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Delve into the profound analysis of Shroud of Turin, exploring its semiotic significance and iconic value. Unravel the enigmatic aura surrounding this ancient relic through the lens of artistic representation and philosophical inquiry.
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"Almost nothing was visible, that is to say: already something other than nothing was visible in that almost. One actually saw, then, something else, simply in the looking forward to it or the desiring of it. But the modalities of the desire to see are extremely refined. The little-by- little of this "discovery" itself takes on the form of a dizzying spiral that is both precise, as dialectic, and overwhelming, as unending baptism of sight. Following it to its source raises the very question of the advent of the visible. And that involves an entire constellation of ideas, conventions, and phantasms, which I will deal with here only partially, from the point of view of a single stain.” 63
“Let us recall that the historic impetus that rendered the Shroud of Turin visible - or more precisely, figurative – is found in the history of photography….The photographic negative revealed what what one had never hoped to see on the shroud itself. As the photographic "evidence" objectified an aspect of the shroud, it became proof of a miracle” 65
Joseph NicéphoreNiépceView from the Window at Le Gras, c. 1826
“…it reestablished the aura of the shroud, inveting the object itself with a counterpart to its semiotic status. The holy shroud became the negative imprint of the body of Christ, its luminous index miraculously produced and miracoulsly inverted in the very act of resurrection, henceforth to be conceived of in photographic terms.” 65
Aura: a concept, especially in relation to works of art, that there is something special, almost magical, in their unique, individual, singularity as an object (See Walter Benjamin’s Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction)Semiotic: the study of meaning-making (study of signs and symbols, how they form to language, meaning, etc)Indexical: the action/form of a sign pointing to an object – the trace of presence, one of three points in Peirce’s triad
“Peirce writes that ’if an index could be translated into sentence form, that sentence would be in the imperative or exclamatory mood, as in Look over there! Or Watch out!’” 68
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)Semiotician who tried to produce a “formal doctrine of signs” related to logicforms the triadic model to define the sign – (Index, icon, symbol)States there is a three way process/interaction between a “representamen” (form of the sign) “interpretant” (sense of the sign) and “object” (to which the sign the refers)
“It seems to exist only in terms of its tonal variations, only as an effect of its support. Yet the tonal variations have no precise limits...It seems to exist, therefore, only as the uncertain effect of something as undifferentiated background…It tells nothing in itself about its origin. Would segmenting or scanning it give it meaning? Yet it appears to be outside the bounds of scansion or any sort of narrativity. It is only a chain of nonmimetic, chance occurrences, neither imperceptible nor yet perceptible as figures.”65-66
Figurative: representational – it looks like the thing it isMimesis: sometimes thought of as the representation of nature (or a natural representation), illusionistic, trying to look exactly like something, so much so as to fool you even at timesIcon: a stand in for the thing itself
Christ Pantocrator, c. 6th century (Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai).
“But the unlooked-for corollary, the supplement would be the following: the effacement of all figuration in this trace is itself the guarantee of a link, of authenticity; if there is no figuration, it is because contact has taken place. The noniconic, nonmimetic nature of this stain guarantees its indexical value.” 67-68
“The absence of figuration therefore serves as proof of existence. Contact having occurred, figuration would appear false.” 68
“This is possibly precisely because the elaborated distancing of view locates the shroud on a screen. It aims to orthogonalize the indexical vector, to make it projective. If the bloodstain is both the index of a contact and the vector of a projection than anything is possible.” 72Keep in mind, the bloodstains forming they way they did would be impossible to do without high levels of UV or radiation
“A fantasy of referentiality sustains this entire will to see. Actually, to re- see.” 74
