The world within and the world without Forms and functions of utopia in photography

Abstract

In The Photograph, Graham Clarke writes: “In the end there is no literal reality. All is construction and myth and, ultimately, self-enclosed reality.”[i] This article envisages this ‘self-enclosed reality’ as a space of possible utopias and the photograph as a consequent imagination-opener. Based on fifties and sixties American photography, this article attempts to survey the possible forms and functions of utopia in photography as well as to investigate how dystopian and utopian visions generated by photographs can, if not change, at least challenge our conception of man and society.

I would like to thank Daniel Betty for his corrections and Professor Louis Arthur Ruprecht, Jr. for his suggestions and encouragement during and after the conference. I would also like to thank members of the organizing committee, Professor Rebecca Johnston and Professor Alvaro Torres-Calderon whose help has been much precious to me while in Dahlonega.

[i] Graham Clark, The Photograph, (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1997), 119