Ali Behdad, Mediated Visions: Early Photography of the Middle East and Orientalist Network (2017)

 Notes:

- focus on John Cramb 1860s photographs of Jerusalem, 

Maxime Du Camp 1849-50 photographs of Egypt, 

Auguste Salzmann 1854 photographs of Jerusalem 

- Solomon-Godeau: distinctions among the aims and functions of early photographs of the Middle East have been neglected 

-> there is no artistic intentionality in e.g. Salzmanns "documentary" photography

-> erases old meaning of this "Travel" photography and fills with new (artistic) meaning

- Behdad: to understand the photographs properly the orientalist network must be studied, since the production of these photographs was participated within them 

- the images not only show the intentions of the indiviual actors but also "the overlapping systems of repesentation and politico-cultral relations between the West and so-called "Orient"p. 363

- base of theory: Bruno Latour, actor-network theory, in: Reassembling the Social

-"attributionof human, unhuman, nonhuman, inhuman, characteristics; the distribution of properties among entities; (...)" p. 363

- Said understood Orientalism more as a "coherent subject matter", monolithic 

-> Behdad instead: micro-poilitical approach, focusing on dispersed set of actors and organisations

1

- Derek Gregory: colonial function of photographic documentation

- MacKenzie argues contra Linda Nochlin/ contra the concept of "Orentalism"

- colonial rule didnt influence the visual arts that strong 

- Behdad's take on early photography in the Middle East: "ties that bind photographers, writers, government officilas and organisations in a way thats productive of a distinctly exotic imagination", p. 365

! - also indigenous photography is part of this network thet establishes the vocabulary and tropes of representaion 

- the early amateur and expeditionary images of "antiquitity" and biblical sites were viewed as artistic expressions or as documentary evidence by Egyptologists and general public

-> no critical view of the relations involved in this production, p. 366

2

- in 1860, Scottish photographer John Cramb was comissioned to to make a series of biblical sites 

- via Alexandria he travelled to Jerusalem

- images were published with descripitions by Reverend Robert Buchanan 

-> images move from panoramic view to images of monuments, disregarding the muslim and jewish everyday life, p. 368

- Cramb claims he is first European to travel to this region is concerned about his "safety and welfare" and is alarmed by plundering of Bedouins and other unscrupulous Fellahs 

- "spice of danger", p. 366

- Cramd almost never mentions his "staff" carrying his equipment

- "His journal thus foregrounds a heroic individual while marginalising the crucial role of many other actors and entities that helped him accomplish his mission.", p. 367

- the photography has an iconic value almost to bring the holy sites to the living room of Christians in Britain

- Crambs images images carry perceptions that befog the everyday Muslim and Jewish realities of Jerisalem to construct a Christian view 

- also Buchanan descriptions mostly focus on pre-islamic history of Dome of the Rock/ Mosque of Omar e.g.

-> his descripiton transforms the photograph of an Islamic monument into a Christian site 

- through Buchanan descriptions shows: the photography cannot do the work of representation alone, but has to rely on other discrursive domains for its meaning 

- Cramb provitied from new ways of transportation, such as steamships, his Brirish passport, information from other photographers

-> also the Russian Jewish Mendle John Diness, who he did not mention by name in his text but just through a racist characterization

3

- religious form of Orientalism, Holy Land and biblical sites as objects of representation

- secular form of Orientalism, priviledges (Egyptian) antiquity and historical architecture

- "Photography, (...), in turn transformed Europe's distinctly orientalist vision of the Middle East, making it seem objective and factual."p. 373

- "The camera, in other words, gave Orientalism a "scientific" gloss that masked its mediated nature and obscured its ideological assumptions." p. 373

4 

- Behdad uses actor-network theory to make several interventions: extension of notion of "actor" to camera and photography/ de-priviledging of individual photographers as artists, producers and creators/ emphasis on circulation of entities and agents/ transformation of the agents through contact and connection