The difficulties of groupwork are well-known enough ; we will not enumerate them here. In order to start up a group, or an educative session, or reflexion on a precise theme, to avoid sterile chat, and to allow everybody to participate, the group-leader must always use specific material and methods.
Photos allow a person to see and speak differently. When we look at a photo, whatever its style, we are invited to see what otherwise cannot be seen ; to see what is contained in this photo over and above its author's intention. We are in fact sent back to ourselves. It forces us to see what otherwise would remain invisible, and to think in a way that is not possible with the mind only. This opportunity we have to remember or discover our personal answer to a proposed question through a photo is an invitation to go back to the imaginary*, this permanently vivid and boiling part of ourselves, where images are born and die, where nothing is lost, nothing is forgotten, nothing has passed.
The method of Photolangage, both by the visual aid and the organisation it offers, makes easier the internal psychic elaboration and the speech. The photo here is the means of access, the front door to the functioning of the mind and this functioning is also the real subject which brings us back to images.The photos which have been selected raise up and encourage a psychic work of association, appreciation, interpretation, remembrance, comprehension and link between figurative elements and personal « positioning » in a group by talking about it, and consequently acting.
This becomes easier because each member of the group holds one, two or three photos in his hands, about which he can talk. The photos remain even when the person has stopped talking, and they permanently recall what has been said. The different elements of the photo constitute concrete anchor-points from which sharing is possible. This somehow allows people to give more importance to the symbolical and imaginary dimensions of their speech : they can express their phantasms more easily both because they are talking through images and because they are working in a specific context.
1. PERCEPTION, INTERPRETATION, AND COMMUNICATION.
Do we all see the same things in a photo ?
When people come for the first time to Photolangage, they are sometimes confused when thet realise that a photo can be seen very differently by different people. Photos are considered to be a very rudimentary and non-effective means of communication because they can raise up very divergent impressions, interpretations and remarks. People say :
« How can we talk about communication if everybody sees what he wants to see in a photo ? »
In fact, the question raised here concerns communication as well as perception and interpretation.
When working with Photolangage, transparency in communication cannot remain an illusion. Society teaches us a certain way of using words. We can think that we understand what somebody is saying because he uses words that we know and understand, words which are familiar to us. The person who speaks can also think that he has been understood, even if it is not true. With photos, associations become too strong , and are often not fully mastered, affective investment is extremely present ; we thus cannot have the illusion of having fully understood the person who expresses his choices if effectively we have not listened and grasped the full meaning of what he was saying because it was different from what we expected.
To communicate is to interact.
It is thus very important that we do not only consider communication as a means of giving, transfering, or transmitting information. To communicate is to be present both to our own subjectivity and to that of the person we are listening to. It is to perceive oneself and this other person as subjects in a situation of relationship. It is this intersubjectivity (relation between these two subjectivities) of the situation which makes communication possible. When somebody chooses a photo and accepts to comment on it, he allows me to understand signifying elements of this photo which he has integrated and which reveal himself as a subject. Communication must first and foremost be interaction ; in this condition, an inner work of elaboration will be done, from which personal knowledge, conceptions and comprehension will emerge. It is only when communication is possible that work with photos can develop itself. And the two aspects of the question must be considered : the perception or « reading » of the photos, and their interpretation i.e. the comments made about them.
To perceive is also to understand.
Research in visual perception has confirmed what psychological work shows, i.e. that visual perception, as any other perceptive experience is a selective and cognitive activity. The eye does not see an image and send it to the mind. In fact, the information is initially selected, organised, interpreted and orientated. The psychism is immediately sollicited when there is a contact between the visual system and what is to be seen. This is why, in a certain way, we can say that we see what we have already seen, because, in new things, we recall ancient ones. A person can think that what he sees is absolutely exterior to himself ; in fact, his perceptual experience is oriented towards what already dwells within himself. The numerous visual illusions causing errors or non-perception illustrate well this point.
Visual perception is a true cognitive activity ; therefore a signifying elaboration of what is seen organises itself, from the beginning, with a minimum of material issued from the interaction between the photo and the subject, and a maximum of elements coming from the past experiences of the subject, thus constantly inciting and orientating the eye through the exploration of what it sees. This cognitive dimension in the middle of a perceptive activity, is what we call « interpretation ». This is why our interpretation of a photograph can only give a very superficial meaning to it. This is why we say that, in fact, we see only what we are able to see (i.e. think about and understand) and, to a certain point, what we want to see. The meaning somebody gives to what he looks at is always the result of construction and elaboration.
Each person develops a personal capacity to « perceive » what can effectively be seen and identified by everybody on a photo. This first reading is that of the visual elements which appear scattered but in fact constitute a photo.The way we perceive things is neither natural nor universal : we cannot minimise the role of the first learning experiences , patterns, sensory and social culture of each individual and the role of figurative realism which predominates in actual audiovisual production.
