"The realization of oneself a s a the body is a fybdamental difference of the man from animals".
Jaques Lacan



If we assume that human somatic constitution can have a project of its own, gesture will be this project. Relationships between the body and gestures are more significant than a simple analogy to language. The essence of gesture is in the creation of a physical presence, which is much more material than, say, voice. This presence is a project implemented by gesture in relation to human the body.

Gesture implements an external project of the body and, therefore, carries its internal meaning. Gesture is what the body does to itself, transmitting something that escapes the consciousness and language and is not articulated in any other way. The autonomy of gesture and -- inside of it -- life of the body creates a new formula understanding, which is different from verbal understanding, from figurative logic and from integrity of human existence.

All gestures are autobiographical. They "live" a biography of the body, adding more meaning to it and reflecting it in external gestures. In this respect, each gesture is the body's surpassing of its own boundaries that results in its expansion to the external world. Presenting the body to the outside world, gesture writes a geography of the body, which is a biography thrown to space and freed from time boundaries. Inside gesture, human existence is transformed. What used to be internal becomes external and somatism transforms into events.

A simple external articulation, which is a way of communicating with the outside world, cannot serve as a reason for the existence of gesture, since the body cannot be an author of this communication. The author is a subject, while the body is not subjective and its identity cannot be defined within the scope of traditional relations between subject and object. The body slips past this explanation because it is a condition of existence of both and constantly switches from one side to another.

Gesture not only returns the body its needs demonstrating its own dependence on the satisfying of the needs. Gesture is the transformation of a single monad called "soma" into many variants of presence which create the contours of imaginable reality where gestures multiply methods, types and forms of somatic existence, Unlike the body, gesture is always put in some context defined by external forms, outlines, surfaces, among which gestures take place.

Various forms of visual art as ways of not only intellectual but also mental and somatic human expression may be considered among other gestures. As Merleau-Ponty put it, an artist transforms the world into painting in return for yielding to it his body. As a somatic project, art founds itself in the cultural context of forms and surfaces. However, while a gesture is supposed to hold a certain border of somatic perceptivity in art this border lies across the territory of imaginary images rather than those actually in existence. Art is basically a somatic project by culture.

In the European tradition, culture understands the body as an independent phenomenon, as part of anthropological problems involved in culture and an allegory of desire. All views on this issue lie within the system of understanding art in the context of cultural human existence. This may explain why all bodily images and related somatic projects in photography and other arts operate in accordance with the laws of cultural reality. Remaining within the general scheme of development images of the body in contemporary art normally represent reflective and associative logic of its perception by culture.

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Traditions of Russian art have displayed a special way of perception, images, reflection and understanding by culture. One peculiarity of this approach is deliberate incoherence, lack of united and whole in culture. Therefore, different images, including those of somatic presence of human and the world emerge ijn culture as local visual events that solve the problem of perception individually be each viewer.

The main subjects of Nikolai Bakharev's photographic series Entertainment, Together, Takes and Relation (all made in the '70s) are people. The way he photographs people creates an idea of human presence in teh world. In his photographs, the body is put in a context differing from the context of human existence. In Bakharevs' pictures human mages are dissected into parts each of which has its own symbolic meaning. In his photographs, the body is above all a form of natural presence included in the system of other natural components. For instance, a woman in a bathing-suite with a huge tree trunk in the background is pictured in such a way that her bodily image becomes synonymous to that of the tree.

A person as the subject of Bakharev's photographs often swaps visual meanings with the background, which is possible only if some somatic equivalence of people and nature exists in a culture. The idea of a person and their the body being part of landscape is based on the original, genetic relations between the two. Landscapes -- regardless if it is abundant foliage or a typical Soviet carpeted room is a context not only for perception of the subjects but their actual environment in normal life. Bakharev views the body as a human and, in turn, a human as part of landscape which can be put inside of a photographic frame and symbolizes environment as it is.

The type of relationship between human the body and natural, social and cultural interior are entirely different for the European and Russian art contexts. The way the problem of relationships between somatic perception and the body and its visual environment is solved depends upon the general organization and characteristics of cultural space.

