IDEA

James,

Delving back into an earlier life, three texts really helped me understand the idea of archetypal universality (in a literary context, but could also apply to photography) ; (i) Levi-Strauss' series of four books, beginning with "The Raw and The Cooked" - an easier introduction is either "Tristes Tropiques", or "Structural Anthropology", (ii) Frazer's "The Golden Bough" (I think a shortened version is available), and (iii) Edward Said's "Orientalism".

It will be difficult to preserve a sense of mystery, which leads the viewer to a sense of what is unspoken, or unseen. Many of the ideals of earlier generations were never written down, and only conveyed orally. The act of naming, or writing, or capturing on film, distinguishes the original thing from what is created through language or pictures, which leads to a loss of mystery, but also enables knowledge - a kind of fortunate fall. The earlier suggestion of a melting ice-cube is really good, I think ; another suggestion(not as good) might be based on the older hand partially covered in sand, in which some form of image is inscribed, with the sand flowing into the younger hand, in which the same image is beginning to form. Alterntaively, a different image could form - i.e. a wheel in the older hand could become something like a silicon chip in the younger hand. Best regards, fw

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