Orsola Stancampiano: A chance to create photographic metaphor

Tuesday May 13 2025 @11:30 (CET)
Sala B, Edificio de Humanidades, UNED & online

Abstract
Photography, due to its indexical nature, seems to struggle more in generating metaphors compared to intentional art forms like painting and drawing. However, there is a photographic technique that appears to add an intentional nuance to an art form historically associated with objective and realistic representation: this technique is multiple exposure photography. As we will see, multiple exposed photographs seem to be the best candidates for creating what I have called “photographic metaphors.” This happens thanks to the coexistence of two or more states of affairs within the same spatio-temporal frame. This mechanism reminds of both linguistic and visual metaphors, but photographic metaphors seem to have something peculiar about them and to differ from both. Furthermore, although the technique of multiple exposure is common to other media, such as cinema, it seems that the possibility of a non-normative, metaphorical use of these types of images is unique and specific to the photographic medium.

Bio
Orsola Stancampiano is a PhD student at the FINO Consortium (Philosophy in the North-West of Italy), currently working on Enrico Terrone’s ERC funded project PEA The Philosophy of the Experiential Artifacts. She graduated with a MA thesis entitled “Philosophy of Photography and Perception” and with a BA thesis entitled “Frege and the Philosophy of Language”, both at the University of Genova. Her research focuses on the semantics, pragmatics, epistemology and phenomenology of photography.