In the works of Arno Rafael Minkkinen, who actively experimented with his own the body incorporating it into various landscapes, one can notice the same idea of relationship between human the body and the environment and dependence of somatic perception in culture on the visual context. In Minkkinen's pictures, the body can hardly be distinguished from the environment, such as a single tree or a riverbank or horizon, which was achieved through a scrupulous work with numerous visual associations derived from the artists life and creative experience. Bu due to that, perception of his photographs by a spectator requires the latter's experience to be mobilized. In other words, an exchange of associations between different people takes place, an exchange between their past and present. This exchange is a mechanism of existance of the cultural context itself.

In Bakhaev's photographs, unity is formed in side the frame and, therefore, it doesn't bear a weight of associations` as it is the case with Minkkinen's works. At the same time, the interior in which Bakhaev puts his subjects can be perceived as the general context, which is absolutely identical to an individual context because the individual context is always stripped of identifying details. The common social and cultural space was submitted to -the initial unity and relation, which was the essence of any experience of existence. This approach did not allow for any forms of presence other than the ones already in existence and, as a result, the general context was mandatory and did not require further formulation. In Bakhaev's pictures, any new instance of establishing ties between a person, his the body and the environment was a proof of solidity of cultural and visual dominants, which form the context. Stability of the context is guaranteed by the naturalness of perceiving a general human idea and an individual human manifestation as the same.

The problem of establishing ties between a human and the context via relations between his somatic perception and the visual environment becomes obvious if we consider the example of photography. Photography, which deals directly with visual images of human the body, at the same time acts as a social mechanism that introduces context, which by itself is deprived of any social or cultural connotation, by means of somatic perception.

Tatiana Liberman's series Person and Mirror creates an effect of a relationship between the subject and the environment, whereby human the body is multiplied. It remains itself, acquiring the functions and the look of the natural context in which it exists. It may be interpreted as an attempt to escape from all other contexts imposed on it. The pictures from the series create a chain of associations within the visual, making any additional context superfluous. In addition to the main subject, other objects are present in Liberman's photographs, such as reflecting surfaces. But we pay attention to them only because irregularities and deformations of parts of the subjects the body, which is never exhibited in full. The surfaces cannot be considered as teh context, rather being an instrument of displaying the body within the frame. On the other hand, all these objects perform an auxiliary functions in regard to the body and, therefore, formally perform some functions of the context. But if a mirror is one of such auxiliary objects, the situation becomes strange. It is difficult to answer the question on which side of the mirror the subject is located and on which side the context. A mirror reflection itself becomes a context because if only reflection can be considered visual, then the prototype becomes the context.

In other words, mirrors destroy the reality of a photographic picture that is aimed at the stabilization of the subject In Liberman's works the mirror not only reflects, it also transforms the subject becoming a context by itself in which the initial form disappears. Instead, new forms of reality emerge that has only historic and genetic ties with the body. The body finds itself outside the frame.

In the works of Bakhaev and Liberman, as well as in many other photographs dealing with the body, the main subject -- the body -- remains passive and loyal to various creative acts in which it has to take part. In the installation "Corruption. Apotheosis" by AES group the body acts as a metaphor subjected to forms that have nothing to do with the body. Hence the perversity of existence the artists attribute to the body. The body works as a metaphor to strange images being unable to present its own logic, the logic of its somatic identity in which perception of the photograph would be determined by the body itself or by it as part of a sign chain. In the works by AEC, passivity of the body reached a logical boundary, being transformed into an insignificant part of the contents.

The situation is different with the works by Oleg Kulik (The series Zoophrenia and Language Problems), in which the image of the body is aggressive being part of a special logic of behavior ijn which the body not only expresses itself within the boundaries of its identity but also expands these boundaries. This is achieved by means of somatic gestures in the situations when the human the body is put into an anti-human context. Basically, the normal human the body is displayed but it is attributed gestures thanks to which it captures the external world including formerly independent of its aspects of life into the realm of its somatic projectiveness. The importance of a gesture as a somatic project aimed at the discovering and exploration of its relationships with the external world acquires a totally new meaning in Kulik's works. He discovers the body's ability to create a context in a culture by itself, giving way to new creative forms in the art.

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Many Belarusian photographers pay attention to the body. Most often, they use a traditional approach to photography as the fixation of an unconventional look at the body (even if it was carefully calculated).

