boltanski and barthes: what has only occurred once

‘what the photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially’, barthes

'i have invented so many false memories, which were collective memories, that my true childhood has disappeared’, boltanski

‘how does one document what has occurred only once when the event itself is perceived to be a simulation?’, perloff

‘if someone exhibits the photograph of an old lady and the viewer tells himself, today, she must be dead, he experiences an emotion which is not only of an aesthetic order’, boltanski

‘the thing about pictures of dead people is that they are always taken when the subjects are alive, all tanned, muscular and smiling. the photo replaces the memory. when someone dies, after a while you can’t visualise them anymore, you only remember them through their pictures.’, boltanski

for barthes, the reception of the photograph is a kind of rescue operation: the punctum is achieved when its viewer is able to turn the object back into a subject, a sentient and sexual being

for boltanski, such individual transcendence is no longer possible. the referent adheres all right, but that referent is they, not she, and the shock of recognition comes when the viewer recognises the interchangeability of human beings. personal tragedy gives way to a more collective scene of mourning

‘what has occurred only once may recur again and again. or it may not have occurred at all’, perloff