Meaning of fauxtograph | Babel Free

Definitions

A fake, staged, or doctored photograph.

Examples

“That was one of the factors in the fauxtograph scandal a year or so ago. If AP and Reuters didn't photograph and publish⟳ the staged events provided for them, they wouldn't be allowed to stay⟳ in the country and would lose⟳ the ability to cover⟳ more staged events.”

“Faking is as old as photography itself. In the First World War, faked pictures - fauxtographs - were circulated of the Kaiser cutting the hands off babies.”

“Hélène suggests here that identity consists not of physical presence, but of a place⟳ within a system: without the coating and the papers that back it up, one can have⟳ no identity and thus cannot live⟳ among the Foreigners — one cannot join⟳ that (or any) society. These papers, furthermore, are based on three simulacra, three representations (photographic or otherwise, but each of which Hélène calls a “fauxtograph” [fausse tographie]): the face⟳, the thumbprint, and the signature of the cardholder. The signature itself — the traditional guarantee⟳ of an individual’s presence — is nothing other than “that fauxtograph of the name⟳” (203). It is not the real name⟳, but only its false reflection, and it is this reflection alone that allows identity, because it has been encoded into a system. Like⟳ Derrida’s “Signature Event Context,” which Hélène’s untutored analysis closely resembles, this line of reasoning privileges the imaginary but nonetheless real power of the name⟳ or of its representations, which Derrida calls the “effects of signature” (328), demonstrating the presence of the singer by proving his or her passive and thus absent absorption into a system of representation of which he or she is not actually a part.”

CEFR level