Reactions to "The Body and the Archive" by Alan Seluka

I have a feeling I did not fully understand the entirety of Sekula's essay. This may show significant misinterpretation, but I would summarize Seluka's thesis as such: The introduction of photography began an exact documentation of human bodies/physiological features, that provided "the man" with further evidence to categorize society, based on these features, into a social and ethnic taxonomy. As in, photographs of Chinese farmers could be dissected into thousands of implications of "Orientalism," low income, and subservience in Western eyes. Or the image of a man beside a woman could demonstrate his superior strength by examination of his height, muscle mass, and posture. I guess, if this is a correct interpretation, I can agree with Seluka as much as the camera accelerated this already existent taxonomy. This whole essay made me think of the 16th century Casta paintings that came out of the Spanish conquest of South America. In fact, I believe you showed one in class. These existed far before the invention of the camera, but definitely highlights European interest in ethnography and social taxonomy. My boyfriend, who is Peruvian, has told me that, to this day, you can see remnants of this social categorization, where the lighter skinned generally hold higher-paying jobs. I guess the point could be made, that Casta paintings were very similar to the inexistent world of photography, as they were pictorial documentation of people's bodies, with as much "scientific accuracy" as possible. The camera is a very powerful tool, in that it holds this status of "scientifically accurate," however, I think the power of photography dwindles everyday with the accelarating pervasiveness of photoshop and special effects. However, a perfect example of this is fashion publications for women. While we know perfectly well that the pictures we see of Kate Moss and Keira Knightly have been airbrushed and altered, we cannot help but to disect ourselves in comparison to these images. We lift "signs" of beauty, such as slimness, clean skin, large eyes, and shiny hair, despite the fact that half these things have been artificially created. We know the photograph is not "scientifically accurate" but its power still holds. It would be odd to find a woman comparing herself to a contemporary painting, because the media does not claim accuracy.