In the photographs by Alena Adamchik, this unconventional approach is normally linked to a variety of combinations of the the body and different objects. Such combinations can achieve more than just a visual effect. In accordance with associative logic of perception, a photography offers a viewer a variety of independent forms and objects and meanings, creating an image of a "somatic" person. This image is a visual achievement of a new effect in perception, which does not touch the basics of the image and its status in the art. This approach is based on the idea of the autonomy of various forms of the world, various combinations of which create links between objects within a single event or a moment of its perception.

Lights and shadows in regards to the human the body work somewhat differently. Chiaroscuro is one of the basic element of photography. An artist who uses chiaroscuro replaces the effect with an appearance of the cause.

The image of a female silhouette in the background of another naked female the body creates an effect of an existing the body, which in fact was created by our imagination from the elements available. What was left beyond the frame enters it as a shadow, enriching the visual contents of the photograph. A viewer gets an opportunity to see how easily a pictured subject can remain unseen, which often happens in photography.

Adamchik uses a doubled visual text in which the human the body is one layer and chiaroscuro is the other one, closing the space of the photograph. As a result, the body is focused on the picture while the picture is focused on the visual somatic human presence, which is necessary for the picture to exist. In that, a style and the attitude towards the object are expressed, illustrating the photographer's way towards the final product -- the photograph.

Kirill Gonacharov used a long exposure to picture himself twice, facing the lens and having turned his back to it. As a result, his figure became blurry as if it were disappearing and dissolving on the surface of the photograph, creating an illusion that the artist compensates for the insufficient quality of his image by addition quantity of it. The degree of his presence in teh picture remains the same, stretching to a larger space and taking the space originally meant to be occupied by the context background.

Kirill Goncharov.
From Untitled series. 1997

By complementing the perception of these works with the ideas of relations between a human's somatic presence and his visual, real and other forms of contexts, it's possible to say that Goncharov creates a relation with the context whereby the boundaries become blurry and the difference between the subject and the background disappear. The subjects seems to dissolve in the environment, ith his figure losing its borders, which are becoming approximate contours, somewhat blurry.

As a rule, perception of a photograph is largely determined by the viewer's recognition of visual dominants created by the artists. This kind of perception repeats the hierarchy of importance of the parts of the picture, once formulated by the artist. As a result, perception is automatic and really encounters any difficulties, unless the object is in the process of disappearing, as in Goncharov's pictures. In this situation, photography becomes a subliminal step towards the salvation of the visual existence of the body. While a traditional photograph can hardly be viewed as a proof of a person's existence, Goncharov's photographs can be perceived in such a way. Such a photograph can be interpreted not only as a creative somatic gesture by the artist but also part of non-artistic reality where the problems of human existence and status in reality pervade.

What exactly is reality of the human the body and what are relations between this kind of reality and our sight are the questions asked in the series Untitled by Uladzimir Parfianok. In his pictures, somebody looking at a photograph is surprised by the fact that the visually phantasmagoric picture he sees is nothing but his own skin. There's a gap between the human eye's habit of seeing its somatic surface and what it actually sees in a photograph -- something yet to be analyzed. The dissonance of ideas about the status of the visual body and relative boundaries of the visual created by these photographs conducting the message of the relativity of the visual concept of the body. The popular idea about the sign and conventional nature of a person's relations with the world acquires a new meaning thanks to the proof Parfianok displays in his pictures -- that the body also has such multiple and unconventional forms of visual existence.

Photography is meant to document human existence and complement t with visual reflections of reality begins to carry out totally new functions. First of all, somatic constitution of the human is put in the context of a conscious and reflective perception, no longer being a fact of a self-explanatory layer of existence. By returning the body its visual component in a new form, photography manifests indefinite variability. On one hand, this expands creative boundaries, since perception of human somatic constitution is no longer pre-determined. Thus a traditional chain of relations between the body and the conscience based on the primal role of the body. Now it is put to the second place next to thought. Various photographs by Adamchik, Goncharov and Parfianok are only some examples indicating the dependence of the meaning of photography as a somatic gesture of culture.

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Since the boundaries of Belarusian culture at large are blurry, photography not only reflects but actually creates ways of existence of somatic constitution, which becomes a code hidden within photographic exercises. Solving the problem of portraying humans in culture, Belarusian photography -- despite its automatic documentariness -- deals with yet not formulated objects and cultural facts. In Belarusian culture, humans themselves become such artefacts as the subject of culture that possesses characteristics of somatic identity.



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Translated by Vladimir Kozlov