Carmen Winant (2018) My Birth
Carmen Winant collected 2000 photographs from car boot sales, charity shops, books and magazines and by asking people directly for images depicting women giving birth in a variety of settings, which included her images of her and her mother giving birth which added a familiar face throughout the images. The installation which was placed in a narrow space forcing viewers to look closely at the images.
Most of these are of white women and she acknowledges that images of non-white women are harder to find, and the work contains an element of autobiography. The number of images suggests that there is not a narrative although the issues being discussed are power and politics. The images document change and the need for a voice among women as well as being a challenging subject for part of an exhibition at MoMA. Carmen was influenced by books discussing birth.
I came across this work whilst researching my assignment. Whilst it resonates with me, I have a different outlook on birth through my occupation. As a scrub nurse in an obstetric theatre I am privileged to be part of a team delivering babies who need a little extra help with delivery. My role involves teaching students and visitors who may be as junior as college students on work experience who have asked permission from the mother to attend so conversation about birth experience with mothers, birth partners, staff and students is natural. We ensure we maintain as much dignity as possible when caring for our women and that photography by the birth partner is limited to just the baby or mum with baby. I wonder if the American culture is slightly different in this instance because even in our delivery rooms, births are not necessarily filmed / photographed. Our patient feedback varies from wanting to watch the delivery moment of a caesarean section in a mirror to criticising that they could watch the operation through the surgeon’s glasses, so I appreciate some viewers of the exhibition not wanting to look at the images.
Bibliography
Regensdorf, L (2018) Artist Carmen Winant on Why 2,000 Images of Childbirth Belong at MoMA, Vogue. Available at: https://www.vogue.com/article/carmen-winant-my-birth-being-photography-exhibition-museum-of-modern-art-moma-womens-health-feminism last accessed 10/9/18
Carmen Winant collected 2000 photographs from car boot sales, charity shops, books and magazines and by asking people directly for images depicting women giving birth in a variety of settings, which included her images of her and her mother giving birth which added a familiar face throughout the images. The installation which was placed in a narrow space forcing viewers to look closely at the images.
Most of these are of white women and she acknowledges that images of non-white women are harder to find, and the work contains an element of autobiography. The number of images suggests that there is not a narrative although the issues being discussed are power and politics. The images document change and the need for a voice among women as well as being a challenging subject for part of an exhibition at MoMA. Carmen was influenced by books discussing birth.
I came across this work whilst researching my assignment. Whilst it resonates with me, I have a different outlook on birth through my occupation. As a scrub nurse in an obstetric theatre I am privileged to be part of a team delivering babies who need a little extra help with delivery. My role involves teaching students and visitors who may be as junior as college students on work experience who have asked permission from the mother to attend so conversation about birth experience with mothers, birth partners, staff and students is natural. We ensure we maintain as much dignity as possible when caring for our women and that photography by the birth partner is limited to just the baby or mum with baby. I wonder if the American culture is slightly different in this instance because even in our delivery rooms, births are not necessarily filmed / photographed. Our patient feedback varies from wanting to watch the delivery moment of a caesarean section in a mirror to criticising that they could watch the operation through the surgeon’s glasses, so I appreciate some viewers of the exhibition not wanting to look at the images.
Bibliography
Kroell, A (2018) Carmen Winant’s Radical Images of Women Giving Birth Hyperallergic. Available at: https://hyperallergic.com/446229/carmen-winant-my-birth-moma-spbh-editions/ Last accessed 10/9/18
MoMA (2018) Carmen Winant, My Birth. Available at: https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/49/745 last accessed 10/9/18
Regensdorf, L (2018) Artist Carmen Winant on Why 2,000 Images of Childbirth Belong at MoMA, Vogue. Available at: https://www.vogue.com/article/carmen-winant-my-birth-being-photography-exhibition-museum-of-modern-art-moma-womens-health-feminism last accessed 10/9/18
Richard Prince Nurse Paintings (2002-08)
Richard Prince’s nurse series was inspired by the stereotypical naughty nurse from the 1950’s and 60’s, Taking the names from the book titles. His technique was to make an inkjet print of the book cover, transfer to canvas and apply paint. “At a glance, his paintings are ironic appropriations intended to deconstruct both a regressive stereotype and the truth of uninhibited gesture. But on closer scrutiny, there is an undeniable element of complicit pleasure in his masterfully casual yet luscious renderings of his coy subjects.” (Gagosian Gallery, 2008) By removing the nurses from their background, the viewer is invited to scrutinise and find the traits which the nurses have been given such as flatulence and crooked teeth. Prince used the nurse to suggest viewers reconsider the American visual culture in a similar was to the Marlborough cowboy. The nurses become “constructed icons of stereotypical fantasies” (theartstory.org) By presenting the nurses as labelled objects such as: Man-Crazy Nurse, Surfer Nurse, Nympho Nurse the consumers of the original literature and Prince’s viewers recognise them but they also become fiction.
Martinique, E (2016) Wide Walls, Richard Prince Available at: https://www.widewalls.ch/richard-prince-photography-richard-prince-paintings/ last accessed 10/9/18
Richard Prince’s nurse series was inspired by the stereotypical naughty nurse from the 1950’s and 60’s, Taking the names from the book titles. His technique was to make an inkjet print of the book cover, transfer to canvas and apply paint. “At a glance, his paintings are ironic appropriations intended to deconstruct both a regressive stereotype and the truth of uninhibited gesture. But on closer scrutiny, there is an undeniable element of complicit pleasure in his masterfully casual yet luscious renderings of his coy subjects.” (Gagosian Gallery, 2008) By removing the nurses from their background, the viewer is invited to scrutinise and find the traits which the nurses have been given such as flatulence and crooked teeth. Prince used the nurse to suggest viewers reconsider the American visual culture in a similar was to the Marlborough cowboy. The nurses become “constructed icons of stereotypical fantasies” (theartstory.org) By presenting the nurses as labelled objects such as: Man-Crazy Nurse, Surfer Nurse, Nympho Nurse the consumers of the original literature and Prince’s viewers recognise them but they also become fiction.
Runaway Nurse (2006) is about sexuality and represents the American drive of self-discovery. The partially clothed female nurse leans erotically on the end of a bed. In 2016 it sold at New York’s Christies for $9,685,000. (Martinique, 2016)
References
Gagosian Gallery (2008) Gagosian Gallery [press release] Available at: https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2008/richard-prince/ last accessed 10/09/18
The Art Story (n.d.) Richard Prince Available at: https://www.theartstory.org/artist-prince-richard.htm last accessed 10/9/18
Martinique, E (2016) Wide Walls, Richard Prince Available at: https://www.widewalls.ch/richard-prince-photography-richard-prince-paintings/ last accessed 10/9/18
Christian Marclay “The clock” (2010)
Documents 24 hours using clocks showing the time from recognisable
films using real time without a narrative. Simple idea although it must have
taken a considerable amount of time for Marclay and a team of researchers to
collect this number of relevant film clips and join them together so the effect
is not jarring or distracting.
Marina Abramovic
Performance artist, explores relationship between performer
and audience. “Cleaning the Mirror” (1995) is about cleaning a skeleton and
becoming covered in dust from the skeleton. There are some interesting pieces
of work and reviewing Marina Abramovic’s work prompted me to consider some of my
assignment work as performative.
Christine Borland
Link found to you tube video on Christine Borland discussing anatomy. Fascinating work. Not quite worked out where my work fits in with it, but may be a useful resource in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAEHDzLd_Es
Jacqueline Donachie (2016) Deep in the heart of your brain
Jacqueline Donachie works with scientists and medical staff
to produce new artworks. This exhibition was at GoMA (Gallery of Modern Art) in
Glasgow and included an installation of a film called Hazel portraying pairs of
sisters who had inherited the myotonic dystrophy gene. The film was based on
the artist’s personal life and she worked with a research centre to understand
the condition and enable conversations to take place between viewers around
aging, relationships and loss.
https://galleryofmodernart.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/deep-in-the-heart-of-your-brain-jacqueline-donachie-20-may-13-november-2015/
Helen Chadwick: Viral landscapes (1989-1990)
A series of 5 photographic montages (layered landscapes) 4’x10’
long of the Pembroke Coast onto which she added enlarged microscopic cells taken
from photographs of her body. She addresses issues such as ecological
pollution, human experience united with nature, identity and self-sufficiency
and uncertain boundaries of fear and violence, her idea being that the cells
are free and vulnerable.
Bibliography
Tony
Oursler: The Influence machine
Ghostly
landscape, séance, immersive, ephemeral, sound and light installation
Bibliography
Selfie City: Alise Tifentale
Source: Tifentale, A (2014) Selfie City Available at: http://d25rsf93iwlmgu.cloudfront.net/downloads/Tifentale_Alise_Selfiecity.pdf last accessed September 2018
2013 selfie was the “international word of the year”.
Vernacular photography and social media phenomenon.
Regarding the torture of others: Susan Sontag
Source: Sontag, S (2004)
Regarding the torture of others. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/regarding-the-torture-of-others.html
last accessed March 2018
60 years (80 years now) “Western memory museum is now mostly
a visual one” people remember events by photographs such as Abu Ghraib
prisoners being tortured.
Panopticism: Michael Foucault
Source: Evans, J and Hall, S (ed) (1999) Panopticism: Michael Foucault. Visual Culture: The reader. Sage Publications Ltd. OCA Course material.
Bentham’s panopticon was an unbuilt circular building in which cells were places looking inwards to a central tower in which a supervisor observed the occupants. Bentham ensured that the occupants were not aware they were being watched by carefully designing the surveillance building so that shadows of the observers would not be seen. The cells could be used to witness people’s behaviour, separate them so they did not plot together or copy, and conduct human experiments. In the 19th century, this type of institution was used as a model for asylums, prisons, young offenders’ institutions and hospitals.
Foucault argues that two ways of exercising power over men are through separation or discipline (Evans and Hall, 1999:62) Often individuals were branded and put under surveillance which Foucault notes is still relevant in today's society. In a prison set-up, fewer security guards are needed which increases the power of their role on a large number of people. (Evans and Hall, 1999: 68) Because the panopticon is quiet and subtle the subject (an object of information rather than a subject in communication) become self-policing.
Prior to the 18th century, public floggings and executions involved punishing the body and created spectacle whereas panopticism was concerned with the soul and created surveillance. However, Foucault was concerned with calculated power and discipline (Green) The panopticism was a technology which diffused throughout society and initially used for discipline but actually increased productivity. (Green)
Foucault described “the carceral network in its compact or disseminated forms with its systems of insertion, distribution, surveillance; observation has been the greatest support in modern society of the normalising of power.” (Green)
Green argues that Foucault thought “multiple forms of domination permeate the social fabric. Power is not so much possessed as exercised through the myriad of institutions and discursive practices that exist at all levels of social life.” (Green)
Wells, (2011:176) documents Tagg’s study of criminals through archives from 1850-1970 using Foucault’s work to recognize how photography such as the process of surveillance is used to discipline people. This involved identification, classification, labelling and analysis. These techniques were used to develop bio-metric data systems in digital photographs for iris scans and fingerprints. Composite images are made up by the police to show the public what they think a criminal may look like. Contemporary photographers using this technique are Nancy Burson (1970’s), Thomas Ruff (1994) and Gerhard Lang (1992)
Surveillance through CCTV cameras as central inspection follows the idea of panopticism. However, CCTV does not offer supervision to help conduct activities better which was part of panopticism. Questions are also raised when browsing the internet such as whether we are still objects of information or whether our behaviour is being normalised through CCTV? McMullin (2015) argues that CCTV is to protect us from terrorist threats rather than providing security. Google / smart glass could be seen as surveillance, but who is doing the watching and what is their purpose? Snapchat and other social media sites – ephemeral images sent between users lasting for a short period of time can be captured and sent to data banks. Again, who is looking at these images. What power do they have? Is our behaviour being normalised by choosing what images we send?
References
Christian Marclay “The clock” (2010)
Documents 24 hours using clocks showing the time from recognisable
films using real time without a narrative. Simple idea although it must have
taken a considerable amount of time for Marclay and a team of researchers to
collect this number of relevant film clips and join them together so the effect
is not jarring or distracting.
Marina Abramovic
Performance artist, explores relationship between performer
and audience. “Cleaning the Mirror” (1995) is about cleaning a skeleton and
becoming covered in dust from the skeleton. There are some interesting pieces
of work and reviewing Marina Abramovic’s work prompted me to consider some of my
assignment work as performative.
Christine Borland
Link found to you tube video on Christine Borland discussing anatomy. Fascinating work. Not quite worked out where my work fits in with it, but may be a useful resource in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAEHDzLd_Es
Jacqueline Donachie (2016) Deep in the heart of your brain
Jacqueline Donachie works with scientists and medical staff
to produce new artworks. This exhibition was at GoMA (Gallery of Modern Art) in
Glasgow and included an installation of a film called Hazel portraying pairs of
sisters who had inherited the myotonic dystrophy gene. The film was based on
the artist’s personal life and she worked with a research centre to understand
the condition and enable conversations to take place between viewers around
aging, relationships and loss.
https://galleryofmodernart.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/deep-in-the-heart-of-your-brain-jacqueline-donachie-20-may-13-november-2015/
https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/art/art-review-jacqueline-donachie-duncan-marquiss-1-4139711
Helen Chadwick: Viral landscapes (1989-1990)
A series of 5 photographic montages (layered landscapes) 4’x10’
long of the Pembroke Coast onto which she added enlarged microscopic cells taken
from photographs of her body. She addresses issues such as ecological
pollution, human experience united with nature, identity and self-sufficiency
and uncertain boundaries of fear and violence, her idea being that the cells
are free and vulnerable.
