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The Visual Death/Life Loop

Toni Bover. La llum com metàfora del llenguatge. 1990-94 / Toni Bover. My little garden 073. 2018
Toni Bover. La llum com metàfora del llenguatge. 1990-94 / Toni Bover. My little garden 073. 2018

From a biological point of view, existence is defined by the binary life/death. From the perspective of a life project (1), the life/death duality can be reversed. The end of one project is the beginning of another activity, a new path. Leaving the city to move to a small village allowed me to experience the interrelation between artificial light and natural sunlight in the project Light as a Metaphor of Language.

The study of solar trajectories is useful in architectural photography (2) for selecting the direction of light in an urban or natural landscape. However, it is not (or is of little use) when the aim is to capture images that need to be built up gradually over time. Capturing moments of light on the ivy allowed me to shift from still life to living nature.

In the post-retirement phase, in the small garden at home, I can enjoy the moments of light on the ivy. From a visual semiotic perspective, it is possible to observe how the light outlines a set of shapes and chiaroscuro that facilitate the imagination of forms (3) (such as in the case of clouds). From a textual semiotic perspective, these moments of light allow for searching for the words that best define them and recalling them later from an inner gaze.

Keywords

Clouds Inner gaze Light as a metaphor for language Visual semiotics

References

Texts

  • 1. Ferrater, J. (1971). Diccionario de la Filosofía. Tomo II. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana. P. 902.
    “Des de antiguo viene distinguiéndose con mayor o menor precisión entre diversas formas de vida, especialmente entre la vida de las cosas vivientes —lo que podríamos llamar la vida biológica— y la vida propiamente humana. Una de las formas adoptadas en esta distinción es la que establece una separación entre la vida práctica y el principio vital, la vitalidad. La primera comprende asimismo la vida moral, y culmina con la existencia teórica, en que muchos filósofos de la época helenística vieron tanto la expresión de la verdadera naturaleza del hombre como la única posibilidad de salvación. La segunda representa todo lo que en la Naturaleza y en el hombre es animación y movimiento, y por eso la “vida” es también en cierto modo lo que fue el primitivamente el alma o, para ser más exactos, aquello que constituyó el soporte de la vida del alma, el ímpetu”.
  • 2. 089 La imatge panoràmica digital/ The digital panoramic image
  • 3. 058 Els núvols i la imatge aleatòria / Clouds and the random image
    # 059 La imaginació i la fantasia visual en l’infància / Imagination and visual fantasy in childhood

Images

  • The first photograph is an image of the door used in other still lifes in The Light as a metaphor for language. In this case, the door was taken out of the photographic studio and placed in a small garden at home. The door was slowly ceasing to be a support element for inert elements and was becoming covered with ivy growing over it. The photograph was taken in natural light.
  • In the second photograph, there was no longer any visual trace of the door and stones were placed over the ivy. The photograph is taken in natural light, with the support of a point light from an electronic flash on the stones.
  • Photographic snapshot, not manipulated. A moment of light and shadow in the courtyard of the house, where the obstructions around the ivies designed lighter and darker areas. The image was published on the private Instagram.
    Bover, T. (@antoni.bover). 2018 My little garden 073 A: Instagram [en línia]. Data de publicació del post 7 Octubre 2018. [Consulta: 10 Juny 2024]. Disponible a: https://www.instagram.com/p/BooRBmKB18sXsjjhwF0EGBeaGMkuI2YQvhEjrE0/?hl=es-es