eeThe Mechanical Eye There is a still from Dziga Vertov’s movie The Man with the Movie Camera in which a human eye appears superimposed on the reflected image of a camera lens, indicating precisely the point at which the camera—or rather, the conception of the world that accompanies it— disassociates itself from a classical and humanist episteme. The traditional definition of photography, “a transparent presentation of a real scene,” is implicit in the diagram instituted by the analogical model of the camera obscura—a model that would pretend to present to the subject the faithful “reproduction” of a reality outside itself. In this definition, photography is invested in the system of classical represen- tation. But Vertov has not placed himself behind the camera lens to use it as an eye, in the way of a realistic epistemology. He has employed the lens as a mirror: approaching the camera, the first thing the eye sees is its own reflected image.Still from Dziga Vertov’s The Man ‘amera, 1928—