sorry forgot

O so I totally forgot to discuss why I chose to use Jennifer as the one with which I connected the most. I felt that her condescending tone gave light onto valuable questions and issues I had been left uncertain or not known completely. After getting over her negative outlook, as I first perceived, I felt that by giving the medium an end we are now able to look back and reflect upon it. Since, to me, this medium is not near its end we are given this chance as well as the ability to cancel or postpone the end for a longer duration of time.

BTW I have read The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer and it is very good, and a lot easier to understand than Fried’s writings. I think we should make a video cast of our roundtable discussion and post it on the SFMOMA open space page... 

With luck I'll get that golden goose...

Fried would be pleased with the amount of quotations used in these essays. As well as I would like to thank inventors of words and meanings for their ability to give the same word different and altering meanings. I know that some of these issues are vague. I didn't want to lay everything out in this and just be restating everything during the discussion.

What is photography? Is it over? The term over has many differing definitions exceeding upward, to cross/change, and to end. With this vague question of is photography over we see it first as a pre-warning or threat as GFR experienced after hanging the classes signs over the school. Even the term “photography” is confused. People use photographic, photo, image, light writing, and, of course, photography all to generally call upon the same thing. The first two definitions of over can be positive and answered shortly simply because it is not needed to discuss them as much in context to all the reprises by the people in the round table discussion at SFMOMA. So I am going to go straight into the negative aspect of the term and bring to light the positive later on.

Lee Frielander: the one man who will live forever.

            I personally connected most with Jennifer Blessing; at first I felt that she was simply accepting some kind of end so it wouldn’t weigh down on her later or that she truly just thought it was over and done with. After reading her statement and a few others I began, like many probably have, to connect positions from all the member’s statements and began to see a possibly non-intended perspective on this question. One question I have yet to grasp (hopefully I will get this answer in our far more superior square table discussion) is what we are dubbing the term photography. Does it refer to the art/commercial form? Scientific? Documentary? Reference? It’s meaning or reasoning? Or it’s input and output mechanisms? When asking this question are we looking at any specific entity of the medium, or whatever you want to call it, or the whole photographic process as a whole? Also if photography is over is the photographic?

            I can’t stop comparing photography to painting when thinking of this question. Looking back at its history I see the broadest changing medium ever existing in our timeline. Look at history, yes the movements changed the styles but the painting is still just as much of a painting today as it was when cave people did it; simply paint on structure. I don’t paint so this is how I see it. This is a far stretch but the only mass change that could occur in painting as has been in photography would be if “color by number” became a smash hit amongst artists, I’ll have to invest for my future millions! The “that has been” has and will never leave the photographic medium (I even feel it so with the mass amounts of digital manipulation that creates images of “that has never been”). The photographic presence is born and transforms constantly but photography is over, in all variety of meaning. Like always it will be reborn with a new connotation; how can it be diminished, for lack of a better term, if everyone uses it. Look at the stasis mediums that surround ours with no ends for which to look. Sculpture, painting, etc. the process is there and is unable to change. But photography with its broad and indefinable existence such a beauty that cant end because people cant even define or pin point it in agreement. This is our main fault. Why are we asking if it is over if we haven’t even asked if it has begun because before something begins we must all know what it is. What would we call it today? With a medium so vast I feel the word is lost in its index. It literally means “light writing” but with artists who create the inexistent in their work there is no light used other than that from the monitor, and lets not go into that version of conceptual bull-shit as light writing. If we were to pronounce the medium as a new foundation of art Tuesday December 7^th, that is our class time CTP people, would we still use photography as the terminology or would it be something completely different?

            Getting back to the issue on hand, kind of, this transformation that has been continuous in our media now has a perspective of media of other realms. Can the inclusion of photo in other media simply be a graphy transformation of art? I believe someone says this, but I could not re-find it… So is photography over, exceeding upwards or across? I believe so. If this “artgraphy” of all mediums using each other, not simply mixed media because that just sounds plain and stupid, we are addressing the notion that this once singular medium has reached across its boarders to all its allies and formed the art media. So with this, if it is understood or correct, we need to answer the question: Is art media over? The photographic already incorporates image-based representations of everything. As well as the Friedian belief of the “to be seen ness” that exists with the tableau form which does exist in Art otherwise it would be Hobby.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia states, “Most predictions are based on technical developments that alter the form more than the content.” So he is looking at the old form of photo, analog vs. digital, in this light rather production based workflow. I believe we need to look past, as many people now do, the format and at the image, whether it is a digital image or “analog” is not the point it is the art, the final outcome, that must reflect the nature of this art in reference to Blake Stimson. I mean any which way one looks at this it is mind blowing and head aching just thinking of the possibilities. These digital elements are also become relevant in who gets to categorize and claim work. With the internet and other media outputs we are seeing the "amateur" or "unqualified" determine the role images play in our culture. Everyone is able to place their work along side others who are noted worth to be before eyes of the wide spread public. I decided to type in several types of photography that came to mind and display images that I first saw:

