Gunning: Tracing the Individual Body

In this essay Gunning examines the relationship between photography and modernity primarily through the example of photography's use in detective work and criminology. First, he sets a backdrop for his reasoning with a definition of modernity as a change in the human experience caused by the advancement of techniques of production and circulation. The capitalist mode of production has led to mass production, standardization, and mechanization. This in turn has led to the necessity of a widespread system of circulation to deliver the mass produced products. Ramifications of this however, are that concepts of space and self have changed, with objects and people being able to travel vast distances from their point of origin, and standardization leading to interchangability of objects and people as well.

Gunning relates the concept of modernity to the advent of photography by using the same criteria. First, he draws upon Oliver Wendell Holmes's view of a photograph as a standardized mechanical reproduction of an object to make a case for its modernity. He says that photographs are interchangeable for the objects themselves, which brings into question the essence of any object if it can be replaced by an image. Secondly, the circulation of photographs and films using the infrastructure set up by capitalist mass production "abolished spatial barriers," bringing images of life to people from unprecedented distances and simultaneously altering the way humans perceive the world around them.

However, when applied to the world of criminology, photography does something quite different. Photographs of individual human beings are not interchangeable, they depict a single person who is different from anybody else in the world. The use of photographs for identification purposes actually counteracts the modern, urbanizing forces that makes it possible for people to be completely anonymous. Furthermore, the circulation of photographs contributing to a database effectively diminishes the advantage that criminals gain from using the same system of circulation. The use of photographs for detective work is closely related to the concept of index, and Gunning's description attests to its strength as a tool for objective classification.