Bibliography
Tony
Oursler: The Influence machine
Ghostly
landscape, séance, immersive, ephemeral, sound and light installation
Based on
technology and communication and the development of new technology (how things
are always not quite in our grasp in the beginning.
Title taken
from the "Influence Machine" – a schizophrenic condition described by Viktor
Tausk in 1919 where the patient sees their body as an ever changing machine that controls
them (paranoid delusion – like Combine in One flew over the cuckoo’s nest)
Projected
onto trees in urban parks. Remote participants were involved by converting
their words to sound and light.
Bibliography
https://www.tonyoursler.space/the-influence-machine-london/ last accessed sept 18
https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/display/tony-oursler-influence-machine-0 last accessed sept 18
Selfie City: Alise Tifentale
Source: Tifentale, A (2014) Selfie City Available at: http://d25rsf93iwlmgu.cloudfront.net/downloads/Tifentale_Alise_Selfiecity.pdf last accessed September 2018
2013 selfie was the “international word of the year”.
Vernacular photography and social media phenomenon.
Oxford dictionary “a photograph that one has taken of
oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a
social media website.”
elfie encompasses digital self-portraits.
“A new way of not only representing ourself to others but of
communicating with one another through images.” (Rawlings, 2013 as cited by
Tifentale, 2014)
Only 4% of all photos posted on Instagram during one week for
the selfie city project were actual selfies.
Early selfies – Robert Cornelius – daguerreotype (1839)
Hippolyte Bayard self-portrait as drowned man (1840)
Early photographs of Americans on tour in Egyptian ruins can
be described as building the “American self”
(Lingwood , 1986 as cited by Tifentale, 2014). Through self-portrait,
the self is constructed. Performance. “The most intimate place for narcissistic
contemplation, the room with the mirror – a bathroom for example – becomes in
this context the most common of places, where every distinction of the self is
in the end abolished.” Chevrier (n.d)
Every self-portrait is the portrait of another which is a
social construction.
Selfie consists of image and meta-data. It has likes and
shares. Instagram – instantaneous – community – communal and public activity #’s
Photography – time and effort – not selfie if not shared on
social media,
Selfies fit a small number of the population – young adults
(median age 23.7 years in 2013
Selfies not an art form – Marche. Images are not rare. Selfies have been
exhibited in galleries e.g. National #Selfie Portrait Gallery in National
Portrait Gallery in London, curated by Kyle Chayka and Marina Galperina.
Leica sponsored coffee table book.
(Jeff Koons 2017 https://hyperallergic.com/403768/jeff-koons-snapchat-augmented-reality/)
Berger (2011) the experience of taking the photograph is
more important than the pictures themselves.
Regarding the torture of others: Susan Sontag
Source: Sontag, S (2004)
Regarding the torture of others. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/regarding-the-torture-of-others.html
last accessed March 2018
60 years (80 years now) “Western memory museum is now mostly
a visual one” people remember events by photographs such as Abu Ghraib
prisoners being tortured.
2 types of photos emerge from atrocities:
1 Trophy photo- I/we were there and I/we did this e.g.
lynching- collectively photographers thought it was OK to act in this way
2 Photos captured from atrocities – e.g. Abu
Ghraib recording their part in the atrocity from fun to observations which are
shared globally.
People are used to acting / posing for the camera.
Digital footprint - the picture is there permanently. What
should be shown or edited out?
Panopticism: Michael Foucault
Source: Evans, J and Hall, S (ed) (1999) Panopticism: Michael Foucault. Visual Culture: The reader. Sage Publications Ltd. OCA Course material.
Bentham’s panopticon was an unbuilt circular building in which cells were places looking inwards to a central tower in which a supervisor observed the occupants. Bentham ensured that the occupants were not aware they were being watched by carefully designing the surveillance building so that shadows of the observers would not be seen. The cells could be used to witness people’s behaviour, separate them so they did not plot together or copy, and conduct human experiments. In the 19th century, this type of institution was used as a model for asylums, prisons, young offenders’ institutions and hospitals.
Foucault argues that two ways of exercising power over men are through separation or discipline (Evans and Hall, 1999:62) Often individuals were branded and put under surveillance which Foucault notes is still relevant in today's society. In a prison set-up, fewer security guards are needed which increases the power of their role on a large number of people. (Evans and Hall, 1999: 68) Because the panopticon is quiet and subtle the subject (an object of information rather than a subject in communication) become self-policing.
Prior to the 18th century, public floggings and executions involved punishing the body and created spectacle whereas panopticism was concerned with the soul and created surveillance. However, Foucault was concerned with calculated power and discipline (Green) The panopticism was a technology which diffused throughout society and initially used for discipline but actually increased productivity. (Green)
Foucault described “the carceral network in its compact or disseminated forms with its systems of insertion, distribution, surveillance; observation has been the greatest support in modern society of the normalising of power.” (Green)
Green argues that Foucault thought “multiple forms of domination permeate the social fabric. Power is not so much possessed as exercised through the myriad of institutions and discursive practices that exist at all levels of social life.” (Green)
Wells, (2011:176) documents Tagg’s study of criminals through archives from 1850-1970 using Foucault’s work to recognize how photography such as the process of surveillance is used to discipline people. This involved identification, classification, labelling and analysis. These techniques were used to develop bio-metric data systems in digital photographs for iris scans and fingerprints. Composite images are made up by the police to show the public what they think a criminal may look like. Contemporary photographers using this technique are Nancy Burson (1970’s), Thomas Ruff (1994) and Gerhard Lang (1992)
Surveillance through CCTV cameras as central inspection follows the idea of panopticism. However, CCTV does not offer supervision to help conduct activities better which was part of panopticism. Questions are also raised when browsing the internet such as whether we are still objects of information or whether our behaviour is being normalised through CCTV? McMullin (2015) argues that CCTV is to protect us from terrorist threats rather than providing security. Google / smart glass could be seen as surveillance, but who is doing the watching and what is their purpose? Snapchat and other social media sites – ephemeral images sent between users lasting for a short period of time can be captured and sent to data banks. Again, who is looking at these images. What power do they have? Is our behaviour being normalised by choosing what images we send?
The digital self
I’m going to use this exercise as preparation work for Assignment 4. Having decided that my project will have an autobiographical bias representing my career as a nurse, I will examine different types of self and how they fit in with the digital self.
McLeod (2008) explains Freud’s three-part personality in drawings. Referred to as the id, ego and superego, they all develop at various stages of human development. The id is the primitive part of personality and the ego and superego manage it. Basically, the id is instinct, biological, aggressive, demands attention, illogical, irrational and fantasy oriented. The ego reasons, makes decisions, solves problems, and compromises to follow societies rules and etiquette. The ego doesn’t understand right and wrong. “The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self. The conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt […] The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a member of society.” McLeod, (2008)
However, research has provided new evidence that personality traits can evolve and changed throughout life. Online research by Srivastava surveyed more than 132,000 adults ages 21 to 60. “The online assessment tested two prevailing theories: The "hard plaster" theory, which holds that personality is set by age 30, and the "soft plaster" theory, which says change is ongoing and personality is often variable, depending on the situation at hand. In this massive online survey, soft plaster won.” Rodgers (2016) refers to this as the Elastic Self.
Donald Winnicot (1960’s) a “"true self" that is the instinctive core of our personality and must be nurtured and realized. Then there is the "false self" that is created to protect the "true self" from insult and danger. We all have a "true self" that is complex and fragile, but ultimately, is our essence.”
Susan Bright (2010) explains self in self portraits as a “representation of emotions, an outward expression of inner feelings, penetrating self-analysis and self-contemplation that might bestow an immortality of sorts upon the artist.” (Bright, 2010:8) In the postmodern era, the self-image was seen as indexical and reflexive, suggesting that there is “no true self” losing authenticity through division and merging and becoming false. Representation of the self has always been created by the author. Self-portraiture is still popular with artists trying to create an objective through the study of their identity.
“Based on the analysis of teenagers’ online experience, the present study shows that others on the Internet constitute a distinctive “looking glass” that produces a “digital self” that differs from the self-formed offline.” Zhao (2005). Cooley (1964) proposed that others serve as a mirror in which we see ourselves. We form our view of who we are based on interactions with other people. Like looking in a mirror, we learn from responses from others. “Others communicate their attitudes toward us not merely in the expressions they give, but more important, in the expressions they “give off” (Goffman 1959). Through both verbal and nonverbal behaviors, others convey to us, either purposefully or unwittingly, their appraisals of our self-presentations, which in turn shape how we view ourselves.” (Zhao, 2005) This is nonverbal such as tone of voice, facial expression and gesture which is either true or false. By interacting with people face to face, we work out what is true and false, and see what others think of us.
However, according to Zhao, (2005) this theory doesn’t work when applied to a digital world such as the internet. “differentiate between the presentation of self and the conception of self. Although they are closely related, these two aspects of self-construction are affected by different factors. Whereas how we present ourselves to others is influenced by whether we believe others can directly see us or not, how we perceive ourselves is influenced by the extent to which we are able to directly see others and how they respond to us.” Zhao (2005)
Mead (1934) suggested that the self evolves in 2 stages in social interaction; self is constituted by the organization of the attitudes of the significant others in particular social contexts developing multiple selves and then integrating these to represent the views of society.
Looking at development of the digital self on line, Zhao (2005) describes 4 stages: inwardly oriented, narrative, retractable, and multiplied.
Digital self is a mask of our true self. People needs to look at technology etiquette e.g. own phone use and the impact it has on the world around them. Phones distract from family life so is the person using the technology showing their real self and values or conforming to societies demands? (Hicks, 2010)
Susan Bright (2010) suggests that self-portraiture is popular in vernacular photography for sharing but questions whether certain poses are selfies. Photographers are exploring this in different ways through photo booths as a neutral space and Ole John Aandal – Juvenilia (2007-) who is studying teenagers domestic body part selfies.
Some photographers become impersonators and create fake identities to enable them to study peoples’ obsession with fame often revealing themselves later. Nikki S Lee ‘s Project series (1997-2001) examined issues of race, gender and sexuality by infiltrating groups in New York, allowing the study of self and the other. Viewers concentrate on the similarities between Lee and the group rather than the differences. (Bright, 2010:11)
Bright ‘s book Auto Focus, The self portrait in Contemporary Photography divides self portraits into 5 categories; autobiography, body, masquerade, studio and album and performance. In each of her chapters are illustrated with photographers who fit into these categories. I will research this separately for assignment prep.
References
The digital self
I’m going to use this exercise as preparation work for Assignment 4. Having decided that my project will have an autobiographical bias representing my career as a nurse, I will examine different types of self and how they fit in with the digital self.
McLeod (2008) explains Freud’s three-part personality in drawings. Referred to as the id, ego and superego, they all develop at various stages of human development. The id is the primitive part of personality and the ego and superego manage it. Basically, the id is instinct, biological, aggressive, demands attention, illogical, irrational and fantasy oriented. The ego reasons, makes decisions, solves problems, and compromises to follow societies rules and etiquette. The ego doesn’t understand right and wrong. “The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self. The conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt […] The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a member of society.” McLeod, (2008)
However, research has provided new evidence that personality traits can evolve and changed throughout life. Online research by Srivastava surveyed more than 132,000 adults ages 21 to 60. “The online assessment tested two prevailing theories: The "hard plaster" theory, which holds that personality is set by age 30, and the "soft plaster" theory, which says change is ongoing and personality is often variable, depending on the situation at hand. In this massive online survey, soft plaster won.” Rodgers (2016) refers to this as the Elastic Self.
Donald Winnicot (1960’s) a “"true self" that is the instinctive core of our personality and must be nurtured and realized. Then there is the "false self" that is created to protect the "true self" from insult and danger. We all have a "true self" that is complex and fragile, but ultimately, is our essence.”
Susan Bright (2010) explains self in self portraits as a “representation of emotions, an outward expression of inner feelings, penetrating self-analysis and self-contemplation that might bestow an immortality of sorts upon the artist.” (Bright, 2010:8) In the postmodern era, the self-image was seen as indexical and reflexive, suggesting that there is “no true self” losing authenticity through division and merging and becoming false. Representation of the self has always been created by the author. Self-portraiture is still popular with artists trying to create an objective through the study of their identity.
“Based on the analysis of teenagers’ online experience, the present study shows that others on the Internet constitute a distinctive “looking glass” that produces a “digital self” that differs from the self-formed offline.” Zhao (2005). Cooley (1964) proposed that others serve as a mirror in which we see ourselves. We form our view of who we are based on interactions with other people. Like looking in a mirror, we learn from responses from others. “Others communicate their attitudes toward us not merely in the expressions they give, but more important, in the expressions they “give off” (Goffman 1959). Through both verbal and nonverbal behaviors, others convey to us, either purposefully or unwittingly, their appraisals of our self-presentations, which in turn shape how we view ourselves.” (Zhao, 2005) This is nonverbal such as tone of voice, facial expression and gesture which is either true or false. By interacting with people face to face, we work out what is true and false, and see what others think of us.
However, according to Zhao, (2005) this theory doesn’t work when applied to a digital world such as the internet. “differentiate between the presentation of self and the conception of self. Although they are closely related, these two aspects of self-construction are affected by different factors. Whereas how we present ourselves to others is influenced by whether we believe others can directly see us or not, how we perceive ourselves is influenced by the extent to which we are able to directly see others and how they respond to us.” Zhao (2005)
Mead (1934) suggested that the self evolves in 2 stages in social interaction; self is constituted by the organization of the attitudes of the significant others in particular social contexts developing multiple selves and then integrating these to represent the views of society.
