Mémoires photographiques de la terre – Phototexte et anthropocène

Abstract

This article aims to explore the aesthetic issues underlying the encounter between phototext (an editorial device that creates tension between text and photographs) and the Anthropocene, as well as the themes and focal points favored by contemporary authors in the French publishing field. A typology of their approaches emerges, composed of three main categories: a viatic approach, which uses the traditional travel narrative format to explore, through the interplay of text and photography, human trajectories within a given space; a territorial approach, more sedentary if not stationary, which seeks to examine the links between an individual and the territory with which they interact; and finally, a political approach, which exposes the consequences of human use of the earth and the political actors responsible for its misuse.