
Hernández-Claire, Jed Fielding, In Jorge Luis Borges's "The
Verónica Macías, Sebastiao Mirror and the Mask," a poet who
Salgado, Guillermo Zamora, possesses all the secrets of image
Christer Str6mholm and Pedro and metaphor is commissioned by
Abascal. The subjects as well as the a High King to praise his deeds by
photographers share in an art form writing three poems over a period
that's often forgotten and liule of three years. In the second year,
remembered. The portrait, as Pliny the poet is honored with a golden
said nearly two thousand years ago, mask. When he returns the third
209
year wearing the mask, he looks In poetry, images are substantive,
like an entirely different persono like any rhetorical device used in
The King comments, "Something coded language (rhetoric, when
other than time had furrowed his exact, doesn't qualify). And what
brow and transformed his features. better example of coded language
His eyes seemed to be looking off than photography, especially this
into the distance, or as if blind." In gallery of blind people whose
his significant essay "Blindness," the penetrating gaze uncovers the face
Argentinean author hits the nail on that is identity and a mask with
the head with his statement that which fate has rewarded them.
Homer's poetry is absolutely visual. Josué Ramírez
210
Which Night, What Day
If you're like most folks with good Because my words are mediated, I'm
eyes, you've probably examined the nothing more than a helpless
Braille in hotel elevators. You may listener. Braille, on the other hand,
even have touched the raised dots gives the blind instant contact with
signifying your floor and marveled at language. No batteries are required.
the capacity of the blind to travel "Yes," says the machine man,
and read in the dark. Who would "but Braille is manufactured by paid
imagine that Braille would be Braillists, and this takes time. I've
supplanted by machines? Who already devoured this week's New
would guess that Braille is even now Yorker. Did you see that piece by
nearly extinct? Calvin Trillin on fat-free truffles?"
Approximately ten percent of the "You're a slave," says the Braille
blind read Braille today, a fact that man o
has many blind advocates worried. "Yes, I am," the machine man
Computerized reading machines are answers, "but I am a slave on his
taking the place of Louis Braille's way to Balducci's for fat-free truffles.
tactile reading system. Braille will Come on, Fido."
soon be as foreign to the blind as If I really think about it, between
hieroglyphs are to uso bites of my truffle, I must admit that
I have on my desk a machine I have great sympathy tor the Braille
called "The Reading Edge." It man's view. As a poet, I admire
resembles a desktop copier, and it location and pressure in language. I
translates printed pages into love Kenneth Rexroth's translation of
synthetic speech. I need this gadget the ancient Chinese poet Tu Fu that
because I am a blind man who can't reads in part:
read Braille. Its voice is pure sci-fi,
Soon now
but I've grown immensely fond of its
In the winter dawn I wi/l face
intonation. It reads robotically. It
My fortieth year. Borne headlong
sweats through the prosody of Towards the long shadows of sunset
George Herbert. Sometimes it spells By the headstrong, stubborn
words aloud if the software can't moments,
identify them. Life whirls post like drunken wildfire.
The truth is, synthetic reading is
a trial. I must wait for the scanner to Given a choice, I would prefer to
decode each page. This gives me teel these words under my fingers.
time to wonder if I'm really reading Without sight, only the flesh can
at all. Many blind people argue that assimilate the torque of Tu Fu's line,
machine reading is really iIIiteracy: "Life whirls past like drunken
by relying on microchips or wildfire."
audiotape the blind become Unfortunately, I have to listen to
dependent. According to them, I'm poetry by means of silicon.
illiterate. It makes no difference that And more and more blind
my own written work has been people are just like me.Nowadays
translated into a dozen languages. most blind children go to public
213
have a command of Braille, I'm an
eavesdropper, not a reader.
I sit in the garden and finger a
sleeve of fallen birch bark. Can I
distinguish it from the bark of a
holly tree? Can I distiguish one
orange from another through
acquisitive touching? To learn Braille
in your forties you must refresh the
very infancy of touching and
recharge your hands. Braille can't be
learned like Berlitz Spanish. You
have to think with your skin.
The poet Charles Olson
imagined that our tissues and
organs can think. Sitting beneath
schools and don't learn Braille. In a the trees 1'11 settle for one thinking
digital age, why waste resources index finger. I'm going to read Walt
teaching something so outdated? Whitman in the dark, without
Besides, Braille is cumbersome. An batteries.
average Braille edition of a book
looks like a sofa cushion. Compare The New York Times Magazine,
that to a 3 1/2-inch floppy disk. March 21, 1999.
Meanwhile, I switch the
"Reading Edge" from English to
Spanish and sean a poem by Pablo
Neruda. The machine pinches its
nose and reads: "Por qué yo vivo
desterrado / del esplendor de las
naranjas?" "Why," asks Neruda, "do
I live in exile / from the shine of the
oranges?"
"The Reading Edge" sounds like
a tourist in Santiago. It pronounces
the question with too much display.
In the poem Neruda feels vaguely
sorry for himself. like most writers
he has spent too much time sitting
indoors.
"Me too, Pablo," I say half-
aloud, and the sound of my voice-
a human voice-brings my seeing-
eye dog, Corky, to my side.
Together we go outside and stand
under a poplar. Corky explores the
grass. I lean against the tree. Until I
214
LUNA CÓRNEA 18
Fotografía
narrativa
•
~"'o fe
fa "ierda!