Photo Gallery: Voyeurism - Annotation
This post discusses an image document:
Raynaud de Lage, Christophe. “Ibsen Huis.” festival-avignon.com, 2017, http://www.festival-avignon.com/fr/spectacles/2017/ibsen-huis.
This photo gallery for Ibsen Huis primarily serves as a record or promotion of the set design. In particular, the first few photos record the mechanics and design of the set, observing it from different angles. One photo catches the blurry movement of the set. This photo specifically is made to observe the set since it is clear that the photographer, Christophe Raynaud de Lage, slowed his photo capture time to give the impression of a nearly dizzy spin on the house’s part, despite the fact that the set does not turn so fast and it would not have been difficult to capture a clear photo of the house while turning. In this photo, an artistic alteration is imposed on how the set is portrayed. Following this, some of the photos serve as artistic records of the actual blocking and staging of the play and the set in use. We see one photo where Carolyn and her grandmother are in different rooms experiencing separate things, in the same place but with different experiences of it. This is still a record of the set, but with a lean toward the artistic uses of the set. A similar effect is had in the photo taken from the back of the audience, which shows Cees and Daniel existing in the same house but in a different timeline than the other characters on stage. This audience view is useful in investigating audience voyeurism upon a very real and naturalistic family scene. This photo shows us, the audience, as a removed third party that is not involved with what is going on overall but continues to bear near voyeuristic witness to the private lives of these characters, an experience which becomes even more voyeuristic when the actors are partially naked, which is also featured in the gallery. Indeed, the lens of the camera and nature of photo distribution emphasises that element of voyeurism, and outlines the voyeuristic tendencies of an audience which bears witness to a play as naturalistic as this one. It is possible that the lens of the camera hinders voyeuristic research because of its added level of voyeurism, especially because the photos are taken with an artistic eye which imposes its own view upon the images, but it is also useful as a record of voyeurism that pertains to research on the nature of an audience, especially in naturalist theatre. When investigating privacy turned public on stage, a visual record such as this photo gallery is an invaluable resource.
