Benjamin, Sontag, Barthes – Three Pillars of Photographic Discourse

We invite you to the lecture by Olena Chervonik, which continues the public program, "Let's Have a City". 

Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, and Susan Sontag each develop influential but distinct theories of photography, differing in emphasis on social engagement, personal affect, and ethics.

In his several essays on photography, Benjamin approaches the medium primarily as a historical and political phenomenon. He situates photography within modernity and capitalism, focusing on mechanical reproducibility, the decline of aura, and photography's capacity to transform perception through the "optical unconscious." For Benjamin, photography has emancipatory potential if politicized, but it can also serve ideology depending on its use and context.

Sontag combines Benjamin's critical orientation with a moral and cultural critique. In On Photography, she emphasizes photography’s role in desensitization, consumption, and power, arguing that constant image exposure can dull ethical response. Unlike Benjamin’s guarded optimism, Sontag is largely skeptical of photography's political efficacy.

Barthes, by contrast, offers a phenomenological and affective account in Camera Lucida. He is less concerned with history or politics than with the spectator's experience. His distinction between studium (cultural, coded meaning) and punctum (a personal, wounding detail) frames photography as an encounter with mortality and loss. Where Benjamin analyzes photography socially, Barthes treats it existentially.

The lecture will untangle these three positions while profiling the recent releases of all three works into Ukrainian published by the Museum of the Kharkiv School of Photography in 2022-2026.