So, a first reading will probably take into consideration the socio-cultural, graphic, photographic and iconic aspects present in the photo. But this implies that the photo represents elements which are part of the cultural world of the spectator. For example, the fuzzy, unsharp effects which are sometimes used in macro-photography might be unknown to some people and they might not identify the underlying image.
This is so, precisely because the meaning, the significance, are not in the photo but are elaborated by the person who looks at it and reacts. Such expressions as « objective description of a photo » can imply that this photo has a specific meaning and that this meaning is not the result produced in common by different members of society. In fact, the person who looks at the photo creates its meaning, based on internal social practices integrated into his own life. The way he looks at the photo makes the difference between a monosemic photo ( with one meaning) and a polysemic one (allowing many different interpretations). The « objective reading of a photo » is only the description of what everybody agrees to see, identify and recognise on a photo. These elements are intepreted differently by each and every individual loking at it. When we talk about « learning to interprete photos », we mean allowing our personal culture and history to echo the images.
To interprete is to link perception and meaning.
When photos are culturally accessible, each member of a group will choose one of them and comment on it while interpreting it. What do we mean by « interpretation » ? To answer this question, we can start from three different points of view. « Interpretation » can be understood as « revealing a meaning », « giving a meaning » or « elaborating, constructing a meaning ». We will see later what happens with photolangage.
The first concept : « revealing a meaning », situates interpretation in relation to explanation, implying that an interpretation enriches an explanation. To explain is to make something clear, to unwrap it, account for it, give reasons to it. An explanation puts into words an idea which was obscure, thus giving more sense to what was not completely understood ; it establishes links and clarifies them. To interpret would thus be to bring out the intended meaning in clear words, to translate what, until then, had appeared to be not incomprehensible, to give an obvious meaning to obscure realities. In « hermeneutic » tradition, to interpret means « to unveil » (remove a veil), to reveal. In this sense, it means « to make evident, to bring to light a meaning which, until that moment, had remained either only implied or completely hidden. »
Secondly, interpretation can also be understood as « giving a meaning ». Thus, the interpretation of a situation, of a text, of an iconographic document, etc, starts from a conceptual frame that is, from already elaborated knowledge of a practical and rational nature. The interpretation is coloured or influenced by a particular theory (or doctrin). From there, the spoken word can indicate a more or less arbitrary development starting from observable facts to confirm an already elaborated theory. Interpretation, in this context , could thus be « giving a wrong interpretation to a real fact. »
Thirdly, interpretation can mean « elaborating, constructing a meaning. » This point of view is strongly present in psycho-analysis to which it gives its methodological specificity. « To extract, by analytical investigation, latent meaning from what a subject says or does » and also « communicate to the subject and help him to have access to this latent meaning ; to do so according to principles given by the direction and evolution of the treatment. » Here, interpretation is seen, from the starting point, as being a task which has to be done through the logic of the unconscious, by the client and the therapist. This work consists in letting the client elaborate and construct his meaning , at a rhythm which depends on his own permeability and on the dynamics of the treatment. The interpretation thus becomes this meaning which the subject elaborates while discovering the relationship between the evident and the hidden meaning of what he says. This construction of meaning is similar to dynamics occuring in human sciences, where there is an effort to understand and to describe human actions. This understanding allows the meaning to elaborate itself, to come slowly to light by the means of an encounter. The interpretation considers its actual state of elaboration as temporary and refuses to stop it ; it always allows room for further evolution and discovery.
The interpretation of a photo can go in any of these directions. The person who choses a photo decides, himself, which type of work he wants to do with it and this depends largely on his capacity and competence.To interpret a photography can mean to extract its implicit meaning, by looking more deeply, more specifically, more acutely at it then one would do when looking only superficially. To interpret a photo can mean to give it a meaning by situating it in a global context of production and diffusion. Lastly, to interpret a photo can be to give it a personal meaning by saying what its elements represent for us. This interpretive work situates every individual in his own world of reference, which itself depends on his culture, his milieu, his education, his personal history, and his social integration. This is why we say that interpretation can only be personal ; it is never only spotting the main elements and subjects in the photo ; it always includes personal relationship to these elements.
The interpretation of a photo varies from one individual to the other.The second part of individual work in this work with photos (cf Individual choice), allows everybody to become conscious of the reasons of his choice, to work on his own interpretation, and to decide what he wants to communicate to the group and what he wants to keep for himself (for personal reasons). It is precisely because Photolangage aims at personal work that the photos enable diversified, different and even divergent interpretations.
So, we can consider that members of a group see the same photos, usually recognise the same elements in this photo, but give them different meanings, and that every individual, from his personal starting point, with his own history, education and culture, elaborates his own interpretation.
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