光照之域:Philip-Lorca diCorcia的編導攝影研究

The Illuminated Field: A Study on Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s Staged Photography

吳家瑀(Chia-yu Wu)

指導教授 ： 曾少千

國立中央大學/文學院/藝術學研究所/碩士(2012年)

摘要

美國藝術家Philip-Lorca diCorcia（1951-）的攝影作品，向來予人一種猶似隱含寓意或曖昧敘事的觀覽印象。他以濃郁飽和的亮麗色彩，細節清晰分明的形式描述生活即景，取材界域從1980年代末發生於家屋室內的人物起居，逐步在1990年代初移往都會街景和行人。跨足在藝術和商業攝影領域之間的diCorcia，最常涉獵家庭快照、肖像與街拍，但這些攝影類型經過他的混成，有時彼此的界限並不那麼分明。本篇論文以「編導攝影」作為題名，聚焦於diCorcia的《好萊塢系列》（1990-1992）、《街拍系列》（1993-1999）和《頭像系列》（1999-2001），其實踐路徑與直接攝影有別，皆為操作和布署的結果。儘管介入的程度不一，但diCorcia貫徹他獨具個人特色的人工光源運用，使不論是如電影預先建構的導演模式拍攝，或是城市即景的瞬時快拍，都渲染上一層戲劇化的攝影棚肖像質感，橫陳在追求自然主義的決定性瞬間與矯飾做作的時尚編導之間，因此張弛著動搖觀看慣習的力量。本論文欲探究這運作矛盾視覺修辭和類型影像性交混的視象。筆者認為，這樣的視象，即為diCorcia綿密編織可見性和可述性的「光照之域」，他跨域引用電影的媒體性，演示時尚攝影語法和變造街頭攝影類型傳統，操作出看似汲取日常又散發陌異的畫面。作者便兀立在這現實與位移了的文本現實之間形成的裂口，向觀者傾吐他關照的美國社會與文化現況。有關diCorcia的評論和報導，多見於藝術期刊、攝影技術專業和時尚雜誌，而學術研究則零星散見於聯展圖錄的專文，多半聚焦在他的街頭攝影作品如何複訪傳統街拍，對既定規約有所轉譯，以及光線的操作技術和象徵性。這些文獻是協助本文勾勒和了解diCorcia的影像特徵的重要基礎，但也激發筆者追問那些未被深究的部分。

本文第一章回溯了diCorcia的攝影風格養成背景，歷時性地簡述他的創作歷程，並藉由整理相關訪談文稿，企圖讓diCorcia的攝影核心命題及觀念更顯立體。第二章仔細爬梳了diCorcia極富敘事性的劇畫攝影《好萊塢系列》，其打光法建構強烈的電影感，嵌結好萊塢電影工業的明星打造制度，指涉媒體形塑男同性戀形象的議題。第三章指出《街拍系列》改變Henri Cartier-Bresson至Garry Winogrand的街拍正典，引發觀者了悟眼見並非真誠，但同時又接受其基本為真的「雙重自覺」，將識讀影像本身空間的途徑，導向Edward Soja的「第三空間」認識論。第四章討論拍攝於紐約時代廣場的《頭像系列》，依循Walker Evans在地鐵車廂內鬼祟偷拍的窺密攝影脈絡，極端借助閃光迸發造成的明暗對照效果，構成隱喻監視視線潛伏遍在於美國大城的電子監視儀材幽閉黑盒意象，囚禁和規訓不安的美國集體。

關鍵字

光線 ； 編導 ； Philip-Lorca diCorcia ； 電影感 ； 雙重自覺 ； 街頭快照 ； 劇畫 ； 監視

並列摘要

American artist Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s images always give one the impression that there seems to be many layers of meanings or ambiguous narratives in them. He described scenes of everyday life with saturated colors and clear details, drew material from people’s domestic life at the end of 1980s, then at the beginning of the 1990s, he went outdoors to capture the city scenes and strangers on the street. Crossing the border between art photography and commercial photography, diCorcia is frequently engaged in family snapshot, portraiture and street photography. But the boundaries between these genres sometimes are not entirely definite through his hybrid composition. I uses the term, ‘staged photography,’ as the topic of this thesis to characterize the series “Hollywood” (1990-1992), “Streetwork” (1993-1999), and “Heads” (1999-2001) which differ from straight photography and are practiced with manipulation and staging. Despite diCocia created them with varying degrees of mediation, he implemented the individualized use of artificial light source all the way through, either by directional mode and cinematic preconception or by taking snapshots of citiscapes, are produced the effect of dramatic studio portraits. Thus the images span the gap between the naturalistic decisive moment and manneristic fashion photography, and attempt to shake the spectator’s habitus of looking. Therefore, the thesis aims to discuss the vision created by ambiguous visual rhetoric and hybrid imageries of different genres. In my opinion, such a vision is ‘the illuminated field’ that diCorcia interweaves visibility and discursivity. He crossed the multiple domains to quote the mediality of film, to demonstrate grammars of commercial photography and to alter the tradition of street photography, creating the appearance of the familiar yet uncanny daily life. This suggested that the artist utilizes the schism between the reality and the text to express his concern about the conditions of contemporary American society and culture. The majority of art criticism and reports on diCorcia can be found in art periodicals, photography and fashion magazines, and the scholarly essays are scattered in the catalogues of exhibitions. The literature mainly focuses on how diCorcia revisited the tradition of street snapshots, translated its established convention, and on his skills of using flash devices and symbolism of light. All this literature is an important basis for me to understand the characteristics of diCorcia’s oeuvre but it also inspires me to probe into those unexplored problems.

In the first chapter, I trace diCorcia’s background and the formation of his style, summarize the chronological course of his creation, and highlight the core motifs and foundational ideas of diCorcia’s works by an analysis of his interviews. In the second chapter, based on the series of tableau photography “Hollywood,” I deeply explore how its strong cinematic look created by lighting, articulates the star system in the film industry and discuss how the mass media shapes the figure of male homosexual. In the third chapter, I point out that with the series “Streetwork,” diCorcia varies the canon of street photography from Henri Cartier-Bresson to Garry Winogrand, and brings about a “double consciousness”, which allows the viewer to understand the scene as inauthentic yet at the same time to accept it as fundamentally real nevertheless. In this way, the path of understanding the space of the image itself is directed to Edward Soja’s epistemology of ‘Thirdspace’. In the fourth chapter, I discuss the series “Heads” photographed at the Times Square in New York. diCorcia followed the lineage of surreptitious photography, exemplified by Walker Evans’s subway photographs. With the radical use of the strobe light, diCorcia created a strong chiaroscuro effect which may serve as a metaphor of the scopic surveillance lurking everywhere in America’s big cities. In the dark box, the nervy American collective seem to be in prison and discipline themselves.

並列關鍵字

Philip-Lorca diCorcia ； street snapshot ； cinematic ； light ； tableau photography ； staged photography ； surveillance ； double consciousness

參考文獻

---. Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Streetwork 1993-1997 (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1998).

---. Philip Lorca-diCorcia, Bennett Simpson ed. (The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2007).

---. Eleven, Dennis Freedman ed. (Bologna, Italy: Freedman Damiani; New York, NY: Distributed in the United States of America by Distributed Art Publishers, 2011).

Barnes, Martin and Kate Best, Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour (London: Merrell, 2006)

Barthes, Roland “The Death of the Author,” in Image – Music - Text (London: Fontana Press, 1977), pp. 142-148.