Photographic Ecologies

William Schaefer
2017 October  
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more » ... full DRO policy for further details. From the flat, decaying surface of a wall, the form of a horse emerges from a spray of liquid. Its legs are barely discernible from the murky ground of the darkly printed photograph: They are planted among three overlapping boulders, while the ground to the left is strewn with white and gray flecks and patches, apparently trash. The horse's shaggy hair and ears are blurred slightly from the slow shutter speed of the camera in the dim light, as if the horse were still taking form. Paradoxically, every drop of the spray the horse seems to be shaking off its body appears clearly visible, in flight, as if captured by a rapid shutter speed. But, the viewer realizes, this is just a trick of the flattening of the perspective from which the photograph was taken: The spray is white paint splattered on the sharply focused wall of the building behind the horse. Much of that wall, which parallels the picture plane like a screen, is mottled with age. Along the building's left edge, traces of liquid drip down the wall, staining a patch of raw plaster where the skin of the building has been torn away to reveal the bricks beneath. Iron bars are barely visible in the dark windows on the left, while the window and door on the right are as black and formless as the eyeless patches on the horse's face. Attached to the upper-left window, a stained sign is scarcely legible but for three characters: 屠宰场 (tuzaichang): slaughterhouse. And while the sky and mountain slope behind are as mottled as the wall's surface, the curved and jagged area of darkness on the left edge of the building, perhaps an outcropping of foliage, appears like a
doi:10.1162/octo_a_00303 fatcat:2ddm36uyivhq5fel7cphqvnjdu