Nowadays, the evolution of photographic representations challenges the boundaries between the living and the inert. Over the past decade, several prestigious portrait photography competitions have awarded images depicting robots. This phenomenon raises a fundamental question: why are photographs of inanimate objects perceived as representations of the living? This inquiry is at the heart of my thesis titled The Survival of the Living in Photography: The Photographic Confusion Between the Body and the Object, from the Mannequin to Robotics, supervised by Mélanie Boucher and Thierry Dufrêne, and carried out in co-supervision between the University of Quebec in Outaouais and the University of Paris Nanterre.
A Redefinition of Photographic Categories
These primary images reveal an evolution in the perception of the human body and a questioning of traditional photographic categories. If a photograph of a robot, as an object, should theoretically be classified as still life, it still evokes a human presence. This “survival of the living,” a concept borrowed from Aby Warburg and Georges Didi-Huberman, seems to persist beyond attempts at reification and humanization. This tension between the inert and the living is observed in fashion, artistic photography, and contemporary imagery.
The Myth of Animation: A Historical Continuity
The ambiguity between the body and the object is not a recent phenomenon. Since Antiquity, the myth of Pygmalion illustrates this fantasy of animation. At the beginning of the 20th century, the term “mannequin” no longer designates just an anthropomorphic object, but also a woman embodying fashion. Helmut Newton, in fashion photography, plays with this confusion by constructing images where the female body oscillates between sensuality and artificiality.
Artists at the Heart of the Confusion
My study is based on the analysis of three major artists whose works explore the boundary between body and object:
- Helmut Newton, who merges the body and the mannequin in his iconic fashion photography compositions.
- Cindy Sherman, whose portraits deconstruct identity and transform the face into a malleable surface, almost devoid of subjectivity.
- Nick Knight, who pushes corporeal abstraction to its extreme by manipulating the image digitally to alter any organic trace.
These artists contribute to the reconfiguration of body representations in art and photography, integrating technological advancements and sociocultural mutations that influence our relationship to the living.
Conclusion: A Photography Producing a New Relationship with the Body
This research demonstrates that photography is not limited to a simple capture of reality, but produces a new conception of the living. By generating images where the body oscillates between humanization and reification, it redefines our perception of the subject and questions the boundaries between the organic and the inert. Photography thus becomes an experimental ground where the living body is reinvented through the lens, offering new perspectives on its essence and representation.