瞬間と持続 : 写真とベルクソニスム

抄録

Henri Bergson states that "duration", which cannot be fragmented into instants, has reality, and that the instants themselves are unreal. Herein lies the difficulty of discussing the photograph from a Bergsonist viewpoint. To solve this problem, this paper proposes that Bergson treats the "any-instant-whatever" as a kind of duration, but one which is without memory, and is therefore extremely expanded. In contrast, subjective human perception is a condensing of myriads of instants via the memory, and is therefore a contracted duration. Without memory, the any-instant-whatevers return to themselves, and become objective. This paper proposes that the camera, being only physical matter without human memory, reveals the any-instant-whatever that had become indistinguishable in the contracting memory. From this viewpoint, the photograph is objective in its instantaneity, revealing instantaneous "differences" that are "useless" for human beings; Bergson recognizes that "revelation" is a function of art. Thus, the "optical unconscious" revealed instantaneously by the photograph, refers not to psychological reality, but to the objective (material) world.