"La chambre claire" by Shiro Takatani Original

“La chambre claire” is the first performance directed by Japanese visual artist Shiro Takatani. This is a bi-frontal multimedia performance. La chambre claire or camera lucida (light chamber) refers to those devices with prisms and mirrors used as aids to life drawing prior to the advent of the camera obscura (dark chamber). The photographic process as we know it today requires the darkness of a “black box” —camera body, darkroom— whereas this performance is staged entirely in light. The year before he died, Roland Barthes wrote a treatise on photography entitled “La chambre claire”. We can say this book is also as a requiem for his late mother. Already quite interested in optics and photography, I chose the title to my own performance for its bright connotations. What inspired me in creating my work, however, is the notion of photographs as proof positive of “THAT-HAS-BEEN,” their power to evoke memories both societal and personal. (Shiro Takatani) © Shiro Takatani, 2008 Cover image by Kazuo Fukunaga