Through a Lens Darkly
Welcome to Through a Lens Darkly, an evolving site that was founded in late 1995 (under the name Macau Pages) by a multinational group of young scholars, writers and artists connected to Macau under the creative direction of Ian Watts. Their program was to create a new kind of space for persons interested in Macau to present their work and express their ideas; and to design a network through which people working in different disciplines, could easily access new information and each other.
After much work and reorganization, the site has been reincarnated as promised, although more "bare-bones" in format. We hope that the current format is pleasing and easy to navegate. Through a Lens Darkly continues to evolve and refine its original program; presently the site invites texts and images covering a wide range of topics and disciplines which include; film and video, politics, fashion, architecture, sexuality, science, photography and music - practically anything that has to deal with Macau and Portuguese of the Far East and Pacific. We must thank the gracious patronage of www.geocities.com, for hosting these pages.
the title
Historical literature thus far points to the interesting fact that Westerners began visiting the Far East in the 15th century in search of new commercial markets to exploit and peoples with whom to trade (in the multifarious meanings of the words, be it substances, ideas or even the people themselves); they wrote their impressions and observations of these strange new lands and their inhabitants in monographs avidly consumed by the elites back home. The effectiveness of these enterprises and their popular dissemination is left up to modern debate. A second wave of journeys commenced in the 19th century with the invention of photography. Tourists, or cultural voyeurs, headed out to the ends of the "civilized world" armed with instruments fashioned by the processes of then modern science and technology. At any rate, from these individuals, haunting images of far-away lands, appeared in hazy talbotypes, consumed enthusiastically by an eager public desirous of "oriental" exotica.
The camera obscura, the forerunner of the modern camera, was an Arab invention described in 10th-century texts by a certain al-Hazan. After its rediscovery in 1839, early photography developed along two complementary paths: the first was the French daguerreotype, in which images were produced through the contrasting reflections of metal surfaces (be they copper, silver, mercury or silver amalgam); the second was the English tablotype, in which images were printed on paper. The daguerreotype was a negative turned into a positive, which made it unique and highly prized; an entire culture grew around the image and one can still find examples of framed daguerreotypes in small velvet-lined leather cases - in a sense it was a jewel-like object to be treasured and handled with great care. It came to be called the "Mirror of Memory." The tablotype, on the other hand, was born to be democratically accessible: paper was inexpensive and an independent negative allowed for a multitude of positive prints. The mass production of the daguerreotype was expensive and complicated; that of the tablotype was much more simple and straightforward.
However, if the poor definition and fuzzy contrast of the tablotype lent itself to an chimeric, almost haunting representation of physical reality, on the other hand, it meant documentary fidelity. The exposures took time, and the intrepid photographer stationing himself in a street or in a park would record the very movements of the wind. At times, people and animals would appear frighteningly distorted and fantasmic. In time, even with perfection of the medium with the development of specialized plates and processes, the exposure times remained high, moving objects and people grew tails. To avoid these ghost-like presences, photography focused itself on monuments and people posing stiffly in a studio rather than in the street.
By the 1860s photography was sufficiently attractive and in vogue to encourage its practitioners to spread across the globe in search of novel and exciting subjects to capture. The artistic wonders of the world and the curious costumes and ways of life of peoples and nations became accessible to the metropolitan public. The most iconic an enigmatic of all monuments photographed during this period was the Sphinx, near Cairo. Curiously, one of its first photographers, Francis Frith, wrote that he found it, "Ugly, with a hideous profile." The result of these photographic expeditions as the creation and popularization of a series of points of view: the Turkey of Robertson, the Egypt and Palestine of Maxime Du Camp and Frith, the India of Bourne and Tripe, the China of Thomson and Beato, the Japan of Beato and Stillfried. It was a second colonization and exploitation of the other - the imposition of a way of seeing.
Through a Lens Darkly, painfully aware of the past cultural baggage of these photographic expeditions and academic debates, attempts to present another view of Macau, one of critical concern and intelligent discourse. At times, Macau appears fuzzy as in the tablotype and yet as defined as in the daguerreotype. As a place, constantly constructed and reconstructed in the daily movements of its inhabitants - Chinese, Macanese, Portuguese, Thai and other ex-patriots - it evades pure definition, making it a truly exquisite place to study and visit. So, we look through the mirrored camera of our minds cynically, critically and most of all darkly, when considering this conundrum of present-day Macau.
And, in closing, we would not exist if it were not for your warm words of support and encouragement. Please feel free to contact us or participate in our on-line forum, macauchat.
Through a Lens Darkly
c/o Ian E. Watts
Rua dos Navegantes, 34-8
2750 Cascais - Portugal
email: iwatts@webpub.brown.edu