Image, memory and information: a tripod for the photographic document

Abstract

This paper is the result of reflections around three main concepts that revolve around photography, image, memory and information, here called photographic tripod. Divided – absolutely not – also in three parts, which are Photography as Image, Photography as Memory and Photography as Information, the work session this triad that makes up the photographic document not only present in archives, but in other institutions recognized as places of culture and memory. In Photography as Image the approach revolves around the constituent signs and observable in the photographic image from analysis orchestrated by Charles Sanders Peirce, presented by Philippe Dubois, and also passing through the semiological sieve of Roland Barthes. In Photography as Memory, working on the aspect of the record concerning the perpetrator, resulting from the above approach, which makes the photograph an object from the past and, therefore, an object of memory, maker of memories, recollections and provocative starting point for narratives. In Photography as Information we return to the issue of the representation and analysis of documentary photographs, tools of Information Science and Documentation in accessing and sharing memories.