Looking at development of the digital self on line, Zhao (2005) describes 4 stages: inwardly oriented, narrative, retractable, and multiplied.
Digital self is a mask of our true self. People needs to look at technology etiquette e.g. own phone use and the impact it has on the world around them. Phones distract from family life so is the person using the technology showing their real self and values or conforming to societies demands? (Hicks, 2010)
Susan Bright (2010) suggests that self-portraiture is popular in vernacular photography for sharing but questions whether certain poses are selfies. Photographers are exploring this in different ways through photo booths as a neutral space and Ole John Aandal – Juvenilia (2007-) who is studying teenagers domestic body part selfies.
Some photographers become impersonators and create fake identities to enable them to study peoples’ obsession with fame often revealing themselves later. Nikki S Lee ‘s Project series (1997-2001) examined issues of race, gender and sexuality by infiltrating groups in New York, allowing the study of self and the other. Viewers concentrate on the similarities between Lee and the group rather than the differences. (Bright, 2010:11)
Bright ‘s book Auto Focus, The self portrait in Contemporary Photography divides self portraits into 5 categories; autobiography, body, masquerade, studio and album and performance. In each of her chapters are illustrated with photographers who fit into these categories. I will research this separately for assignment prep.
Compassion Fatigue
Source: Campbell, D. (2012) The myth of compassion fatigue. [online] Available at: https://www.david-campbell.org/2012/02/29/the-myth-of-compassion-fatigue/ last accessed 19/9/17
Compassion fatigue is linked to photography because images are used to promote charitable appeals and media coverage shows human suffering.
Compassion fatigue in media and politics is different from compassion fatigue in health and social care (excess of compassion or secondary post-traumatic stress disorder.) Compassion fatigue was defined in the OED in 2012 as:
“an American term meaning “apathy or indifference towards the suffering of others or to charitable causes acting on their behalf, typically attributed to numbingly frequent appeals for assistance’ esp. donations: (hence) a diminishing public response to frequent charitable appeals.”
Cause (numbingly frequent appeals of charities acting on behalf of others)
Effect (apathy / indifference)
Cohen – populist psychology thesis of compassion fatigue – information overload, desensitisation and normalisation. People respond on individual basis.
Debate over not responding to crises has been happening for centuries (as early as 1500’s) with claims that photography is an analgaesic (John Taylor), contemporary cliché (Susie Litchfield).
Relationship between imagery and social impact could be described as pornographic (violation of dignity, taking things out of context, exploitation, objectification, putting horror and misery on display, encouragement of voyeurism, construction of desire, unacceptable sexuality, oral and political perversion etc) Argument falls down because although it is assumed that we are subjected to much pornographic imagery (and the voyeuristic side of it makes us want to look) we fail to recognise when we should respond to something portrayed by the media. If we had compassion fatigue, we would have an aversion to seeing the images. Evidence does not match this.
Susan Sontag claimed compassion fatigue existed in On Photography, but by Regarding the Pain of Others, she revoked her argument.
Susan Moeller popularized the theory of Compassion Fatigue with a book in 1999. “Moeller’s claims to reveal how in her hand ‘compassion fatigue’ is an empty signifier that becomes attached to a range of often contradictory explanations and factors.”
Evidence shows that individuals respond differently to media coverage and it will be issue dependent. “Identifiable victim effect” – if the victim is identifiable people react differently than if the issue is statistics. An image of one person in distress is more effective than two or more or accounts. A sad facial expression gave the viewer “emotional contagion” and sympathy with the victim.
Emotional engagement, on the other hand, allows the individual to look at the context surrounding the victim in more detail. This can negate the need to send donations to the disaster / issue.
18/9/17
I was surprised that the account was so honest. This seemed to fit with the emotional engagement which Campbell mentions.
The Guardian’s article (Hodal, 2016) mentions compassion fatigue being one of the reasons that people are not giving generously to all the natural and political disasters such as the Yemen food crisis, quoting Moeller to authenticate the arguments. She also suggests that the United Nations is being driven by results and political leaders such as Trump have a part to play in deciding what is funded. However, I have to agree with Campbell’s theory that compassion fatigue is used as an excuse and perhaps to keep the American dream alive?
Bibliography
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/04/un-biggest-aid-appeal-fears-of-compassion-fatigue
Atrocity and Action: The Performative Force of the Abu Ghraib Photographs (2012) Peggy Phelan
Source: Phelan, P (2012) Atrocity and Action: The Performative Force of the Abu Ghraib Photographs in Bachten, G. at al (eds) (2012) Picturing Atrocity: Photography in crisis, London: Reacktion Books. (Pp51-61)
Phelan questions what photographs of atrocities prohibit and prevent by examining images through performance. When presented with an atrocity photograph, viewer considers what has been done, what is being done and what they can do to help. In digital photography, the photograph is seen when it is taken and on viewing. Phelan argues there is a blind spot in atrocity photographs so the viewer may not see what the photograph is really depicting because the image is traumatic.
Phelan compares atrocity photographs to Barthes punctum in Camera Lucida where the press of the shutter signals the death of the subject. Barthes thought that a portrait photograph activates mourning through its affective force by providing a space for grief. If the subject is already dead, the viewer goes through more extreme grief because they are reflecting on the literal subject.
Phelan argues that atrocity photographs don’t work like this because they are in the present rather than the past tense. The viewer may find the first reading traumatic and then the image is seen in the past tense. Occasionally an atrocity photograph stands out – one which maintains its “performative force” and not judged on truth. (Phelan, 2012:54).
Atrocity photographs share a link with trauma psychology and may activate a trauma which has not been coded or decoded. People may react to atrocity with disbelief or defensiveness. Culture will affect the way the photograph is regarded. Absorption, repression, political meaning, evidence, art exhibitions and triggers to violence are all ways in which the atrocity may be viewed. Errol Morris (2009) produced a film called Standard Operating Procedure showing some of these images.
The photographs can be viewed through different gazes; the male gaze, imperial colonist gaze, racist gaze as we are used to Hollywood using scenes like this in movies. The Abu Ghraib atrocity images were taken by American soldiers of Iraq prisoners (e.g. Gilligan on a box (2003) Sergeant Ivan Frederick). America looked defensively at these photographs and questions what it said about them rather than being concerned for the prisoners. If these are compared to historical events the present tense is removed making them easier to look at. E.g. The hooded man has his head covered so the viewer does not know who he is and his pose is Christ-like. In other images, prisoners are covered in blood or handcuffed and portrayed as if close to death. This removes the subject from the photograph. Phelan explains that because of this we do not see what is really being portrayed which she described as the blind spot. Photographs are labelled – ideology, sadism, racism, ethical, pornography of war, imprisonment which still does not address the issue. The photographs were taken so that the prisoners would release intelligence information to their interrogators. The photographs are preparation for what comes next in war.
In order to see the photograph, the viewer has to recognise that people can’t see. Didl Huberman explains that
“With the visible, we are of course in the realm of what manifests itself. The visual, by contrast, would designate that irregular net of event symptoms that reaches the visible as so many gleams or radiances, “traces of articulation”, as so many indices…indices of what? Of something – a work, a memory in process, that has been nowhere fully described, attested or set down in an archive, because its signifying “material” is the first of all the image.” (Phelan, 2012:56)
The implied interpretation makes us not see what is in the photograph. Photographs pose as weapons. We ask questions. Torture is made visible. Errol Morris and Philip Gourevitch argue that
“the pose is obviously contrived and theatrical, a deliberate intervention that appears to belong to some dark ritual, a primal scene of martyrdom. The picture transfixes us because it looks like the truth, but looking at it we can only imagine what the truth is: torture, execution and a scene staged for the camera. So we seize on the figure of Gilligan as a symbol that stands for all that was wrong at Abu Ghraib – and all that we cannot and do not want to – understand about how it came to this. (Phelan, 2012:59)
The viewers ask questions such as who, why, what, when, where, how and react differently to the images which contribute to the meaning of how we view Abu Ghraib.
Compassion Fatigue
Source: Campbell, D. (2012) The myth of compassion fatigue. [online] Available at: https://www.david-campbell.org/2012/02/29/the-myth-of-compassion-fatigue/ last accessed 19/9/17
Compassion fatigue is linked to photography because images are used to promote charitable appeals and media coverage shows human suffering.
Compassion fatigue in media and politics is different from compassion fatigue in health and social care (excess of compassion or secondary post-traumatic stress disorder.) Compassion fatigue was defined in the OED in 2012 as:
“an American term meaning “apathy or indifference towards the suffering of others or to charitable causes acting on their behalf, typically attributed to numbingly frequent appeals for assistance’ esp. donations: (hence) a diminishing public response to frequent charitable appeals.”
Cause (numbingly frequent appeals of charities acting on behalf of others)
Effect (apathy / indifference)
Evidence of effect (diminishing public response)
Cohen – populist psychology thesis of compassion fatigue – information overload, desensitisation and normalisation. People respond on individual basis.
How is it perceived that the viewer acts when looking at atrocity pictures? Do we act? Or are we overshadowed by politics? Do we believe in the compassion theory because it fits with what theorists would like to think is happening?
Debate over not responding to crises has been happening for centuries (as early as 1500’s) with claims that photography is an analgaesic (John Taylor), contemporary cliché (Susie Litchfield).
Relationship between imagery and social impact could be described as pornographic (violation of dignity, taking things out of context, exploitation, objectification, putting horror and misery on display, encouragement of voyeurism, construction of desire, unacceptable sexuality, oral and political perversion etc) Argument falls down because although it is assumed that we are subjected to much pornographic imagery (and the voyeuristic side of it makes us want to look) we fail to recognise when we should respond to something portrayed by the media. If we had compassion fatigue, we would have an aversion to seeing the images. Evidence does not match this.
Susan Sontag claimed compassion fatigue existed in On Photography, but by Regarding the Pain of Others, she revoked her argument.
Susan Moeller popularized the theory of Compassion Fatigue with a book in 1999. “Moeller’s claims to reveal how in her hand ‘compassion fatigue’ is an empty signifier that becomes attached to a range of often contradictory explanations and factors.”
Evidence shows that individuals respond differently to media coverage and it will be issue dependent. “Identifiable victim effect” – if the victim is identifiable people react differently than if the issue is statistics. An image of one person in distress is more effective than two or more or accounts. A sad facial expression gave the viewer “emotional contagion” and sympathy with the victim.
Emotional engagement, on the other hand, allows the individual to look at the context surrounding the victim in more detail. This can negate the need to send donations to the disaster / issue.
18/9/17
BBC posted a video clip entitled “The boy who shocked the world – It has been a year since the suffering of Saleem became the face of Yemen’s suffering. But where is he now?”
A sensational claim of the world being shocked at the 350,000 children in Yemen focussed on Salem, a 6yr old who had severe malnutrition. He was taken to a WHO feeding centre where his malnutrition was treated. The BBC claim the number of starving children has now risen to 2million. The BBC reporter also shares that Salim is now suffering from brain damage and stunted growth.
Researching Salim, he does appear in several papers, just giving, UNICEF etc. There have been updates on his progress and people have given money. UNICEF were half way towards their target last year and the crowd funding doctor nearly reached a fifth of their target before closing the just giving page.
I was surprised that the account was so honest. This seemed to fit with the emotional engagement which Campbell mentions.
The Guardian’s article (Hodal, 2016) mentions compassion fatigue being one of the reasons that people are not giving generously to all the natural and political disasters such as the Yemen food crisis, quoting Moeller to authenticate the arguments. She also suggests that the United Nations is being driven by results and political leaders such as Trump have a part to play in deciding what is funded. However, I have to agree with Campbell’s theory that compassion fatigue is used as an excuse and perhaps to keep the American dream alive?
Bibliography
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/04/un-biggest-aid-appeal-fears-of-compassion-fatigue
Atrocity and Action: The Performative Force of the Abu Ghraib Photographs (2012) Peggy Phelan
Source: Phelan, P (2012) Atrocity and Action: The Performative Force of the Abu Ghraib Photographs in Bachten, G. at al (eds) (2012) Picturing Atrocity: Photography in crisis, London: Reacktion Books. (Pp51-61)
Phelan questions what photographs of atrocities prohibit and prevent by examining images through performance. When presented with an atrocity photograph, viewer considers what has been done, what is being done and what they can do to help. In digital photography, the photograph is seen when it is taken and on viewing. Phelan argues there is a blind spot in atrocity photographs so the viewer may not see what the photograph is really depicting because the image is traumatic.
Phelan compares atrocity photographs to Barthes punctum in Camera Lucida where the press of the shutter signals the death of the subject. Barthes thought that a portrait photograph activates mourning through its affective force by providing a space for grief. If the subject is already dead, the viewer goes through more extreme grief because they are reflecting on the literal subject.
Phelan argues that atrocity photographs don’t work like this because they are in the present rather than the past tense. The viewer may find the first reading traumatic and then the image is seen in the past tense. Occasionally an atrocity photograph stands out – one which maintains its “performative force” and not judged on truth. (Phelan, 2012:54).
Atrocity photographs share a link with trauma psychology and may activate a trauma which has not been coded or decoded. People may react to atrocity with disbelief or defensiveness. Culture will affect the way the photograph is regarded. Absorption, repression, political meaning, evidence, art exhibitions and triggers to violence are all ways in which the atrocity may be viewed. Errol Morris (2009) produced a film called Standard Operating Procedure showing some of these images.
