Description

The Unbearable Being of Light: On Philosophy and Photography A Lecture by Remmon E. Barbaza 25 May 2024 Since antiquity, philosophy has always concerned itself with concealment and unconcealment, with what is obscure and what is obvious, with light and shadows. It should then come as no surprise that philosophy eventually must confront the question of photography. What is being revealed in a photograph? What do we humans do when we take photographs or look at them? Phenomenology, as this lecture hopes to show, especially lends itself to the thinking of photography insofar as, in the words of Heidegger, it is “the letting-be-seen of what shows itself from itself, just as it shows itself from itself.” We speak of “taking” photos or “capturing” images but, in truth, photography is an act of setting free and letting be. -------------------- About the Facilitator: Remmon E. Barbaza’s interest in photography began when he first got hold of an SLR film camera with a “nifty fifty” almost forty years ago, in the mid-80s. While earning a BA in Linguistics from UP Diliman, an MA in Philosophy from the Ateneo de Manila University, and a PhD in Philosophy from the Hochschule für Philosophie in Munich, Germany, Barbaza kept his enthusiasm for photography. In 2017 he joined a photography workshop in Manila with the New York-based visual artist and photographer, Adam Marelli, thanks to a generous sponsorship by Barbaza’s good friend and fellow photography enthusiast, Dr. Victor Calanog. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Barbaza took a shot at the MartinParrPhotoChallenge9, submitting a photo he took at home of two pieces of tinapa on a blue-and-white plate. Out of a hundred entries, the photo was featured by Martin Parr himself along with a few others in his Instagram Stories. In 2023 he launched a new course, Philosophy of Photography, at the Ateneo de Manila University.