Eidolon Shelf represents a collaborative effort between Eidolon and one of our favourite places in Budapest: the newly reopened ISBN+ contemporary art bookstore and gallery space. This initiative showcases a monthly selection of books closely aligned with the realms of vernacular photography, banal imaging, and contemporary photographic theories. Our goal is to popularise knowledge in these specific areas through the titles that we enjoyed and have influenced our thinking in the field of everyday imaging. Each month, a featured publication takes center stage on the Eidolon Shelf at the ISBN store, alongside other carefully curated books which are available for purchase on the spot.
Our recommendation for October is Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes.
19th- and 20th-century theory is steeped in Gothic language and images borrowed from supernatural literature. For example, Karl Marx’s ominous 1848 declaration, “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism,” and Antonio Gramsci’s observation, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters,” are far more menacing than anything by Bram Stoker or R. L. Stevenson—especially when we consider the historical contexts and the lasting impact and legacy of these authors’ ideas.
As photography became one of the most significant technological and social advancements of its time, theories about the medium naturally followed suit. Roland Barthes, in his seminal 1980 book Camera Lucida, reflects on the nature of photography in a similar—chilling—manner, exploring it as much in relation to death as to the medium itself:
"What does my body know of Photography? I observed that a photograph can be the object of three practices (or of three emotions, or of three intentions): to do, to undergo, to look. The Operator is the Photographer. The Spectator is ourselves, all of us who glance through collections of photographs—in magazines and newspapers, in books, albums, archives... And the person or thing photographed is the target, the referent, a kind of little simulacrum, an eidolon emitted by the object, which I should like to call the Spectrum of the Photograph, because this word retains, through its root, a relation to 'spectacle' and adds to it that rather terrible thing which is there in every photograph: the return of the dead.”
It’s no secret that Barthes was the sole inspiration behind our institution’s name: Eidolon—a spirit image, a spectre, a phantom—is one of the most fitting metaphors for the mysterious, enigmatic, and labyrinthine nature of images. This is especially true for photographs not taken by professionals, which, despite their amateur origins, still possess the depth that makes photography so rich in interpretations, emotions, and thoughts.
On the occasion of the new Hungarian translation of Camera Lucida by Paula Marsó, published by Kijárat Kiadó and the Hungarian Museum of Photography, we’re recommending this seminal text on the Eidolon Shelf this month. Not only is it a timely read (or re-read) for October, but it remains one of the most essential critical and theoretical works on photography.
Publisher: Kijárat Kiadó
Year: 2024
Pages: 100
Language: Hungarian
Price: 4.900 HUF
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