I knew the Spice Girls - Joan Fontcuberta (2014)

Source material: Fontcuberta, J. (2014) Pandora's Camera: Photogr@phy after Photography, London: Mack pp.56-63

Summary of the main points from this chapter:

Discussion of the differences between analogue (chemical) photography versus digital photography.
Fontcuberta uses the analogue and modern photobooth to illustrate certain points. In the old photobooth, the subject cannot control the lighting, background and frame making the photograph a uniform object whereas in the new booth, the subject can choose who to be photographed with from a list of famous people and change variables which question the reality of the image.  The subject can retake the image several times before paying until content with the outcome; culturally acceptable but the unconscious gaze is lost.

Digital photography is ubiquitous (found everywhere) and used by the press, in advertising, documentation, family reunions, holidays etc. whereas users of analogue photography find it more difficult and more expensive to use film making it now more of a craft. As photographers we have to balance the pros and cons and bear in mind that new may not necessarily be better.

Death of photography may be seen as being comparable to the art world's death of paintings. Issues have to discussed before the rebirth. This could be similar to the different era's in photography [expand] photography to post-photograpic era.

Culturally do we consider digital photography as "having a visuality" (Fontcuberta, 2014:59) as it is composed of pixels rather than chemicals? How much is covered under digital photography? Hypographics? Infographics? Referred to by Bernard Stiegler as "analogico-digital images" (Fontcuberta, 2014:53)

Unique identity of images - chemicals are replaced by information. The eye cannot tell the difference although we "know" that we are deceived. "Post photography occupies a parallel position in the new culture of the virtual and the speculative."( Fontcuberta, 2014: 59)

Culture and values were applied to chemical photography and the same or different values need to be applied to digital photography. Because the 19th century was linked to memory, documents, archiving and control and surveillance, chemical photography embedded the idea of truth, identity and objectivity.

Fontcuberta sees digital photography as similar to painting, in that it is composed of pixels which can be modified and combined with another image. This can also be done with a chemical photograph although using different techniques and processes, so he argues that, "in essence, a pictorial image and a digital image are identical." (Fontcuberta, 2014:60) Fontcuberta hypothesises that artists could have progressed from painting to digital imaging without photography.

However, within photography, values and communication about the subject were established. Traditional photography was based on realism and reflected the real world. When photographs are constructed, realism disappears and the image becomes illusionary. Technology and truth are unsettling and the object is lost from memory. Meaning then has to be established.

Digital photography, like traditional photography, can convey fiction which people believe to be authentic because scenes have always been manipulated. So the viewer has to become more critically aware of the content of the photograph, whichever the medium.

In traditional photography, a photograph was seen as an object. With digital photography, it floats in cyberspace. The content of a photograph ensures it is displayed or archived in different places - e.g museums or official documents.

"Digital technology has dematerialised photography which has now become pure visual data, content without physical matter, an image without a body." (Fontcuberta, 2014:62) Preservation and conservation of digital photography will have to be considered.

References:
Fontcuberta, J. (2014) Pandora's Camera: Photogr@phy after Photography, London: Mack