The photographs can be viewed through different gazes; the male gaze, imperial colonist gaze, racist gaze as we are used to Hollywood using scenes like this in movies. The Abu Ghraib atrocity images were taken by American soldiers of Iraq prisoners (e.g. Gilligan on a box (2003) Sergeant Ivan Frederick). America looked defensively at these photographs and questions what it said about them rather than being concerned for the prisoners. If these are compared to historical events the present tense is removed making them easier to look at. E.g. The hooded man has his head covered so the viewer does not know who he is and his pose is Christ-like. In other images, prisoners are covered in blood or handcuffed and portrayed as if close to death. This removes the subject from the photograph. Phelan explains that because of this we do not see what is really being portrayed which she described as the blind spot. Photographs are labelled – ideology, sadism, racism, ethical, pornography of war, imprisonment which still does not address the issue. The photographs were taken so that the prisoners would release intelligence information to their interrogators. The photographs are preparation for what comes next in war.
In order to see the photograph, the viewer has to recognise that people can’t see. Didl Huberman explains that
“With the visible, we are of course in the realm of what manifests itself. The visual, by contrast, would designate that irregular net of event symptoms that reaches the visible as so many gleams or radiances, “traces of articulation”, as so many indices…indices of what? Of something – a work, a memory in process, that has been nowhere fully described, attested or set down in an archive, because its signifying “material” is the first of all the image.” (Phelan, 2012:56)
The implied interpretation makes us not see what is in the photograph. Photographs pose as weapons. We ask questions. Torture is made visible. Errol Morris and Philip Gourevitch argue that
“the pose is obviously contrived and theatrical, a deliberate intervention that appears to belong to some dark ritual, a primal scene of martyrdom. The picture transfixes us because it looks like the truth, but looking at it we can only imagine what the truth is: torture, execution and a scene staged for the camera. So we seize on the figure of Gilligan as a symbol that stands for all that was wrong at Abu Ghraib – and all that we cannot and do not want to – understand about how it came to this. (Phelan, 2012:59)
The viewers ask questions such as who, why, what, when, where, how and react differently to the images which contribute to the meaning of how we view Abu Ghraib.
The Photographic Image in Digital Culture: Susan Murray.
Source: Murray, L. (ed.) (2013) The Photographic Image in Digital Culture: Susan Murray. Abingdon: Routledge. (Pp165-82)
Revisiting Flickr
- Flickr images organised in groups and batches (technological features) and fetishization, classification, collection, memory, flow, taste, signification, identification (functions).
- Members page – “decentralised network of similar pages” contributing “to the construction of a community [through keywords tags, comments and contact lists] and larger collection of photographs.” Lister: 2013:165)
- “Collaborative experience: a shared display of memory, taste, history, daily life and judgement through which amateur and professional photographers collectively articulate a novel, digitized (and decentralised) aesthetic of the everyday.” (Lister: 2013:165)
- Digital camera is necessary to document daily life, resulting in a temporal shift with our association of everyday images and narratives about ourselves and our relationship with the world.
- Online photo-sharing with Facebook makes it accessible for anyone to upload whole album in one go to share with family and friends. Other sites focus on on-line storage with personalised memorabilia such as mugs, I Phone cases.
- Flickr and Facebook differ in sharing with the community which has enabled the two to remain in the digital world.
- Flickr influences the development of photographic technique – e.g. filters, calls members artists and concentrates on aesthetic practice rather than online social identities and offline lives.
- Flickr – slow photography “goal is the experience of studying some object carefully and exercising creative choice.” (Wu as cited by Lister, 2013:168) “Another redefinition in digital practice.” (Lister, 2013:168)
- Flickr blog - techniques, teaching, sharing – different from other social networking sites.
Brief history of amateur and domestic photography
Zimmerman – Kodak cameras – leisure / consumer activity. “organised social and artistic practice that was valued for its spontaneity, authenticity, naturalness and emotialism (particularly in the widespread use and reference to pictorialism).” (Lister, 2013:169) Two types of amateurs – fun or special events recording and “serious amateurs” who engaged in art and middle to upper class leisure. Professionals worked in studios. Pictorialism was inescapable; people wanted to replicate nature and so modern urban life and subjects which populate social networking sites was considered unacceptable. Zimmerman argued that this “deflected cameras, at least on the discursive level, from insertion into the day to day world of industrial capitalism.” (Lister, 2013:169)
Manovich in 1995 wrote “The logic of the digital photograph is one of historical continuity and discontinuity. The digital image tears apart the net of semiotic codes, modes and of display, and patterns of spectreship in modern visual culture – and at the same time, weaves this net even stronger. The digital image annihilates photography while solidifying, glorifying and immortalising the photograph. In short, this logic is that of photography after photography.” (Lister, 2013:170)
Theorists have now moved past the issue of indexicality and representation to study the materiality, universal presence and ephemeralness of digital photographs and question whether the value and meaning of the images is diminished. Cohen studied photobloggers and noticed that they appeared to post banal images to stress that their images are not traditional snapshot images but life as they experience it.
Transience, collection and the everyday image
“Mobile imagining as autobiographical practice proceeds according to a logic of catalogue or database...Such a logic privileges techniques of selection and (re)combination, which do not operate according to cause-effect relations.” (Heidi Rae Cooley as cited by Lister, 2013:174)
Some categories on Flickr have very strict rules on what can be included but although the images are all a specific type, they are all unique. E.g doors and windows in decay.
Line is blurred on Flickr between serious amateurs and professionals but clues are present such as comments and followers. New category emerging called “ephemera” because photographs are not as precious as they once were. Disposable – images on memory cards are deleted. Visible straight away and the owner can decide if they keep the image. Taken as everyday moments. Group photo pools have larger albums – shared interests and fetishes.
“Digitisation allows for reinvigoration or remediation of what is essentially a form of album making, which can co-exist with other forms of memory making.” (Hand as cited by Lister, 2013:176)
“While digital photography has become a social tool for “identity, formation, communication and experience” it also remains – like the forms of photography before it – a tool of memory.” (Jose Van Dijk as cited by Lister, 2013:176)
“Digital personal photography gives rise to the new social practices in which pictures are considered visual resources in the microcultures of everyday life. In these microcultures, memory does not so much disappear from the spectrum of social use as it takes on a different meaning.” (Jose Van Dijk as cited by Lister, 2013:176)
Photo sharing and communal aesthetics
“While digital photography itself has not revolutionised photography or led to the loss of authenticity of an image as predicted early on, it has significantly altered our relationship to the practice of photography (when coupled with social networking software) as well as to our expectations for and interactions with the image and everyday aesthetic.” (Lister, 2013:180)
Source: Murray, L. (ed.) (2013) The Photographic Image in Digital Culture: Susan Murray. Abingdon: Routledge. (Pp165-82)
Revisiting Flickr
- Flickr images organised in groups and batches (technological features) and fetishization, classification, collection, memory, flow, taste, signification, identification (functions).
- Members page – “decentralised network of similar pages” contributing “to the construction of a community [through keywords tags, comments and contact lists] and larger collection of photographs.” Lister: 2013:165)
- “Collaborative experience: a shared display of memory, taste, history, daily life and judgement through which amateur and professional photographers collectively articulate a novel, digitized (and decentralised) aesthetic of the everyday.” (Lister: 2013:165)
- Digital camera is necessary to document daily life, resulting in a temporal shift with our association of everyday images and narratives about ourselves and our relationship with the world.
- Online photo-sharing with Facebook makes it accessible for anyone to upload whole album in one go to share with family and friends. Other sites focus on on-line storage with personalised memorabilia such as mugs, I Phone cases.
- Flickr and Facebook differ in sharing with the community which has enabled the two to remain in the digital world.
- Flickr influences the development of photographic technique – e.g. filters, calls members artists and concentrates on aesthetic practice rather than online social identities and offline lives.
- Flickr – slow photography “goal is the experience of studying some object carefully and exercising creative choice.” (Wu as cited by Lister, 2013:168) “Another redefinition in digital practice.” (Lister, 2013:168)
- Flickr blog - techniques, teaching, sharing – different from other social networking sites.
Brief history of amateur and domestic photography
Zimmerman – Kodak cameras – leisure / consumer activity. “organised social and artistic practice that was valued for its spontaneity, authenticity, naturalness and emotialism (particularly in the widespread use and reference to pictorialism).” (Lister, 2013:169) Two types of amateurs – fun or special events recording and “serious amateurs” who engaged in art and middle to upper class leisure. Professionals worked in studios. Pictorialism was inescapable; people wanted to replicate nature and so modern urban life and subjects which populate social networking sites was considered unacceptable. Zimmerman argued that this “deflected cameras, at least on the discursive level, from insertion into the day to day world of industrial capitalism.” (Lister, 2013:169)
Manovich in 1995 wrote “The logic of the digital photograph is one of historical continuity and discontinuity. The digital image tears apart the net of semiotic codes, modes and of display, and patterns of spectreship in modern visual culture – and at the same time, weaves this net even stronger. The digital image annihilates photography while solidifying, glorifying and immortalising the photograph. In short, this logic is that of photography after photography.” (Lister, 2013:170)
Theorists have now moved past the issue of indexicality and representation to study the materiality, universal presence and ephemeralness of digital photographs and question whether the value and meaning of the images is diminished. Cohen studied photobloggers and noticed that they appeared to post banal images to stress that their images are not traditional snapshot images but life as they experience it.
Transience, collection and the everyday image
Photography linked to history, memory, absence and loss by several writers including Barthes and Benjamin. Pollen argues that Flickr and digital photography websites is more transient than loss. Flickr moves the old photos to the back when new ones are uploaded, providing an autobiographical account of the photographer.
“Mobile imagining as autobiographical practice proceeds according to a logic of catalogue or database...Such a logic privileges techniques of selection and (re)combination, which do not operate according to cause-effect relations.” (Heidi Rae Cooley as cited by Lister, 2013:174)
Some categories on Flickr have very strict rules on what can be included but although the images are all a specific type, they are all unique. E.g doors and windows in decay.
Line is blurred on Flickr between serious amateurs and professionals but clues are present such as comments and followers. New category emerging called “ephemera” because photographs are not as precious as they once were. Disposable – images on memory cards are deleted. Visible straight away and the owner can decide if they keep the image. Taken as everyday moments. Group photo pools have larger albums – shared interests and fetishes.
“Digitisation allows for reinvigoration or remediation of what is essentially a form of album making, which can co-exist with other forms of memory making.” (Hand as cited by Lister, 2013:176)
“While digital photography has become a social tool for “identity, formation, communication and experience” it also remains – like the forms of photography before it – a tool of memory.” (Jose Van Dijk as cited by Lister, 2013:176)
“Digital personal photography gives rise to the new social practices in which pictures are considered visual resources in the microcultures of everyday life. In these microcultures, memory does not so much disappear from the spectrum of social use as it takes on a different meaning.” (Jose Van Dijk as cited by Lister, 2013:176)
Photo sharing and communal aesthetics
Pollen compares Flickr to Bourdieau’s Camera Club studies in that they have similar aspirations and practices although Flickr is much larger with its various communities. Flickr in partnership with Getty images so if some images are chosen, members are paid. Pollen argues that the lines between what is an acceptable image and what is not is blurred, as well as amateurs and professionals being indistinguishable. Whereas old photographs may be scratched or grainy, people seek to do this by decreasing the resolution or compression or adding filters on Instagram or Snapseed; what Manovich calls manipulation.
“While digital photography itself has not revolutionised photography or led to the loss of authenticity of an image as predicted early on, it has significantly altered our relationship to the practice of photography (when coupled with social networking software) as well as to our expectations for and interactions with the image and everyday aesthetic.” (Lister, 2013:180)
When is a cliche not a cliche? Reconsidering mass produced sunsets. Annebella Pollen
Source: Pollen, A. (n.d.) When is a cliche not a cliche? Reconsidering mass produced sunsets. Available at: http://eitherand.org/reconsidering-amateur-photography/when-cliche-not-cliche-reconsidering-mass-produced/ last accessed 27/6/17
Sunsets are ephemeral. Every one is different. Sunset photographs on the other hand are "the most predictable, culturally devalued and banal of all image making practices." (Pollen, A. n.d) Beautiful like a chocolate box through misuse, or the type of subject matter which amateurs strive to photograph well.
As early as 1908, Adolf Loos, a Viennese artist claimed that simplicity was an asset and beautifying was a crime. John Cooper Powys in Meaning of Culture (1930) suggested that “the less cultured you are, the more you require from nature before you can be roused for reciprocity” (Pollen, A) implying that amateurs took waterfalls and sunsets whilst the more experienced were happy with grass blades on a stone.
"Photographs create the beautiful and - over generations of picture-taking - use it up. Certain glories of nature... have been all but abandoned to the indefatigable attentions of amateur camera buffs. The image-surfeited are likely to find sunsets corny; they now look, alas, too much like photographs." (Sontag as cited by Pollen, n.d) meaning photographic mass-production saturates the market and the awe is lost as well as declaring that sunset photographs are the products of the aesthetically naive. Sontag further explains that "In photography's earliest decades, photographs were expected to be idealized images. This is still the aim of most amateur photographers, for whom a beautiful photograph is a photograph of something beautiful, like a woman, a sunset."
In 1966, photography critic Julian Stallabrass's ‘Sixty Billion Sunsets’ studied the photographic practice of amateurs and concluded that they were similar to the object in question. His criticism "of mass photographic practice is based on what he perceives to be its overwhelmingly conventionalised sameness (unlike elite art practices, which are positively polarised as avant-garde, creative and distinctive). In commodified camera culture, everyone takes photos of similar things." (Pollen, A) He declared that all sunset photographs were the same.
