Witnessing is a devious thing. On the one hand it serves to better the public understanding to an act, whether joyous or reprehensible, but on the other it may damage the witnesser. The fulcrum of this balance beam is of great concern in the MCA’s exhibition simply titled Witness. Photography is definitionally an encounter between artist and subject, but it also is an act of witnessing, and has been used as such for documentation. The MCA’s exhibit plays with this concept and pushes the boundaries of what it means to encounter and what it means to bear witness.

Similarly, Camille Henrot’s piece for MCA screen is a heavy undertaking. During her time as an art research fellow at the Smithsonian Institute, which the wall text is quick to point out is “The largest conglomerate of museums and research centers in the world… totaling some 137 million artworks, objects, and specimens,” Henrot attempts to piece together the history of the world. In so doing her piece morphs into a meditation on the quixotic nature of assembling knowledge while having virtually endless resources. The act of assemblage, however, is too an act of witnessing. It seeks to bear witness to all in order to report some. To summarize is an active form of bearing witness in that it attempts synthesis.

The choices of video and photographic media for these two exhibits are by no means incidental. These modes of signification are indexical and as such carry more weight of truth. The relation between the signifier and the signified in this case have made physical contact by means of light, and in so doing are directly related, like smoke to fire. As such they create a means of documentation that aims to be irrefutable. This is why Truman insisted on soldiers taking photographs as they liberated camps in Germany and Poland. To bear witness that is absolutely irrefutable.

Breaks in conventional form can bring attention to common assumptions about convention. That is one of the aims of Witness. This is notable in the case of Cindy Sherman, who documented herself for years in the series “Untitled Film Stills.” Sherman photographed only herself, in various costumes and guises, in a series that was linked by nothing but style. She was not simply bearing witness to an identity, she was creating one out of the act of documentation. Because she took those photos, those films sprung into the minds of thousands of her viewers. She bore witness to an entire oeuvre that never existed. If one attempted to imagine the catalog of film created by Sherman’s upwards of 85 “Untitled Film Stills” feeling some grosse fatigue could be understood.

The work of Sherman’s photos can also be understood as bearing witness to the cultural clichés and limited rolls for women in midcentury film and domestic life. Sherman places herself within archetypes of femininity and womanhood but her photos are claustrophobic and anxiety inducing. These emotions run against the grain of the patriarchal norms of both Hollywood and the Home.

The crown jewel of this exhibit is of course Alfredo Jaar’s “Sounds of Silence.” Jaars work is stunning and haunting and it captures the life and death of Kevin Carter with grace. What is meaningful about it is that it forces you, the viewer, to bear witness. In ways Carter could never imagine, Jaar uses his work along with his biography to show to his captive audience exactly the kind of forces that caused Carter to end his own life. As such, you are no longer bearing only witness on the Sudanese famine and the need for photojournalism, but the devastating effects of witnessing itself.

If “Witness” forces us to experience the dark side of human nature, “Grosse Fatigue” gives us the light. Hernot works with creation myths of many creeds and weaves them together through breakneck video windows on her laptop. Over the graphics that show the far reaches of human and natural beauty, creation, and culture, Henrot lays a track of gorgeous stream-of-consciousness poetry, with a pulsing rhythmic beat the mimics the heartbeat of the world. Through this we may bear witness to all the things that truly are worth living for. She creates for us the kind of Dream City that Zadie Smith writes about in her essay, “Speaking in Tongues,” and proves to us that it may be overwhelming and even debilitating at times, living in this world is a thing of beauty.

While many go through life simply consuming things as they are, artists and historians among us bear the burden of paying witness. This is a service to the rest of us that is invaluable. Historicizing and contextualizing are not only necessary for learning and the assemblage of knowledge, but they can be incredibly taxing and altogether harmful for those who under take the task. We owe them our thanks and our respect.