Death and photography are twins. As Sontag said, “Photography is momento mori.”
The photograph captures a moment when the person photographed is neither subject nor object. He perceives himself as an object; he has “a micro-experience of death.” The person in the photo no longer belongs to himself; he becomes a photo object that society is free to read, interpret, and place according to its will. This is a great way to explain what photography does: it objectifies. This makes it both interesting and dangerous, and a powerful tool in relationship to violence and war.
The target of the photograph is necessarily real. The subject existed in front of the camera, but only briefly, which was recorded by the lens. The object was therefore present, but it immediately becomes different, dissimilar from itself. Barthes concludes that the noema (the essence) of photography is “it-has-been.” The photograph captures the moment, immobilizes its subject, testifies that he “was” alive, and therefore suggests (but does not necessarily say) that he is already dead. The direct correlation to memento mori can be found here; if he isn’t dead now, he will be, as will the photographer and even the viewer.
I painted these works as a set of experiments to see how the aestheticized language of painting could enhance, assimilate, or dislodge their function as momento mori, evidence of potential war crimes, or propaganda in the now-constant global information war.