Lo scarto visuale e il supplemento dell'immagine: le "scritture di luce" del campo di concentramento di Mauthausen

The aims of the present paper is to analyse the specific visual regime of some never-before-exhibited photographs displayed at the photographic exhibition organised for the 60th anniversary of the Liberation of Mauthausen camp in 2005. I will proceed accordingly to a three steps process. First of all, I will try to show how photographs can be considered as a form of writing, namely a “light writing”. I will then provide a general overview of the catalogue of the exhibition but through a decomposition and reassembly of the photographic images, trying to work for a decentralization of the gaze beyond the documentary value of these photographs. Finally, I will draw some conclusions, proposing further reflections on photography as “trace” and “supplement” of the visible.