Photography itself actively alters the world it records, not just passively captures it.
Evidence
It should be stressed that the “camera” invoked here is a metaphor, not a comment on the actual process of photography, which is often not passive recording of an unchanged external world. See, for example, Dyer’s (1997) elegant discussion of the process of “making white people white” for the purposes of film, or consider the question of the impact of photographic images of thin models on the propensity to diet (and thus to alter one’s own body) or even to suffer eating disorders. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1395
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies that the camera metaphor in the book’s title/argument is a deliberate simplification; photography itself is an active, world-shaping process — which actually strengthens rather than weakens the performativity thesis.
- XREF: The thin-models-to-eating-disorders example parallels the book’s core performativity argument in reverse: a representation of an ideal shape alters actual bodies. Plausibly connects to the performativity-of-economics literature the reader is already absorbing. — connects to: Photographs do not merely reflect social hierarchies but actively produce them — Sherene Razack, Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims…, 157; Photography reveals vision’s materiality, displacing the spiritual ideal of perception. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 315; Photographs claim documentary truth but always embed their makers’ assumptions — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 1049
Broader Connections
- Photographs do not merely reflect social hierarchies but actively produce them
#expands(0.90) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 157 - Photographs claim documentary truth but always embed their makers’ assumptions
#expands(0.85) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1049 - Photography reveals vision’s materiality, displacing the spiritual ideal of perception.
#corroborates(0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 315