观察者的现代部署--克拉里的视觉文化理论及其学理启示

Modern Deployment of Observers--Crary’s Theory of Visual Culture and Its Enlightenments

视觉现代性溯源是乔纳森·克拉里视觉文化批判理论的逻辑起点。围绕此起点,克拉里移用米歇尔·福柯"知识考古学"的阐释方法探掘19世纪诸种话语陈述,确指一种主观、具身化的"观察者",从而拆解暗箱装置隐喻的去身体化之观察者。循此逻辑,克拉里又从"注意力"与"现代性"的辩证互构视域图绘晚近观察者模型的再次断裂与解体。至此,观察者经历从无身到具身、从具身再到被规整的非连续历程。表面上看,观察者和注意力界域的渐次消解是对现代视觉不确定性症候的表征;实际上,克拉里是借此种表征的表象对当前科技史、视觉史与现代性的反思和重述。克拉里的视觉实践偏离主流的历史叙述,其特异的研究路径、方法和模型为我国的视觉文化研究提供了可资借鉴的经验。

Tracing the origin of visual modernity is the logical starting point of Jonathan Crary’s critical theory of visual culture.With this orientation,Crary uses Michel Foucault's method of“archaeology of knowledge”to explore all kinds of discourse statements of the 19th century,specifying a subjective and embodied observer and thus dismantling the metaphorical disembodied observer of the camera obscure device.According to this logic,Crary depicts the rupture and disintegration of the recent observer model from the perspective of dialectical mutual construction of“attention”and“modernity”.The observer has experienced a discontinuous process from the inanimate to the embodied,and then to the regulated.On the surface,the gradual dissolution of the boundary between observer and attention is a symptom of modern visual uncertainty,but actually it is Crary’s reflection on the history of science and technology,visual history and modernity.Crary’s visual practice deviates from the mainstream historical narration,and its specific research paths,methods and models provide valuable reference for the study of visual culture in China.