Medien|Denken – Ilit Ferber – Photography and Sadness (Audio)

A philosophical discussion of the emergence of the new media cannot be limited to the analysis of the structure and inner-logic of the different media themselves. Its importance is in raising the abiding philosophical predicaments of human experience, feeling and knowledge. Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes are both famous for their writings about photography; their discussion, however, is not limited to the nature of the medium itself, but provokes a series of questions referring to the unbreakable connection between photography and feeling, specifically, sadness. This article seeks to trace the connection between the photographic medium and feeling as it appears in Benjamin and Barthes, so as to argue that the uniqueness of this medium lies not in the way it captures or represents feeling, but rather in its ability to evoke it. Benjamin’ and Barthes’ investigation of the photographic medium is shown to be an investigation of the nature of human feelings and its fundamental connection with the photographic medium.