''What Used to Lie Outside the Frame": Boundaries of Photography, Subjectivity and Fiction in Three Novels by J.M. Coetzee

Abstract

The concept of frame and its inherent tensions, as addressed by contemporary thinking, is the theoretical focus of this article, which examines representations of photography in three of J.M. Coetzee's novels (Dusk/ands ((1974)1983), Age of Iron (1990) and Slow Man (2005)). Photography is treated as a site where Coetzee explores the issues that preoccupy him throughout his work: subjectivity, its boundaries and the possibility of intersubjectivity in relation to the very act of storytelling. The article offers a metaphorical reading of such elements of photo­graphy as the blow-up, the negative and digital photography in order to reflect upon Coetzee's engagement with the possibility of openness to transformation, otherness and futurity implied by both the photographic frame and intersubjectivity in life as well as in fiction.

Opsomming
Die konsep van raamwerk en sy inherente spanning, soos saamgevat deur kontemporere denkwyses, is die teoretiese fokus van hierdie artikel wat voorstellings van fotografie ondersoek in drie van J.M. Coetzee se romans (Dusk/ands (1974, 1983); Age of Iron (1990) en Slow Man (2005)). Fotografie word gesien as 'n terrein waar Coetzee kwessies ondersoek wat sy aandag dwarsdeur sy werk in beslag neem: subjektiwiteit, die beperkinge daarvan en die moontlikheid van intersubjek­tiwiteit ten opsigte van die wesenlike daad van storievertelling. Hierdie artikel bied 'n metaforiese lesing van sodanige elemente van fotografie, soos die vergroting, die negatief en digitale fotografie ten einde te besin oor Coetzee se betrokkenheid by die moontlikheid van die openheid tot transformasie, andersheid en toekomstigheid soos ge'impliseer deur beide die fotografiese raamwerk en intersubjektiwiteit in sowel die lewe as in fiksie.