A Trace of Actions Unseen: The Photographic Error as Photography ‘in performance’

Abstract

In contemporary digital photography the error is an increasingly rare and unusual phenomenon, but it presents valuable insights into the practice of photography. This article proposes time as a specific indicator of difference between the ‘conventional’ photograph and the error, based on a distinction between performativity and performance. The performance of the error takes place in three ‘acts’: the photographic event, image recording and interpretation by the viewer. In each stage the error’s relationship to time is shown to be ambiguous and multifaceted, counterpointing a simplified concept of time which prevails in the conventional photograph. The error exposes the entanglement of actors and relationships within the act of photographing and in so doing destabilises common assumptions about photographs as simple, immediate documents.