This idea continued throughout the 1960's where cliched photographs were given a low cultural status, being thought of as having a "limited aesthetic vision and an undeveloped practice." (Pollen, A) Sontag explained that as photographers became more experienced in art and photography, they grew out of taking cliched pictures. In the 1960’s SociologistsRobert Castell and Dominique Schnapper studied a camera club in which a member echoed these sentiments, suggesting that as photographers gain experience they don’t do banal or pretty.
Advice in magazines, online journals, blogs and camera clubs still teach and confuse amateurs with technical and aesthetic advice to aspire to “a good photo”, recognising that not all sunsets are the same.
In 1987, the One Day for Life large-scale charity amateur photography competition, where a national press campaign encouraged “everyone with a camera” to take a photograph of everyday life in Britain competing for a place in a chronological 24-hour book. There were 50,000 photographic rejects of the competition and an archive containing thousands of sunset examples is stored at the University of Sussex. The overall winning photograph was a sunset.
The context of the book suggests that sunrise and sunset within the 24hour time frame. Capture this successfully and you could be featured in the book. This opens the cliché to all who enter the competition rather than just amateurs. Pollard argues that the sunset becomes the signified and signifier of amateur photography. If the book is about amateur photography, photographers may choose to shoot the ordinary, everyday subjects, or even bad photographs. The cover design was a sunset to represent a book of photographs rather than other subjects such as dogs.
The narrative of the images included sunsets (of) and social and aesthetic narratives such as industrial chimneys against the sunset depicting disease (about) often with text because the book was to raise money for charity.
“Their potential to be, at once, undistinguished and prize-winning, clichéd and rich with supporting meaning, is evidently the case with the overall ‘winning’ image, which, despite its ‘chocolate box’ appearance, was a photograph taken in and of the Republic of Ireland, and was intended to function as a critical political commentary on the nationalist limitations of One Day for Life’s British focus at the time of the Troubles.” (Pollen, A)
The digital culture has made us more visually-literate times and artistically knowledgeable, and although the dissemination of images has changed, preferred photographic subjects do not differ much with photographs of friends, family and leisure still dominating. Even advice is still similar to historical advice. Pollard argues that the amount of images produced has increased significantly along with the number opportunities for circulation.
Lynn Berger explains that images become more stereotyped because people see thousands of images of the same subject e.g. 6,000 photographs uploaded to Flickr each minute. In Penelope Umbrico’s ongoing project of 8,730,221Suns from Flickr (2011), sunsets are the untouchable photographic subject. In 2006, she found half a million photographs on Flickr. “She then cropped just the sun from these images and printed a partial representation of the mass in a grouped format that borders on the mathematical sublime. The title of this work changes whenever the work is exhibited to reflect the ever-rising quantity of sunsets available on Flickr on the day that the work is hung; currently there are over 9 million examples. Umbrico says that “the title itself has become a comment on the ever-increasing use of web-based photo-communities, and a reflection on the ubiquity of pre-scripted collective content there.” (Pollen, A)
People continue to photograph sunsets and other clichés because each photograph is exclusive to the photographer. Sunsets are still submitted for competition or public appraisal, representing a lasting, shared significance. Sunsets could be themed linguistically relating Victor Burgin to photography – “signalling “repetition with different significations, or one repeated picture with different captions… As Richard Dyer has argued about stereotypes: they “are a very simple, striking, easily-grasped form of representation but are none the less capable of condensing a great deal of complex information and a host of connotations.” (Pollen, A)
Sunsets are ephemeral. Every one is different. Sunset photographs on the other hand are "the most predictable, culturally devalued and banal of all image making practices." (Pollen, A. n.d) Beautiful like a chocolate box through misuse, or the type of subject matter which amateurs strive to photograph well.
As early as 1908, Adolf Loos, a Viennese artist claimed that simplicity was an asset and beautifying was a crime. John Cooper Powys in Meaning of Culture (1930) suggested that “the less cultured you are, the more you require from nature before you can be roused for reciprocity” (Pollen, A) implying that amateurs took waterfalls and sunsets whilst the more experienced were happy with grass blades on a stone.
"Photographs create the beautiful and - over generations of picture-taking - use it up. Certain glories of nature... have been all but abandoned to the indefatigable attentions of amateur camera buffs. The image-surfeited are likely to find sunsets corny; they now look, alas, too much like photographs." (Sontag as cited by Pollen, n.d) meaning photographic mass-production saturates the market and the awe is lost as well as declaring that sunset photographs are the products of the aesthetically naive. Sontag further explains that "In photography's earliest decades, photographs were expected to be idealized images. This is still the aim of most amateur photographers, for whom a beautiful photograph is a photograph of something beautiful, like a woman, a sunset."
In 1966, photography critic Julian Stallabrass's ‘Sixty Billion Sunsets’ studied the photographic practice of amateurs and concluded that they were similar to the object in question. His criticism "of mass photographic practice is based on what he perceives to be its overwhelmingly conventionalised sameness (unlike elite art practices, which are positively polarised as avant-garde, creative and distinctive). In commodified camera culture, everyone takes photos of similar things." (Pollen, A) He declared that all sunset photographs were the same.
This idea continued throughout the 1960's where cliched photographs were given a low cultural status, being thought of as having a "limited aesthetic vision and an undeveloped practice." (Pollen, A) Sontag explained that as photographers became more experienced in art and photography, they grew out of taking cliched pictures. In the 1960’s SociologistsRobert Castell and Dominique Schnapper studied a camera club in which a member echoed these sentiments, suggesting that as photographers gain experience they don’t do banal or pretty.
It seems that training develops photographic vision. Bourdieu questioned whether taste is inherent in social hierarchy and cultural experience and reinforces differences between social groups with a single sunset image. Because everyone can access photography and there is not a judgmental coding system, interpretation is subjective so people will display their social dispositions based on how they take a photograph. He found that “the proportion who declare that a sunset can make a beautiful photo is greatest at the lowest educational level, declines at intermediate levels [...] and grows strongly again among those who have completed several years of higher education and who tend to consider that anything is suitable for beautiful photography.” (Bourdieu as cited by Pollen)
Advice in magazines, online journals, blogs and camera clubs still teach and confuse amateurs with technical and aesthetic advice to aspire to “a good photo”, recognising that not all sunsets are the same.
In 1987, the One Day for Life large-scale charity amateur photography competition, where a national press campaign encouraged “everyone with a camera” to take a photograph of everyday life in Britain competing for a place in a chronological 24-hour book. There were 50,000 photographic rejects of the competition and an archive containing thousands of sunset examples is stored at the University of Sussex. The overall winning photograph was a sunset.
The context of the book suggests that sunrise and sunset within the 24hour time frame. Capture this successfully and you could be featured in the book. This opens the cliché to all who enter the competition rather than just amateurs. Pollard argues that the sunset becomes the signified and signifier of amateur photography. If the book is about amateur photography, photographers may choose to shoot the ordinary, everyday subjects, or even bad photographs. The cover design was a sunset to represent a book of photographs rather than other subjects such as dogs.
The narrative of the images included sunsets (of) and social and aesthetic narratives such as industrial chimneys against the sunset depicting disease (about) often with text because the book was to raise money for charity.
“Their potential to be, at once, undistinguished and prize-winning, clichéd and rich with supporting meaning, is evidently the case with the overall ‘winning’ image, which, despite its ‘chocolate box’ appearance, was a photograph taken in and of the Republic of Ireland, and was intended to function as a critical political commentary on the nationalist limitations of One Day for Life’s British focus at the time of the Troubles.” (Pollen, A)
The digital culture has made us more visually-literate times and artistically knowledgeable, and although the dissemination of images has changed, preferred photographic subjects do not differ much with photographs of friends, family and leisure still dominating. Even advice is still similar to historical advice. Pollard argues that the amount of images produced has increased significantly along with the number opportunities for circulation.
Lynn Berger explains that images become more stereotyped because people see thousands of images of the same subject e.g. 6,000 photographs uploaded to Flickr each minute. In Penelope Umbrico’s ongoing project of 8,730,221Suns from Flickr (2011), sunsets are the untouchable photographic subject. In 2006, she found half a million photographs on Flickr. “She then cropped just the sun from these images and printed a partial representation of the mass in a grouped format that borders on the mathematical sublime. The title of this work changes whenever the work is exhibited to reflect the ever-rising quantity of sunsets available on Flickr on the day that the work is hung; currently there are over 9 million examples. Umbrico says that “the title itself has become a comment on the ever-increasing use of web-based photo-communities, and a reflection on the ubiquity of pre-scripted collective content there.” (Pollen, A)
People continue to photograph sunsets and other clichés because each photograph is exclusive to the photographer. Sunsets are still submitted for competition or public appraisal, representing a lasting, shared significance. Sunsets could be themed linguistically relating Victor Burgin to photography – “signalling “repetition with different significations, or one repeated picture with different captions… As Richard Dyer has argued about stereotypes: they “are a very simple, striking, easily-grasped form of representation but are none the less capable of condensing a great deal of complex information and a host of connotations.” (Pollen, A)
Archive noises - Joan Fontcuberta (2014)
Source material: Fontcuberta, J. (2014) Archive noises. Pandora’s Camera. Photography after Photography. London. Mack. (pp169-181)
At photography’s inception, people believed the photograph would capture that which we don’t see and preserve what we don’t remember. The conservation of the moment captured on the photograph started as a dialogue between memory and forgetting.
Anne Tronche suggests that archive is a space of experience. The image remembered is not necessarily the image that was taken.
Historians look at archived papers (which may be fairly recent) and desensitise them. (Deconsecrate, remove authoritarianism from discourse.) This is similar to the work of Joachim Schmid. He promotes recycling of images so that people see things again. “Schmid cancels the value of production (taking pictures) and shifts to selection, to the act of pointing and choosing.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:172) We should be concerned with the use of photographs rather than the production of more.
1989 was a commemorative year for photography. History of photography was taught in line with incorporation into the art movement. Values developed with regards to “photography as a commodity and a collector’s item – the fetishism of the signature, notion of the original, the limited edition, the technical qualities inherent in the singularity of a photographic print, the mise en valeur with the appropriate presentation – in other words, the recovery of aura.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:173)
Schmid and Fricke looked for anonymous, amateur images in second hand shops and flea markets which resembled master photographers, which they mounted and signed and passed off as the real deal to question our values of photography. The works were genuine so they were labelled alternative masterpieces. The recognition of a masterwork shifted from the act of making it to the act of recognising it. “The creative act no longer consists in the application of a primitive gaze but in a superimposed gaze, a gaze that is correlative of the palimpsest.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:174) Palimpsest means altered but bearing original form) Creativity is now seen as identifying and using the best of the existing images which links back to the Dadists and Duchamp.
“On one hand, every single photograph represents or depicts a fragment of reality, while on the other hand, that same photograph is a part of reality, both as a psychical object and as an image/symbol. It’s much more interesting to use these existing images and work with them than making new photographs – because existing photographs not only represent parts of our realities, they are realities.” (Schmid as cited by Fontcuberta, 2014:175)
Photos are an unstable triangle of reality, image of reality and reality of the image.
Deconstruction and reconstruction or fragments and synthesis. Transformation of images but not readable so they confuse people.
Fragmentation present in art world with romanticism, cubists, impressionists. Schmid believes there is “More truth in the image of reality which is perennially ending, than the vision of the real, which is fleeting.” (Schmid as cited by Fontcuberta, 2014:180) By engaging with Schmid’s Stasis, we have shown that “Vision is always partial, a series of snippets of a structure whose totality we are unlikely ever to perceive.”
This work teaches us a unique way of looking at archived material. Although it contains information, it may not be accessible or understandable in its current form and may need to be re-invented, Data fills the gaps between memory and forgetting but the rubbish needs removing. Memory must not become sterile so there should be creativity with the information.
Source material: Fontcuberta, J. (2014) Archive noises. Pandora’s Camera. Photography after Photography. London. Mack. (pp169-181)
At photography’s inception, people believed the photograph would capture that which we don’t see and preserve what we don’t remember. The conservation of the moment captured on the photograph started as a dialogue between memory and forgetting.
Anne Tronche suggests that archive is a space of experience. The image remembered is not necessarily the image that was taken.
Historians look at archived papers (which may be fairly recent) and desensitise them. (Deconsecrate, remove authoritarianism from discourse.) This is similar to the work of Joachim Schmid. He promotes recycling of images so that people see things again. “Schmid cancels the value of production (taking pictures) and shifts to selection, to the act of pointing and choosing.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:172) We should be concerned with the use of photographs rather than the production of more.
1989 was a commemorative year for photography. History of photography was taught in line with incorporation into the art movement. Values developed with regards to “photography as a commodity and a collector’s item – the fetishism of the signature, notion of the original, the limited edition, the technical qualities inherent in the singularity of a photographic print, the mise en valeur with the appropriate presentation – in other words, the recovery of aura.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:173)
Schmid and Fricke looked for anonymous, amateur images in second hand shops and flea markets which resembled master photographers, which they mounted and signed and passed off as the real deal to question our values of photography. The works were genuine so they were labelled alternative masterpieces. The recognition of a masterwork shifted from the act of making it to the act of recognising it. “The creative act no longer consists in the application of a primitive gaze but in a superimposed gaze, a gaze that is correlative of the palimpsest.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:174) Palimpsest means altered but bearing original form) Creativity is now seen as identifying and using the best of the existing images which links back to the Dadists and Duchamp.
“On one hand, every single photograph represents or depicts a fragment of reality, while on the other hand, that same photograph is a part of reality, both as a psychical object and as an image/symbol. It’s much more interesting to use these existing images and work with them than making new photographs – because existing photographs not only represent parts of our realities, they are realities.” (Schmid as cited by Fontcuberta, 2014:175)
Photos are an unstable triangle of reality, image of reality and reality of the image.
