Photogenie as the duality and mentality of the photographic image: a study based on the theory of Edgar Morin

포토제니 혹은 사진 이미지의 이중성과 정신성 - 에드가 모랭의 논의를 중심으로

This article presents a study on the concept of "Photogenie", which refers to the duality and mentality of the photographic image, with the viewpoint regarding the photographic image by Edgar Morin. First, we will look at the evolution of the concept of "Photogenie". From the field of photography, the term "Photogenie" means objects that produce light, enough to impress the photographic plate. But theorists of cinema at the beginning of the 20th century have changed the meaning of the term. For Louis Delluc, the "Photogenie" means the effect of union between the reproduction of real and artistic genius. For Jean Epstein, the "Photogenie" means mental quality, nonmaterial or inderterminable, of the photographic and cinematographic image. But Morin synthesized the arguements of Delluc and Epstein. For him, the "Photogenie" indicates both a double character of the photographic image and its mental quality. Then, based on this concept of "Photogenie," Morin said on particular aspects in the photographic image. Considering photography as a double in the anthropological sense, it puts emphasis not only the dual nature of the photographic image but also mental and spiritual quality. Combining the theory of the mage Henri Bergson and Jean-Paul Sartre, he builds his own theory of the mage that concerns both photography and cinema. In short, to Morin, the photographic image is a place where coexist absence and presence, the real and the imaginary, perception and memory, the material and mental, as well that a place of mentality which appear all our memories, hallucinations, dreams, imagination etc.