The ‘Imagemakers’ section investigates how a photograph influences our view of reality. This week: the press conference of Caroline van der Plas, after her conversation with European Commissioner Frans Timmermans, who traveled from Brussels to The Hague especially for her.
The decor of the press conference has the allure of the office garden from the VPRO series Tower C. A low suspended ceiling, a subtropical plant in mourning just out of the picture, dated gray-green walls of concrete: the temporary accommodation of the House of Representatives still has a world to gain in terms of representativeness, as the cherished heart of democracy. These are side issues that pale in comparison to the bright focal point of the massive interest: Member of Parliament Caroline van der Plas, whose party the Boer Burger Movement (BBB) achieved a huge victory in the provincial elections.
Although the BBB is one of the splinter parties in the House of Representatives with one seat, the likely near future – cabinet crisis, new elections, new gains for the BBB – is already casting its shadow in this photo: the times, they are a-changin’. Being surrounded by so much interest, it is an experience to which Van der Plas has become accustomed in a short time, given her body language. Relaxed face, hands palms up calmly, ready to take the thorny questions thrown at her.
About the author
Arno Haijtema is editor of de Volkskrant. Among other things, he writes about photography and the way in which news photos determine our world view.
Van der Plas’ press conference on Tuesday, after her conversation with European Commissioner Frans Timmermans, who traveled from Brussels to The Hague especially for her, is a textbook example of the visual language of power. The fact that the conversation about nitrogen and nature conservation took place in this apparently shabby environment, and not in the Brussels headquarters of the EU, is already apparent evidence of the rapidly shifting political relations. Regardless of whether BBB will be able to shape a different nature policy, this location says: it is happening in The Hague, not in Brussels.
The scene of the politician facing the representatives of the press touches on universal laws of political photography, to which the time-honored observation of the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan applies: the medium is the message. What Van der Plas discussed with Timmermans is almost secondary. What remains is the sight of that one politician who bends the world to her will.
Journalists also play their part in this theater of power. Because of their massive presence and because of the abundant presence of cameras and microphones with windshields that feed on the words of the politician. The importance of those windshields with logos should not be underestimated: they are the signboards of the news organizations that cannot be ignored by the competition. AD, The TelegraphBNR, NOS, SBS 6, Pow Newsthey prove that they are hot on the heels of the news.
Artist Jesper Boot demonstrated last year how easily media consumers – newspaper readers, TV viewers – can be fooled with the imagery of power. Power. In it, two senior politicians figure against the background of national flags, the Dutch, the American, the European, in a setting that is as credible as it is stereotypical. The two, a man and a woman, shake hands for a long time and make small talk in front of the stage as the cameras click. Let themselves be caught in the garden of a Catshuis-like building by a photographer among the bushes during a bilateral meeting.
They are very convincing, until you take a closer look and see that the suspected Catshuis is the wall of a shed, the conference room is an average living room, the presidential desk behind which the man is seated is a folding table covered with copies of an oak desk. And it is Boot himself who shatters the illusion when he reveals that those two weighty rulers are his parents.
This is how Boot humorously demonstrates how our gaze is pre-programmed: we see what we want to see. With some imagination we can see in the collected press, the swollen media attention, the famous print of Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa. The question is: does that tsunami come from Van der Plas, and is it threatening to flood The Hague? Or will he swallow her if she can’t keep her election promises?