Schmid thought that memory should not be a mausoleum. Other photographers also destroyed photographs to remove “history and mementos of authoritarian discourse.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:177) Schmid placed his images in groups, shredded them and pieced them back together with pieces from different groups to resemble digital noise. With Stasis (Joachim Schmid) instead of images going into an archive, they go to the museum for discourse. “Documentary photography invades the space of art to the extent that the photograph as an illustration occupies the pages of the information media.” (Fontcuberta, 2014: 178)
Deconstruction and reconstruction or fragments and synthesis. Transformation of images but not readable so they confuse people.
Fragmentation present in art world with romanticism, cubists, impressionists. Schmid believes there is “More truth in the image of reality which is perennially ending, than the vision of the real, which is fleeting.” (Schmid as cited by Fontcuberta, 2014:180) By engaging with Schmid’s Stasis, we have shown that “Vision is always partial, a series of snippets of a structure whose totality we are unlikely ever to perceive.”
This work teaches us a unique way of looking at archived material. Although it contains information, it may not be accessible or understandable in its current form and may need to be re-invented, Data fills the gaps between memory and forgetting but the rubbish needs removing. Memory must not become sterile so there should be creativity with the information.
Joachim Schmid
Joachim Schmid gathers (collects for his own use) vernacular photography to compile books of photographs which have been forgotten, lost or discarded (anti-museum) encouraging people to reconsider how photography and collecting are cultural practices and questions the value of photographs to people. His visual survey of snapshot photography in the 20th century includes postcards and studio prints. With flea market finds, Schmid notes that he is about a generation behind. Online photographs are instantly there, with photographs from around the world being uploaded in a pattern through the 24hour period.
Schmid produced several books, 96 cataloguing mundane finds such as feet, airline meals, coffee - the sort which end up on social media. Schmid questions why we all take the same photo and who taught us? Perhaps this is because they work? It portrays a family who is functioning as society expects and painting a picture of people being OK. He examines family photography through the generations and worldwide. He uses a book format because it doesn't rely on electricity or internet access to look at it and it means more to people if they can physically hold it. Their attention span is longer with a book.
His series on discarded photographs, the subject of several books, stopped when photography became digital. Schmid reflects on the physical role of the photograph, collecting destroyed, often violently, and questions their relationship with another person, although this is never revealed to him or his readers. He explains that some photos were cherished which is shown by the marks or fading on them. These are as important as the destroyed images. In Photographic Garbage Survey Project (1996-7) he included a street map which he walked over several days, pinpointing the location and type of photograph found as if part of a study, comparing the number and type of each major cities' discarded photographs.
Schmid refers to the amount of student photographers and number of images already out there. We need to look at and make sense of the existing images. Perhaps one question that should be asked is what do people not photograph? What is the relationship between memory and photography? Is it the event or the photograph that is remembered?
Looking through the book list of Joachim Scmid, the title "X marks the spot" (2013) caught my eye. In this book, Schmid notes that tourists visit the road where the assassination of John F Kennedy took place. Tourists run into the road to have their picture taken on the X. A hidden security camera mounted where the assassinator stood captures their images.
The photographic image in digital archives - Nina Lager Vestberg
Source: Lister, M. (ed. 2013)The photographic image in digital culture. Abingdon: Routledge. (Pp113-30)
Georges Didi Huberman, Allan Sekula and John Tagg "investigated the uses and abuses of photographic archives in institutional surveillance, control and punishment." Theorists viewing the material with regards to ownership and control of the photographic production. Materialist approach - "attending to the historical, material practices and institutions by and through which photographic archives come into being. " (Vestberg, 2014: 114) "Recover the perspective of those who were subjected or constrained by the archive."
In the 1990's stock industry or visual content industry developed. 1990's - 2010 - development of archive systems. Literature written around "mapping the cultural inpact and significance of an industry that provides "the wallpaper of consumer culture." (Frosch 2003 as cited by Vestberg, 2014:114) Blaschke - commercialism of images from historical development of picture archive to image bank. Language developed around it to allow people to access images.
Digitisation "rendering of existing analogue content into digital formats" and "computerisation of working practices" (Vestberg, 2014:115) So digitisation is change which has affected images.
Computerisation "changes that have affected people."
Archives old filing systems, typewriter, index system, contacts book, fax machine, metadata on back of images
Picture library computer, catalogue, printed cross reference index, name, date, keywords, metadata, high res file
Change from manually finding something - labour intensive to the computer finding the image with ease.
Beginning of picture library people were developing systems. Different institutions such as museums, newspaper groups, stock image companies used their own according to their budgets, needs, size and technical expertise. Analogue archivist "mediate(d) between the image and the user" and digital archivist "mediate(d) between the image and the system." Tope and Enser, 2000 as cited by Vestberg, 2014:116)
Photographs in analogue archive
Archive - valuable to society. Skip is where unwanted objects go. Who should decide what goes where? Newspaper reported mistake of tate gallery for clearing out duplicate files. Newspaper thought readership would be interested in cultural issues of archiving. (Tate - duplicate or archived photos?)
Print catalogue from Guardian Exhibition at time of move from analogue to digital displayed recorded information (such as different coloured pen, copyright stamps) on the back of the real images as images in the exhibition catalogue. Exhibited as analogue only. Hard copies of original prints archived safely.
Photographs in digital archive
Analogue archive Digital archive
Metadata ?metadata not as accurate
Hulton Archive Getty Images
Few keywords More keywords (some not related e.g nail file)
Licence type - rights managed
Image specified for royalties to photographer Royalty free (user pays one fee)
can use digital copy More expensive?
New edition - new licence Fee allows use of image in other publications
model release form
property release form
"Keywords assigned to digital files are not so much intended to indicate the location of the hidden image but the need to stand in for it.... Keyword cluster aspires to be synonymous with the image - or create a textural image." (Wallace 2010 as cited by Vestberg 2014:123)
Residual archives
Residual media - Williams "argued for dynamic division of cultural forms into the "emergent" and "dominant" and "residual". "Residual is "that which has been effectively formed in the past but is still alive in the cultural process. (Williams, 1973 cited in Ackland, 2007 cited in Vestberg, 2014:126)
Residual is a place where the past and present overlap and both can still be used.
Georges Didi Huberman, Allan Sekula and John Tagg "investigated the uses and abuses of photographic archives in institutional surveillance, control and punishment." Theorists viewing the material with regards to ownership and control of the photographic production. Materialist approach - "attending to the historical, material practices and institutions by and through which photographic archives come into being. " (Vestberg, 2014: 114) "Recover the perspective of those who were subjected or constrained by the archive."
In the 1990's stock industry or visual content industry developed. 1990's - 2010 - development of archive systems. Literature written around "mapping the cultural inpact and significance of an industry that provides "the wallpaper of consumer culture." (Frosch 2003 as cited by Vestberg, 2014:114) Blaschke - commercialism of images from historical development of picture archive to image bank. Language developed around it to allow people to access images.
Digitisation "rendering of existing analogue content into digital formats" and "computerisation of working practices" (Vestberg, 2014:115) So digitisation is change which has affected images.
Computerisation "changes that have affected people."
Archives old filing systems, typewriter, index system, contacts book, fax machine, metadata on back of images
Picture library computer, catalogue, printed cross reference index, name, date, keywords, metadata, high res file
Change from manually finding something - labour intensive to the computer finding the image with ease.
Beginning of picture library people were developing systems. Different institutions such as museums, newspaper groups, stock image companies used their own according to their budgets, needs, size and technical expertise. Analogue archivist "mediate(d) between the image and the user" and digital archivist "mediate(d) between the image and the system." Tope and Enser, 2000 as cited by Vestberg, 2014:116)
Photographs in analogue archive
Archive - valuable to society. Skip is where unwanted objects go. Who should decide what goes where? Newspaper reported mistake of tate gallery for clearing out duplicate files. Newspaper thought readership would be interested in cultural issues of archiving. (Tate - duplicate or archived photos?)
Print catalogue from Guardian Exhibition at time of move from analogue to digital displayed recorded information (such as different coloured pen, copyright stamps) on the back of the real images as images in the exhibition catalogue. Exhibited as analogue only. Hard copies of original prints archived safely.
Photographs in digital archive
Analogue archive Digital archive
Metadata ?metadata not as accurate
Hulton Archive Getty Images
Few keywords More keywords (some not related e.g nail file)
Licence type - rights managed
Image specified for royalties to photographer Royalty free (user pays one fee)
can use digital copy More expensive?
New edition - new licence Fee allows use of image in other publications
model release form
property release form
"Keywords assigned to digital files are not so much intended to indicate the location of the hidden image but the need to stand in for it.... Keyword cluster aspires to be synonymous with the image - or create a textural image." (Wallace 2010 as cited by Vestberg 2014:123)
Residual archives
Residual media - Williams "argued for dynamic division of cultural forms into the "emergent" and "dominant" and "residual". "Residual is "that which has been effectively formed in the past but is still alive in the cultural process. (Williams, 1973 cited in Ackland, 2007 cited in Vestberg, 2014:126)
Residual is a place where the past and present overlap and both can still be used.
Anastasia Samoylova
Samoylova uses printed appropriated images found on the internet of sublime landscapes. Single images are folded and connected with mirrors and corrugated shelving to form a 3d picture. She then photographs the tableau as she builds up the picture. Her images become a transformation and representation of nature rather than actual images of nature.
Thomas Kellner
Kellner takes buildings such as the Eiffel Tower with which we are familiar and deconstructs, then reconstructs them having planned which perspectives he will need to photograph. He may shoot one or more roll of film and reconstruct them to look like a contact sheet showing one structure. Inspired by cubism, the press release of his Black and White exhibition explains "Timeless images of a newly formulated language based on cubism emerge [...] The relationship between the object and the form is at the centre of the consideration."(Arnold, B 2016)
Arnold, B. (2016) Pressarea: Thomas Kellner Black and White. Available at: http://www.thomaskellner.com/info/info/pressarea/pressreleases/black-and-white-by-thomas-kellner/ last accessed /4/17
Link: http://www.thomaskellner.com/info/info/pressarea/pressreleases/black-and-white-by-thomas-kellner/
Jerry Uelsmann
Uelsmann uses traditional methods of enlarging and layering negatives in the darkroom. He uses his intuition to decide what to include. His aim is for viewers to react to the image rather than break it down and study how it was made. He believes that technique should support the image.
David Hockney
David Hockney uses different planes to show multiple viewpoints, a wide space and depict time and motion within the same image, using the same principles as cubism. The Tate explains that “Each [of Hockney’s] individual polaroid is taken separately and experienced simultaneously […] exemplifies Hockney’s interest in depicting a 3-dimensional world through 2-dimensional art forms.” (Tate, 2017) I particularly liked the portrait of his mother in which he photographed her movement so the image becomes the perspective of the photographer rather than the viewer’s perspective.
Why do we call it love when we mean sex? Joan Fontcuberta
Source: Fontcuberta, J. (2014) Why do we call it love when we mean sex? Pandora's Camera. Mackbooks. UK (pp 183-188)
Fontcuberta explores the documented history of the beginning of the photographic age - illustrating the fact that it was process orientated: scientists looked for the means of rendering a scene onto photosensitive paper and "truth" was captured. Fox Talbot documented reality in "The pencil of Nature". Photography was not seen as an act of expression.
Artists later started to take more creative images and make installations. Conceptually they were not understood by the public and became mislabelled e.g. Bernd and Hilla Becher make sculptures with the camera etc. Semiotic confusion - image identity is compromised. "Museum curators ...interested in the work [rather] than the technique". (Fontcuberta, 2014:185)
We move further away from traditional photography every time we make a photograph. Camera is a machine and the photographer is not an android. Photography is subjective and should be about documents becoming art.
Pictorialism - amateurs slated for being too pictorial. In the 1980's photography became more cultural and expressive. Now digital is becoming pictorial. Stark difference between digital and analogue - like the difference between writing and inscribing.
"It has not always been said that photography was the "writing of light" but that apercu is increasingly shifting from metaphor to literal truth." (Fontcuberta, 2014:187) (Apercu - comment or brief reference that makes an illuminating point)
Perfection is something which should be strived for but not achieved because perfection is divine. Perhaps as critics of our own work we don't think we have reached perfection? I wonder if this is different among other art forms?
Perhaps there was hope that digital would be the answer to conceptualism as the photographer could create the images they thought of mentally? Is digital photography still photography? Or should it be called something else?
Fontcuberta explores the documented history of the beginning of the photographic age - illustrating the fact that it was process orientated: scientists looked for the means of rendering a scene onto photosensitive paper and "truth" was captured. Fox Talbot documented reality in "The pencil of Nature". Photography was not seen as an act of expression.
Artists later started to take more creative images and make installations. Conceptually they were not understood by the public and became mislabelled e.g. Bernd and Hilla Becher make sculptures with the camera etc. Semiotic confusion - image identity is compromised. "Museum curators ...interested in the work [rather] than the technique". (Fontcuberta, 2014:185)
We move further away from traditional photography every time we make a photograph. Camera is a machine and the photographer is not an android. Photography is subjective and should be about documents becoming art.
Pictorialism - amateurs slated for being too pictorial. In the 1980's photography became more cultural and expressive. Now digital is becoming pictorial. Stark difference between digital and analogue - like the difference between writing and inscribing.
"It has not always been said that photography was the "writing of light" but that apercu is increasingly shifting from metaphor to literal truth." (Fontcuberta, 2014:187) (Apercu - comment or brief reference that makes an illuminating point)
Perfection is something which should be strived for but not achieved because perfection is divine. Perhaps as critics of our own work we don't think we have reached perfection? I wonder if this is different among other art forms?