Topographic Photography

Fine Art Photography

Abstract Photography

Commercial Photography

Fashion Photography

I feel that by separating these types of Photography into these groups, eliminating the connection between the photographic practice as a whole we are weakening our trade. Looking at all theses images together we are not looking at much variation. They are all very similar in regards to being Art. The object is still the object and with photography we are always going to have a single object that connects us no matter what variation our interests lies in.

Maybe the photograph is simply a myth and we are all believing in its ability and practice in hope that it is reproduced endlessly and never end such as a god of sorts. Why don’t we ask if other mediums are over? I think it is because of the “AWESOMENESS” photography has in life. I see this discussion as an obvious determination to broaden the photograph and to try and find it again. Can it not exist without a definition? I feel that this question raises more questions than it answers (a positive notion.)

Relational Art

These past two weeks have been very difficult with creating a visual, and I had to write this when I got home and was going to sleep so Thanksgiving did not allow much time to do the post and all its viewing, no internet where I was… Sorry for the short blog and lack of visuals.

Bourriaud’s meaning of modern art is that art of prior periods is simply about the singular place and time. It refers to the idea that one-piece represents one single meaning and also refers to the moment in which it was created. Relational art on the other hand refers something more similar to Azoulay where there the artist, subject, and viewer must interact and connect for the object to work as an art piece. It is an internal perspective; museum viewed only.

            Relational art is not a photographic art. This is important in the manner that the viewer does not interact with the piece any more than he does with any other genre of photographic art. Bourriaud discrices the art as an internal art that draws upon the commitment of outside forces to interact with the piece so that the piece can be put into motion. In this he is taking away the artists intentions not by distinguishing the artist’s meanings from the piece but through these interactions the meanings are constantly changing.

If there was to be one form of relational art photography it would be, possibly, a project which the camera was distributed to outside people, non-artists a title that can be disputed, where when one person takes an image the image is projected onto the gallery wall. Each time the shutter is clicked a new image will be presented in the gallery. This can be the only way which relational art will be encompassed into the photographic medium. This is because the one’s taking the photographs have no prior inspiration for a sound, consecutive idea and therefore cannot create a project, consecutive photographic lineage, that refers to a singular idea between the artist, subject and viewer.

Relational”ism” art cannot be photographic in another way because of the anti-capitalist nature the artists describe it as. Photographic art is capitalist in almost everyway because if deals with what is in front of the camera and has specific meaning to that of society. Without the capitalist aspect photography would not exist in our world. These images would be cast from existence in a socialist society because the dictator would not be seen as having the supreme rule or concepts, the artist would. Also as Bourriaud states relational art is the reaf of human relations but when we look at images we cannot be afraid of the image because we see it as the image only. It may be a representational of the real but there is not interaction between the subject and viewer where the viewer will feel threatened by the subject at that exact moment.

            There are few artists who have hints of relational art being a part of their work but they cannot be a part of this group because of the inability for the viewer to interact. Many topographic artists are good examples of this relying on the human interaction with the environment to combine these connections. This does end up failing simply because the interactions were done by the unknowing aspect that those who created the environment did not know it was for art.  Lastly the main reason for why photographic art cannot be relational is because it is images of the exterior. The camera’s exterior is always the subject so there is no reflection to the interior in the mediums output. In this I guess another way for a photographic relational connection could be a camera-lucida room… but this too would bring in the exterior and reflect of the interior interaction of the art, which would in fact become an instillation and not a photograph.

week 12

Sorry I couldn’t come up with a visual… I just couldn’t think of anything to do for it.

