The visual metaphor in the universe of photographer Tatsuya Tanaka

architecturization of a miniature world

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24310/Fotocinema.2023.vi26.15571

Keywords:

Photography, visual metaphor, Tatsuya Tanaka, visual rhetoric, miniature, architecturization

Abstract

The work of the Japanese photographer Tatsuya Tanaka (1981) has recently attracted a great deal of interest. His discourse is based on the visual metaphor (from which so many photographers have drawn throughout history since the beginnings of photography, and especially in the avant-garde) but, unlike the latter, he confines it to a distinctly Japanese cultural environment: with miniatures that populate his images, linking his work to Japanese artisanal mythology, and to the dioramas formulated by Daguerre, which reconstructed suggestive scenes of everyday life. We will study four pieces with a methodology consisting of photographic analysis and an exclusive interview granted to us by the author himself. Our conclusions are that his proposal is radically referential, that it connects with the most atavistic Japanese artistic tradition but that, nevertheless, it is profoundly generational and designed for an audience that follows social media, especially instagram, where Tatsuya Tanaka has accumulated more than 4 million followers with only three published books.

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Author Biographies

  • Manuel Blanco, University of Seville

    Manuel Blanco Pérez (Seville, 1980) holds a degree in Hispanic Philology (US) and a PhD in Communication (US). Postgraduate in semiotics at the University of Bologna (Italy), Official Master in Communication and Culture, and Master in Applied Social Economy. He is a lecturer in the Faculty of Communication at the University of Seville. As an academic, he is the author of thirty high impact scientific articles and several books, including: Cine y Semiótica (University of Salamanca, 2020), Nuevo cine andaluz (Comunicación Social, 2020) and El Proyecto Fotográfico (University of Seville, 2022). As a photographer, he has been a reporter in countries such as Algeria, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, and has published photographic books such as: Dissident Diary of New York (2005) and 28 rue Levert (2008). The film Al sur del sur (screened at the SEFF and the Iberoamericano, currently on filmin) is his directorial and screenwriting debut.

    Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

  • Delia Mihaela Cristea, Pablo de Olavide University

    Universidad Pablo de Olavide, España

References

Published

2023-01-31

Dimensions

PlumX

How to Cite

The visual metaphor in the universe of photographer Tatsuya Tanaka: architecturization of a miniature world. (2023). Fotocinema. Revista científica De Cine Y fotografía, 26, 309-328. https://doi.org/10.24310/Fotocinema.2023.vi26.15571