Perhaps there was hope that digital would be the answer to conceptualism as the photographer could create the images they thought of mentally? Is digital photography still photography? Or should it be called something else?
Digital noises - Joan Fontcuberta (2014)
Source material: Fontcuberta, J. (2014) Archive noises. Pandora’s Camera. Photography after Photography. London. Mack. (pp169-181)
At photography’s inception, people believed the photograph would capture that which we don’t see and preserve what we don’t remember. The conservation of the moment captured on the photograph started as a dialogue between memory and forgetting.
Anne Tronche suggests that archive is a space of experience. The image remembered is not necessarily the image that was taken.
Historians look at archived papers (which may be fairly recent) and desensitise them. (Deconsecrate, remove authoritarianism from discourse.) This is similar to the work of Joachim Schmid. He promotes recycling of images so that people see things again. “Schmid cancels the value of production (taking pictures) and shifts to selection, to the act of pointing and choosing.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:172) We should be concerned with the use of photographs rather than the production of more.
1989 was a commemorative year for photography. History of photography was taught in line with incorporation into the art movement. Values developed with regards to “photography as a commodity and a collector’s item – the fetishism of the signature, notion of the original, the limited edition, the technical qualities inherent in the singularity of a photographic print, the mise en valeur with the appropriate presentation – in other words, the recovery of aura.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:173)
Schmid and Fricke looked for anonymous, amateur images in second hand shops and flea markets which resembled master photographers, which they mounted and signed and passed off as the real deal to question our values of photography. The works were genuine so they were labelled alternative masterpieces. The recognition of a masterwork shifted from the act of making it to the act of recognising it. “The creative act no longer consists in the application of a primitive gaze but in a superimposed gaze, a gaze that is correlative of the palimpsest.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:174) Palimpsest means altered but bearing original form) Creativity is now seen as identifying and using the best of the existing images which links back to the Dadists and Duchamp.
“On one hand, every single photograph represents or depicts a fragment of reality, while on the other hand, that same photograph is a part of reality, both as a psychical object and as an image/symbol. It’s much more interesting to use these existing images and work with them than making new photographs – because existing photographs not only represent parts of our realities, they are realities.” (Schmid as cited by Fontcuberta, 2014:175)
Photos are an unstable triangle of reality, image of reality and reality of the image.
Deconstruction and reconstruction or fragments and synthesis. Transformation of images but not readable so they confuse people.
Fragmentation present in art world with romanticism, cubists, impressionists. Schmid believes there is “More truth in the image of reality which is perennially ending, than the vision of the real, which is fleeting.” (Schmid as cited by Fontcuberta, 2014:180) By engaging with Schmid’s Stasis, we have shown that “Vision is always partial, a series of snippets of a structure whose totality we are unlikely ever to perceive.”
This work teaches us a unique way of looking at archived material. Although it contains information, it may not be accessible or understandable in its current form and may need to be re-invented, Data fills the gaps between memory and forgetting but the rubbish needs removing. Memory must not become sterile so there should be creativity with the information.
Digital noises - Joan Fontcuberta (2014)
Source material: Fontcuberta, J. (2014) Archive noises. Pandora’s Camera. Photography after Photography. London. Mack. (pp169-181)Manufacturing discontent Sabine Kriebel (2009)
Source: Kriebel, S. (2009) Manufacturing discontent: John Heartfield's mass medium. New German critique 107, 36 (2), pp.53-88 [online] Available through OCA Student links. (accessed 05/02/2017)
Kriebel critiques 9 of Heartfield's works. Heartfield was born with a German name which he changed in 1916 and was already involved with the KPD and Dada, designing book covers and election posters for the communists.
May Day marches by communists and socialists had been symbolic of the working class demonstrating pride and solidarity. In 1928, Zorgiebel banned all outdoor demonstrations to avoid violence between the three main parties; communists, socialists and National Socialists. What started out as a peaceful demonstration by the communists ended in violence over several days by the riot police. Clashes of police and crowds led to innocent bystanders being killed resulting in the labelling of May as Bloody May by the radical left party.
Heartfield's response to this was to create a photomontage (Self Portrait 1929) which appeared in the AIZ magazine in September 1929, a communist magazine, answerable to Moscow Communist International rather than the KPD. In this self portrait, Heartfield holds a pair of shears representing the beheading of Zorgiebel, chief of police a victim. This appealed to the public by offering them justice for the past events.
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| Self Portrait, (1929) |
The image is fantasy, the cut lines of the photomontage demonstrates actual separation of the head from the body and the gaze of Heartfield is important because it is directed at the viewer,so he is not watching the violent act.The gaze is meant as a pause between summoning the viewer and making the cut.
"Walter Benjamin wrote in 1935 that the Dada montage "hit the spectator like a missile,"forcefully intervening in the beholder's consciousness." (Kriebel, 2009:61) Doherty describes the photomontage as the "alienating experience of modern industrial life and war trauma using the phrase " montage as violent vivisection". (Kriebel, 2009:61) The photomontage is based on what was happening at the time in the country - technological warfare, destabilized gender roles and capitalist phantasmagoria.
Rosalind Krauss "It is spacing that makes it clear - as it was to Heartfield [...]- that we are not looking at reality, but at the world infested by interpretation or signification, which is to say reality distended by the gaps or blanks which are the formal preconditions of the sign" (Krauss as cited by Kriebel, 2009:62) denying the image the illusion of presence. Burger describes the photomontage as "subjective, partial, heterogenous" Kriebel, 2009:62) with the ability to disassemble the world the way it was and put it together so that people saw it differently, understanding the relations of politics, commodity and social relations.
By 1930, Heartfelt's next image "Whoever reads Bourgeois papers becomes blind and deaf", the emphasis is on the discomfort felt by the man who is wrapped in newspapers. The illusion becomes a hallucination of reality. The man is dressed in uniform and the image includes text as a visual continuity between the photograph and the text. The context of this photograph was to encourage communists to join the party who would question rather than be a passive member. The image represents a doppelganger, or a resemblance of ourselves, encouraging party members to act.
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| Wer Burgerblatter liest wird blind und taub! (1930) |
Kriebel disagrees with Benjamin's missile, explaining that Heartfield's photomontage is more seductive, absorbing and captivating than this, as its aim is to stimulate and re-educate its viewers. Heartfield developed his work to minimise seams between the cutouts to make it look like a complete "real"image. He photographed real subjects such as frogs to make the composite look as lifelike as possible. This, Kriebel argues, is not how Left critique should be, supporting the dream worlds, bourgeois representation and fascist aesthetics, which accounts for his critics thinking that he was a retrograde, following painting techniques rather than a revolutionary.
Kriebel theorises that the making of the photomontage is a rupture or trauma to the viewer and the suture (in film terms) is how the image is assembled to activate the viewer to see the image as a psychological and ideological subject. By looking at Heartfield's work, one can identify the what was culturally important at the time and the actions taken by readers of the AIZ would demonstrate whether Heartfield engaged and turned the readers from passive to active members.
1920's - photography becoming more accessible and more popular. Photographs more visible as a medium. Language changing e.g "New Vision" regarding photography. Concerns around lack of critical depth. Linked to capitalism.Needed a contextual frame. Text or another photograph can falsify the photograph and make people believe whatever the editor wants them to believe. Therefore photography was seen and used as political propaganda.
Heartfield 's photomontages "stage our illusionary, unstable apprehension of the world by exploiting the discourses of our illusion, by engaging in and reproducing its very terms. In manipulating the discursivity of photography as an imprint or transfer of the real - as a "photochemically processed trace causally connected to that thing in the world to which it refers," to use Krauss's phase, Heartfield provides an illusionary, seemingly transparent, relation to that world." (Kriebel, 2009:72) Although Kriebel argues that Heartfield undermines the transparency because he challenges the place of photography by constructing consciousness, letting the viewer experience both illusion and disillusion, myth and demystifying the situation.
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| Zum Krisen Parteitag der SDP (1931) |
As the crisis party conference in Leipzig met to deal with the world economic crisis, Heartfield produced this image in response to a comment on adaptation of the capitalist society rather than reform. The text is outside the frame so that the viewer concentrates on the illusion of the photograph. The viewer is asked to decode the symbols such as the tiger's head, the swastika symbols on the tie and be connected psychologically with the work thinking about how they should act. Ideological truths are shown to the viewers. Destabilisation of signified and signifier.
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| Der Sinn des Hitlergrusses (1932) |
Kriebel uses Althusser's theory of ideology suggesting that "ideological [...]relationships are conditioned by and through culture, and they are continually reproduced within that culture." (Kriebel, 2009:73) He defines ideology as the "imaginary relation of those individuals to the relations in which they live." Kriebel, 2009:73) This includes educational systems, legal systems, arts, the media, communication. So Heartfield's use of Hitler's words"Millions stand behind me" was illustrated by Hitler receiving a handout from the capitalist society - the play being on money rather than supporters. Heartfield's montages could be seen as an allusion (reference) to the illusion.
Heartfield's photomontages draw on traumatic memory, they look backwards and forwards whilst being anchored in time by the date in the magazine.The images came at a time when people needed something to help them look at their situation and make sense of it.
References
Kriebel, S. (2009) Manufacturing discontent: John Heartfield's mass medium. New German critique 107, 36 (2), pp.53-88 [online] Available through OCA Student links. (accessed 05/02/2017)
"This girl can advertising campaign 2017"
The advertising campaign developed by Sport England to attract more women into sport and keep them participating, is looking to attract more women of the 50-60 age group having focused previously on the 14-40 years age group. The argument is that women find it more challenging to continue exercising once they reach this period in their lives. The campaign is looking for strong images of women enjoying sport with which to inspire many and address issues such as the gender gap, image and the reasons we stop and start with sport.
The first phase of the campaign starts with a social media plug, inviting women to submit their own images by designing a poster (within constraints) and post on social media such as Facebook and Twitter and digital media such as TV advertising in February. By gaining information such as location (county) and contact details, the ad company could find the woman on the social media poster.
"The "This girl can" campaign has been genre-defying for the sports industry which has historically been unwilling to embrace the simple fact that women sweat when taking part in exercise. The campaign was based on the powerful insight that fear of judgement of others is the primary barrier holding women back from participating in sport. Tackling this fear was seen as key to bridging the gender gap in sports participation." (Kemp 2017)
This campaign won awards before, achieving its aim of getting 1.6 million women into sport. How many of those though would have played sport without the campaign? How does a picture of someone playing sport conquer the fears of actually turning up and playing or going along to a coaching / taster session? What is the expectation of the advertising company, Sport England and the general public with phase 2?
Having been through the phases of cycling before children, having children on the back of a bike, slowing down whilst they become independent, childcare versus family rides, time - supporting children through other sports such as football, tennis and swimming and supporting my husband through British Cycling coaching levels, working full time and fitting coursework in, I appreciate why women may find it difficult to engage in sport. The time element for training is not there and I have found that being involved with a male dominated sport I am pressurized to develop my fitness and skills in line with the males I ride with. I have signed up to do a women only Enduro Mountain Bike Race towards the end of the year so I fully support what this campaign is trying to do.
Culturally, I think this links in well with the BBC's idents (photograph between programmes) from Martin Parr, featuring exercise groups in South West England such as the Clevedon Swimmers and a Bristol Zumba class. These feature a diverse range of ages, ethnicity and gender documenting sport in the 21st century. Following the success of Britain in the Olympics and Paraolympics and the issues facing the NHS, obesity and related medical conditions I see this as a positive way of talking about some of the issues but wonder how it addresses the people who have no interest in sport and exercise.
Bibliography
Kemp, N. (2017) This girl can targets older women with new campaign. [online] Available at: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/this-girl-can-targets-older-women-new-campaign/1422505#X29ezwv1Io3CGQf6.99 (last accessed 7/2/17)Telegraph reporters (2017) BBC One gets makeover by renowned British Photographer Martin Parr. The Telegraph [online] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2017/01/01/bbc-one-idents-get-makeover-british-photographer-martin-parr/ (last accessed 7/2/17)
Brigitte Bauer "Rond-points" (1995-present?)
Following a discussion with fellow student Hazel Bingham re urban landscape photography, Hazel sent me a link to look at Brigitte Bauer's work on roundabouts. A roundabout is a man-made piece of landscape which people drive, walk or cycle past which sometimes houses sculptures or pieces of rock in an attempt to create a representation of the landscape. These places have come from nothing, the designer or creator recalling their memory and building it into the landscape. Bauer found examples of sculptures, floral displays like formal gardens, flags, huge trees and weeds. The structures on the roundabout have been "borrowed" from the natural landscape and placed out of context onto the roundabouts inviting us to question the culture and history of roundabouts.
Looking at this collection of photographs, I was reminded of holidays abroad. I recalled interesting roundabouts in some cities in England with sculptures on them such as Spitfire Island in Erdington which became a landmark for me on the way to visit relatives.
Local roundabouts may make a good project at some point in my photography journey.
Berthoud, C. (2007) Rond-points. available at: http://brigittebauer.fr/eng/serie_gd/rond-points#texte_grand (last accessed 19/1/17)
Ectoplasm: Photography in the Digital Age - Geoffrey Bachten (1999)
Source material: Bachten, G. (1999) Over Exposed: Essays in Contemporary Photography. New York: The New Press. pp.9-23
Context - article now 17 years old. In 1999, digital photography was in its infancy. Milestones included Nikon D1 digital camera, photography highway.com (where photos could be uploaded to and stored), lithium batteries and compact flash cards had only just been made available.
