Nicholas Hedges

Art, Writing and Research

Umbilical Light

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In ‘Camera Lucida,’ Roland Barthes asks whether history is not simply that time when we were not born? He writes:

“I could read my non-existence in the clothes my mother had worn before I can remember her.”

The study of history necessitates the consideration of our own non-existence. To imagine a past event, as it was before our birth, requires us to see that event without knowledge of what was to come, much as how we don’t know what is coming tomorrow. But to imagine our non-existence, our being not-yet-born, becomes in our conscious minds nothing less than the image of death; such is why perhaps we struggle to comprehend the past, to look upon a turn of the century photograph, where our coming-into-being is so precarious.

Looking at photographs of Oxford, taken around the beginning of the 20th century (such as that below taken in Cornmarket in 1907), I can’t help imagine that somehow, amongst the numbers pictured, are some of my ancestors, or, failing that, someone they at least knew. Perhaps there might be someone unknown to them, who nevertheless crossed their path and in some small way (or, in the case of my own coming-into-being, no small way) made an impact on their life and indeed on all those to come.

But then of course, by thinking this, I am doing just what I shouldn’t do when trying to properly understand this image or rather this moment in time. I am placing upon it the weight of future history. But when I recognise the buildings in the picture, how can I take myself ‘out of the frame’ altogether? Is it not impossible?

Is history then not simply the study of the past, but rather the study of how we got here today? A study of pathways, intersections and the spaces in between – a form of cartography? Well, it is and it isn’t. To study an event we must discover what really happened, and what could have happened if things had been different, what might its protagonists have done otherwise? History therefore – through these other possible outcomes – requires us to examine our own fragility, our unlikely selves and the possibility of our never being born to ask the questions at all.

At the moment the photograph above was taken, when all those pictured were going about the business of their lives, the chance of my Being was practically nil. Now, as I look at the photograph I know that everyone pictured is dead; I can read my own non-existence in the clothes they are wearing, just as they might have read theirs in the photograph itself. But here we have a difference between not-Being and being dead and the photograph is an illustration of that very thing.

Susan Sontag wrote:

“From a real body, which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here; the duration of the transmission is insignificant; the photograph of the missing being as Sontag says, will touch me like the delayed rays of a star. A sort of umbilical cord links the body of the photographed thing to my gaze – light though impalpable, is here a carnal medium, a skin I share with anyone who has been photographed.”

When we look at a star in the night sky, we can be assured that in most cases, the light which hits our eye, is at least hundreds of years old. It might even be that the star no longer exists, yet we can be certain that it did exist. The same can be said of those we see in the photograph; somehow the light as Sontag writes is like the delayed rays of a star – an umbilical cord which links us with them and vice-versa (if any of those pictured are indeed my ancestors, then the metaphor becomes more vivid). The moment the light left them (and the star), we did not exist; the moment we received it, they did not exist, and yet here we both are and here we have been.

This umbilical light, which springs from each of us, links us to our own non-existence. History is indeed a study of pathways, intersections and the spaces inbetween, and these pathways are made of light.

Postcard 1906

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This morning I received a postcard which I’d purchased on eBay; an early twentieth century hand-tinted photograph of Magdalen Tower postmarked on the reverse Oxford 1906.

The text on the rear of the postcard reads as follows:

“My Dear Boy I am sorry that I will not manage to see you on my visit to Coombe. I go to Wallingford on the 13. Will visit when I get settled then you must come over, much love and blessing, your loving brother…”

It’s amazing as one reads this card, to think that it was posted over 100 years ago. Combe (the version written on the postcard – Combe – is actually a misspelling) is a village near Woodstock and a place where my Mum and Step-Dad once lived, and as I read it, I’m reminded of their cottage and the many memories associated with it. Secondly, at the end, the author signs off as ‘your loving brother’ and so, as I read the words in my own voice, I’m reminded of my own brother. In a text of just a few lines written 101 years ago, I have an image – or rather images – of my own family and a house from my own past. I imagine too the bond between the two brothers as being the same which exists between me and mine and as such I have an interest in their lives – lives which have almost certainly been over for several decades. Yet, although the author of this card is certainly dead, by reading his words, we somehow give him life, albeit for the time it takes to read the message. And in some ways, this message might be likened to the last words of a man killed in war, whose last letter reaches his loved ones after news of his death had already been received.

The fact the postcard features an image of Magdalen Tower, serves to strengthen this feeling of familiarity. The man who wrote the postcard, and his brother who received it, no doubt knew it well, just as I do now. It becomes – as indeed does the postcard as an object in its own right – a memory space, a “‘starting point’, and a place for the ‘purpose of recollecting'”. Reading these words, I am sharing the ‘space ‘ of the postcard as an object, as well as a recollection of the scene it shows, Magdalen Tower.

In his book, Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes says regarding photographs:

“From a real body, which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here; the duration of the transmission is insignificant; the photograph of the missing being as Sontag says, will touch me like the delayed rays of a star. A sort of umbilical cord links the body of the photographed thing to my gaze – light though impalpable, is here a carnal medium, a skin I share with anyone who has been photographed.”

This quote precisely describes a memory space. “‘From a real body [the author of the postcard], which [who] was there [in 1906], proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here [in 2007]; the duration of the transmission [101 years] is insignificant; the photograph of the missing being [the author] as Sontag says, will touch me like the delayed rays of a star. A sort of umbilical cord links the body of the photographed thing [or the author of the postcard] to my gaze – light though impalpable, is here a carnal medium, a skin [a memory space] I share with anyone who has been photographed [or seen the thing I’m seeing].”

Walking and Measuring

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A few years ago, I did some research into the 1771 Mileways Act which saw a range of ‘improvements’ made to Oxford; improvements which, unfortunately, resulted in the demolition of some of the city’s more interesting mediaeval buildings; the North and East gates, the Bocardo Gaol and Friar Bacon’s study on Folly Bridge. The streets were also repaved, and to pay for this, each resident paid according to the yardage of their property. John Gwynn, an architect who designed the Covered Market and the new Magdalen Bridge, therefore undertook a survey, in which all the frontages of all properties on the city’s streets were measured. Seeing him with his measure, residents at the time thought the worse – that he was measuring up properties so that they would be demolished; given the spate of demolitions at the time it was perhaps hardly surprising. I’ve since imagined Gwynn therefore as some kind of undertaker, measuring up the city for its doom, and image which fits nicely with my work on Broken Hayes.

The list of measurements is very interesting as it presents us with a window onto a world which has now almost disappeared; certainly those who inhabited the town (Mrs. Barret of Magpie Lane, Mr. Hedges of Broken Hayes, Mr. Badger of Fish Street) have all gone and left only their names and the size of their ghostly dwellings. But the layout of the streets (if not the buildings and their inhabitants) still remain, and so, by walking these streets, armed with a residual list of measurements, one can walk back in time and make a connection with this vanished population.

This correlation between time and distance had initially come through my thinking of how difficult it often is, to identify with people who live abroad in war-zones (Iraq and Afghanistan for example), for, even though these countries are only a comparatively short distance away, they might as well be years in the past, for it’s almost as difficult to relate to those who live (and die) there, as it is to those who lived and died, for example, during the first and second world wars, or the time of John Gwynn.

© Nicholas Hedges 2024