OREMUS online - offline
It is very common to hear about the history of photography, but there are few references to the myth of the image.
Catholic tradition reminds us of the legend of Veronica as the main representative of photography. It was she who, when she met Christ on the Way to Calvary, approached him and wiped his face with a towel.
This scene was perpetuated in the sixth station of Via-crucis with Veronica showing the image of the face of Christ that was printed on her towel. An alleged “Veronica veil” has been preserved in the church of Saint Peter, in Rome, since the 8th century.
Thus, we have news of the hypothetical first printed image (photograph) in history.
But not the first, the prototypical, acheiropoeton or non manufactum, without the hand, which Hans Belting situates “before the Age of Art”.
The poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) also mentions Veronica's veil in the Divine Comedy, in the XXXI corner of Paradise (Verses 103-111).
The “veil of Veronica” is considered a true miracle!
The name Verônica is the subject of discussions. It seems likely to be linked to a hybrid expression, half-Greek (eikon), half-Latin (vera) that is, vera icona (“true image”).
In art, there are numerous works by famous painters portraying the scene of Veronica in different settings.
Despite not being enrolled in the Roman Martyrology, Verônica was later given the title of saint, becoming a patron of wardrobes, washerwomen and, later, also of photographers.
From these data, photography began to play a significant role in the modern cult of the sacred. The philosopher Walter Benjamin defined in his work "Little History of Photography" the paradigmatic objects of the "aura": the appearance of something distant, which is close. This concept is thought from the observation of changes caused by new techniques of artistic production in the cultural sphere. These objects bring us closer to the Sacred and bring us the experience that what seems distant is closer than we imagine.
At the moment when photography is becoming trivialized, with automatic cameras and fast and superficial glaring leftovers, research and projects that substantiate, consolidate and discuss the image and its origins are fundamental.
The veil is central to this idea, the negative / positive of the thin film that covers, discovers, inquires. It is necessary to experiment with analog printing techniques, which do not reveal the automatic, negative and positive result in counterpoint. It is also necessary to value the photographic studio as a temple for various studies of light interpretation, construction of unique scenes that can reveal being online and offline in connection at the same time.
The project, therefore, aims to establish a theoretical-visual record about the “supposed” myth of the image combined with photography and to show what escapes and escapes human control, however, it instigates us and brings us surprising revelations. And Homi Bhabha reinforces this reasoning by saying "at the moment when something is out of control, but not out of the possibility of organization".