Summary of the main points from this chapter:
Following the themes of photography is dead arising from two main concerns in 1999 over technology (introduction of computerised images) and epistemological concerns regarding cultural changes, ethics, knowledge and validity) Bachten explored whether these could signify an end to photography.
Balzar viewed daguerreotypes as black magic thinking portrait photography removed a spectral layer from the body which was transferred to the photo.
Motion blur from a slow exposure time was overcome by propping the subject up with a frame giving them a corpse like appearance.
Development of "Memento Mori" (photographing the dead)
Double exposure produced ghosts - became a profitable business
Photography replaced miniature paintings and prints made from copper or steel engravings.
Walter Benjamin wrote The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936) in which he hypothesised that photography transforms an aura or authenticity into a commodity which would speed up the downfall of capitalism. "One could expect [capitalism] not only to exploit the proletariat with increasing intensity, but ultimately to create conditions which would make it possible to abolish capitalism itself." (Benjamin, as cited by Bachten, 1999:12) Bachten concludes that "like the
daguerreotype, it is a force that is simultaneously positive and negative." (Bachten, 1999:12)
Development of photography in the 1800's came from death of the Natural Philosophy and Enlightenment.
1839 - Talbot defined his early photography as the "art of fixing shadow."(Bachten, 1999:13)
Daguerre captured passing of time by taking 3 exposures at different times of day. "By bringing the past and the present together in one viewing experience, Daguerre showed that photography could fold time back on itself." (Bachten, 1999:13)
1845 - The Athenaeum "photography has already enabled us to hand down to future ages a picture of the sunshine of yesterday." (Schaaf as cited by Bachten, 1999:13) Photography important for recording passage of time and intimating at individual's mortality.
Barthes - Camera Lucida - photography shows the past and future in same photograph. Reality is truth to presence rather than truth to appearance. ("A matter of being ... rather than resemblance" Bachten, 1999:14)).
Death of chemical photography predicted by increase in digital imaging. More research and advertising was put into digital imaging and related products. Bill Gates (1989) bought company which leased electronic images and a fee was paid for "use rights".
Public concerned with image integrity - scanning and manipulating of images altered "truth" of documentary images. Users of digital imaging argued for creativity and art form. In an attempt to identify manipulated images to the public, papers considered adding an M to manipulated images which raised the question of truth and validity. Photography is manipulation of light levels, exposure times etc.
Sontag and Krauss believed a photograph was proof of being if not truthful.
Digital images could be created from a computer programme but looks like a photograph. A representation of perceived representations. Digital image is virtual reality. People were defending the reality of the photograph.
Digital imaging is still subject to the people who take, make, programme the image just as in photography. Human values and culture important in the process and control of photography and digital imaging.
Changing world makes us question issues such as how human we are with GM foods etc. So what happens to the culture of photography? Peirce - real and representation inhabit each other.
Derrida "this concept of the photograph photographs all conceptual oppositions, it traces a relationship of haunting which is perhaps constitutive of all logics." (Derrida as cited by Bachten, 1999:22)
"Photography will cease to be a dominant element of modern life only when the desire to photograph, and the peculiar arrangement of knowledges and investments which that desire represents is reconfigured as another social and cultural formation. " (Bachten, 1999:22)
Bachten, G. (1999) Over Exposed: Essays in Contemporary Photography. New York: The New Press.
Bibliography
Practical Photography Tips. (n.d.) Digital Photography Timeline - Part 2 1990's. [online] available from: http://www.practicalphotographytips.com/Photography-Basics/digital-photography-timeline.html (last accessed 6/1/17)
7/1/17 Kodak Film press release
I was interested to read a press release published by Kodak Alaris during CES (Computer Electronics and Tradeshow) 2017 which promoted Kodak's development of an old product Kodak Professional Ektachrome Colour Reversal Film E100 Extremely fine grain. This will be on the market by the end of 2017. It was discontinued in 2012. This is a slide film which is colour positive when exposed and processed.
"Resurgence in the popularity of analog photography has created demand for new and old film products alike. Sales of professional photographic films have been steadily rising over the last few years, with professionals and enthusiasts rediscovering the artistic control offered by manual processes and the creative satisfaction of a physical end product." (Kodak Alaris, 2017)
“Film is our heritage and we remain committed to meeting the evolving needs of today’s film shooters,” said Dennis Olbrich, President – Kodak Alaris Imaging Paper, Photo Chemicals and Film. “We’ve been listening to the needs and desires of photographers over the past several years and wanted to bring back a color reversal film. In assessing the opportunity, EKTACHROME was the clear choice.” (Kodak Alaris, 2017)
This once again raises questions of the future of the digital image. Will we be looking at the death of the digital image in a few years from now? If a large company has reinstated an "improved film" after 5 years, will other companies follow suit? Is there a move afoot back to analogue processes or is it that dedicated film users prefer this medium? Will the photographers or users of the images try and justify that these are "film" images instead of digital images and how does this address the issue of asking the consumers of images to question the validity and truth of images? It will be interesting to follow this during Digital Imaging and Culture.
Reference
Kodak Alaris. (2017) Kodak Alaris Reintroduces Iconic EKTACHROME Still Film. [online press release]. Available from: http://www.kodakalaris.com/en-us/about/press-releases/2016/kodak-alaris-reintroduces-iconic-ektachrome-still-film (last accessed 7/1/17)
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
"Obedient Numbers, soft delight" Geoffrey Batchen (2002)
Source: Batchen, G. (2002) Each Wild Idea. Cambridge, MA. MIT Press. pp.165-174
The Oxford English Dictionary [online] defines digital as:
"Digital (of signals or data) expressed as a series of the digits 0 and 1 typically represented by values of a physical quantity such as voltage or magnetic polarisation.
1.1 relating to, using, or storing of data in the form of digital signals
1.2 involving or relating to the use of computer technology" (Oxford Dictionary, 2017)
Computing and photography as we know it were developed at around the same point in history, by people who shared interests and were part of the same peer group. Social and cultural conditions were examined from the birth of computing and photography as well as political and representational challenges. This chapter elaborated on Fontcuberta's observation of why digital photography could have been developed at the same time as computers.
Summary of the main points from this chapter:
The impending death of photography because of the emergence of digital photography as we know it today encouraged debate on whether photography and computing share a common history.
Modern computer pioneer - Charles Babbage (1833) Analytical Engine (English). Friends with Fox Talbot and John Herschel. 1839 - Fox Talbot sent 8 prints and calotypes (paper negative coated with silver iodide) to Babbage which he displayed on the wall. Babbage displayed a working model of the Difference Engine. Batchen speculates that "Babbage's drawing room encountered photography and computing together for the first time at the same time." (Batchen, 2002:165)
Talbot contributed to the design of Babbage's later computer. Babbage enabled Talbot's prints to be distributed in Italy. Babbage sat for a stereoscopic portrait and news of his death was photographed by Reijlander.
1839 - Talbot's image from a camera obscurer was subject to debate the "identity of photography... the source of it's generative power [and] was a photogenic drawing produced by the cultural merger of camera and chemistry , or [...]nature spontaneously representing itself?" (Batchen, 2002:166)
1837 - Babbage decided his computer enabled nature and God to represent itself in mathematical equations.
1839 - photography accepted in America to make photographs of landscape.
1839 - Talbot's contact printing of lace (taken from the lace itself) was seen as a representation of reality. Argument for photograph seeing "the world in binary terms, as a patterned order of the absence and presence of light." (Batchen, 2002:167)
1839 - Talbot made a photogenic drawing of lace (negatives produced on paper) magnified 100x through a lens demonstrating mathematics applied to photography.
1844 - Talbot made positive and negative copies of the lace (colours differed). Reproduction and repetition of the same object possible.
In conclusion, computers and photography were linked by "the transformation of human beings into data - in this case, digitised for the purpose of making predictive judgements that fix them in space and time (that photograph them). (Batchen, 2002:171)
Batchen compares the computer's lack of boundaries of power (where the user becomes the subject and the object at the same time) to the disciplinary power of photography using Michael Foucault's theory of panopticism where the subject becomes the prisoner and the jailer (or the subject and object of their own gaze) somewhere between reality and virtual.
Batchen recommends that contemporary critical art should be composed of maths and philosophy.
"An object is frequently not seen, from not knowing how to see it, rather than from any defect in the organ of vision." (Babbage cited in Batchen, 2002:174)
References
Batchen, G. (2002) Each Wild Idea. Cambridge, MA. MIT Press.
Oxford Dictionary. (2017) "Digital" definition. [online] Available from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/digital (last accessed 5/1/17)
"The digital image in photographic culture" Martin Lister (ed.) (2013)
Source material: Lister, M. (ed.) (2013) The digital image in photographic culture: Algorithmic photography and the crisis of representation. Abingdon: Routledge (pp.22-40)
I started reading this chapter with a dictionary and YouTube to help my understanding of this. I was reminded of the Rosalind Krauss essay within Landscape and I seem to have gone off at a complete tangent although now I have a greater understanding of the portrayal of cinematic time and some of the issues around indexing. I may need to revisit this essay at some point.
Two conceptions of the image
The chapter illustrates two different methods of portraying moments of time or photographic memories.
Titanic (1997) - "linear progression of structured moments" (Lister, M. 2013:22) life experiences are represented and then you die. Life has been frozen and flattened into a photograph. In this portrayal, visual representation is rational and cannot change. Settings and location give identity. Frozen moments in time are technologically complex but have no expressivity and spontaneity. Foucault - biopolitics - human body was bound to the world by mechanisms of representation.
Memento (2000) Film composed of 2 parallel sequences - black and white is chronological and colour is in reverse order, showing future past and future present. Photography in this film are "points of access that allow movement from one temporality to another following the topology of a band." (Lister, M. 2013:23) Time is a loop with blurred boundaries and was edited following an algorithm.
Memory here is an exploration of measurable time with cinematic time through photographs which depict time in crisis because it is not linear but is made up in several different ways. By placing photographs in this way, the meaning changes according to where it is placed in the sequence and location of the event in the narrative.
Is photography an archive and memory bank? Is it truthful? How photography is portrayed can be repetitive or uncertain and spontaneous. "Photography points in two directions at once; one side faces the objects, people and situations as they appear in the "real world" and is occupied with the representation of events by flattening their 4D space onto a 2D plane of the photograph.(Flusser 2011 as cited by Lister, M. 2013:25)The other side points towards photography's own condition of manufacturing, which is to say towards the repetition and serial reproduction of the photographic image." (Lister, M. 2013:25)
I have not seen Memento (2000), although watching Arrival (2016), it occurred to me that this film mixes up the chronology of time and depicts three types of time. The basis for the film is taken from "Story of your life" written by Ted Chiang, a sci fi writer. The opening scene uses cinematic blue and the main character cuddling a child. So symbolism suggests to the viewer that perhaps this child has died. The film then follows chronologically the life of Louise (main character) with cut backs periodically to the child's life. Half way through the film, Louise tells her daughter that her name is a palindrome (spelt the same way backwards and forwards) which is the structure of the film. It is revealed towards the end of the film that the child is in the future. The heptapods (aliens) which the main characters meet and interact with consider time differently. Their time is in crisis and non linear, having the power to see into the future which is transferred to Louise which is why the flashbacks she is experiencing are future time. The theme of this film for me was that life is a journey, not a destination and so perhaps it doesn't have to be represented in a linear fashion.
Genealogies of representation
Heidigger - modernity - "world becomes a picture and human being becomes a subject." (Lister, M. 2013:25) Truth is certainty of representing. In the past, (up until Descartes - philosopher in 1600's) representation was allegorical or metaphorical. After Descartes, representation gained the status of a scientific method of enquiry which produced reliable and repeatable results, guaranteeing truth.
The Western world thought that representation of an image was like a diagram which opened up possibilities of seeing the world differently. Humans are rational and can objectify the world, but representation would "establish the human subject as a rational being capable of objectifying the world, yet on the other hand it limits the ability to know the world only to those aspects of it that can be rationally represented" (Judovitz 1988:67 cited by Lister, M. 2013:)
Heidigger's "picture" actually means representation, knowledge, validation and rationalism.
In photography, Cartesian representation is truthful and scientific. Bazin suggests we accept what we see as the real object in time and space."
Photography has been re-contextualized into power and discipline. In 2005, photography was still accepted as an informal idea in which the world is divided through light and shapes the chemicals into an analogue print.
The porridge of the index
Digital photographs do not have the same cultural of linguistic properties as its analogue counterpart.
The two are different and the change from one to another allows theorists to stand back and consider the assumption and paradigms that are associated with analogue photography. Krauss. I had to read around indexing in more detail.
"Peirce defines the index as a category of signs that maintains a physical tie to its referent[...] e.g. Photographs, especially instantaneous photographs are very instructive because we know that they are in certain respects exactly like the objects that they represent." (Schwartz, J. 2017)
This classification was too simple which led to confusion. Is there an indexical relationship within digital mediums? Photography is now more down to the algorithm of the data collected by the camera. Pixels can be manipulated so truth can be questioned. Although even analogue photography was not always truthful.
Where is the image once it has been uploaded to the internet?
References
Lister, M. (ed.) (2013) The digital image in photographic culture: Algorithmic photography and the crisis of representation. Abingdon: Routledge
Schwartz. J. (2017) Is a photograph still an index if it's on the internet? Available at: http://dismagazine.com/discussion/41736/a-discursive-mask/ [last accessed 31/01/2017]
Bibliography
Arrival (2016) directed by Dennis Villneuve [streamed] 21 laps entertainment, Lava Bear films USA [last accessed 31/01/2017]
Canfield, J. (2016) Arrival's ending explained [online] available at: http://screenrant.com/arrival-movie-2016-ending-time-explained/ [last accessed 31/01/2017]
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