Images as Defibrillators: An Attempt to Resuscitate the World

Giselle Hinterholz

About this exposition

This visual essay emerges from a confrontation with interrupted spaces, once places of life and labour, now marked by abandonment. It is not an attempt to document the ruin, but to propose a sensitive listening capable of rediscovering vibration where everything appears still. Inspired by Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception (1945), I understand the body as a space of resonance with the world, a place where every surface touched by the gaze gains density and breath. Here, the images function as defibrillators: distortions, cuts, and movements inserted into the photographs act as electric shocks, attempts to resuscitate territories that no longer breathe. Each photograph is less a documentary proof of abandonment than a sensitive reverberation, where silence and noise converge. If social and urban abandonment crystallises time, artistic practice seeks to open fissures, to return a pulse to what once seemed lost. Thus, the images do not merely record, they react. The photographic gesture is one of listening and response, not restoration, but insistence that something might still vibrate, even when life has already ceased.

Este ensaio visual nasce do confronto com espaços interrompidos, outrora lugares de vida e trabalho, hoje marcados pelo abandono. Não se trata de documentar a ruína, mas de propor uma escuta sensível capaz de reencontrar vibração onde tudo parece imóvel. Inspirada pela fenomenologia da percepção de Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1945), compreendo o corpo como espaço de ressonância com o mundo, lugar onde cada superfície tocada pelo olhar ganha densidade e respiração. As imagens, aqui, funcionam como desfibriladores: distorções, cortes e movimentos inseridos na fotografia atuam como choques elétricos, tentativas de reanimar territórios que já não respiram. Cada fotografia é menos prova documental do abandono do que uma reverberação sensível, onde silêncio e ruído se encontram. Se o abandono social e urbano cristaliza o tempo, a prática artística busca abrir fissuras: devolver pulsação ao que parecia perdido. Assim, as imagens não apenas registam, mas reagem. O gesto fotográfico é escuta e resposta - não restauração, mas insistência em que algo ainda vibre, mesmo quando a vida já cessou.

type	research exposition
keywords	esonance, perception, abandonment, photography, phenomenology, reanimation, visual essay, resonance
date	19/09/2025
published	19/09/2025
last modified	19/09/2025
status	published
affiliation	Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal
copyright	Giselle Hinterholz
license	CC BY-NC-ND
language	English
url	https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3873923/3873924
doi	https://doi.org/10.22501/rc.3873923
published in	Research Catalogue
external link	www.gisellehinterholz.com

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Images as Defibrillators: An Attempt to Resuscitate the World (2025)

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