John Szarkowski discusses the process of how the photographic image does not tell a story whether by itself or in a series together. Szarkowski talks abut the individuals who were engaged in photography being that they used it not as their profession but in a way to experiment and cultivate their understanding and remembrance of certain times and places. It is not until the very end of this article that he hints on several artists who attempt to actually create narrative solely though their images.

            In the photographic history many people used this medium not to tell a story but like the Brandy group to show a story, not in the narrative way, but to visually tell the viewer what is happening somewhere else. These types of stories were intended of single instances of time and place not to be tied together with other images around them. Szarkowski uses technical aspects in producing photographic art: frame, vantage point, etc. as a way to break down what a photograph is. In this manner he examines the disconnection that the viewer perceives when looking at an image since the viewers idea of what he/she is looking at is simply an images taken with a camera and then showed to them in this forum. These breakdowns reinstate the idea that the photograph tells as much of a story as it leaves out. Another point Szarkowski examines in the life-ness of the photograph vs. the subject itself. We typically see the subject in the image as the subject in real life, but through this life-ness, the length of life of the photo, we can see the ageing-ness in the “real” subject when the ageing in the image subject does not exist calling upon the image’s falseness in representation. This same can be said with all visual art, yet no other visual art is considered real interpretation of the subject.

            I do not agree with this notion that an image cannot tell a story. I see every image as revealing one sort of story, well minus some contemporary images and from other periods. I do understand this lack of narrative in the meaning that it is a unified understanding, but on an individual basis we all construe our own story that correlates within each image. We begin to look at the image as a whole connect all the people and items in the image and from there let our minds run rampant with ideas. This is what is wonderful in this medium that we are given a possibly realistic representation of what we know in our vernacular, we can connect with the subjects and instate our own known uses that we have had with the subjects. Even portraits of people we are not personally familiar with have this connection with us, yet for them it is in their gestures and stances that we know and not their bodies as a whole.

            Szarkowski discusses trends and hobbiests and specific artists who have knowingly tried and those unknowingly tried to use the photograph to tell a story, but he doesn’t examine everyone as a whole. Looking at all the photographs ever taken, impossible but I would love to have this access; you can conceder this group as a story, maybe not of the people or the world, or anything that broad, but simply of the photographic art. This maybe obvious but it is a story.

            Clement Greenburg discusses the role photography has in story telling and the absence of it in reference to the image. In this article Greenburg is not saying that the photograph is just a story and not a picture, but rather that the art is not the picture but the story. He discusses that the story becomes the art and that the composition, aesthetic, image, etc. are second nature and refer to the story by the photographer. Greenburg brings to light many wonderful “photographers” one in particular Eugene Atget. Atget was an artist who used photography not for its photographic reference to it being art, but a record for painters and other artists to use the images for their medium. Edward Steichen referred to photography as a historical medium for his work using it to reference past works or art and in this he was never intending that his images were his own but of the histories.

          

           Both of these artists were not intending to create the picture for the pictures sake but for other reasons. Cartier-Bresson is another example who took images in the decisive moment and wanted to show the move and nature of the world. He is to well noted for his interest not in the printed image, but in the exposed image. The image on his negative was the main thing Bresson desired in regards to photography.

            This text with reference to the artists Greenburg used I agree with him, but on the wider scope of the photographic profession there are a lot of problems with his thesis. There is so much more that goes into the photographic process that as a medium as a whole one will find many people with similar sights, but these people will always be different from others. And in considering both articles together I would have to say this medium of photography has to be split into various formats of the image, print, concept, as well as genre and many more. Photography is far too wide a medium to have one generalized view to, and anyone who believes to summarize the medium otherwise is wrong in my mind.

New Topographic Archive + physically political mapping points (confusing...)

New Topography is a new point on photography’s map. Though this type of imagery, both documentary and art, has been in practice for a while, even instances have been noted since before the concept of art systems was conceived, such as photographer William Henry Jackson, looking at it now we can examine it in a new context the exceeds the art function. As curator Willoughby Sharp mentions there is a connection between the art and the social life. I understood this as being a connection, maybe interaction would be a better word, between humanity and the “natural” environment, as well as our modern or contemporary perception of what nature is. Is nature now everything that is involved in it? Are our cities and creations now one with nature in that they have the same reflection of naturality by definition? Granted the definition of nature is non-human creations but they are natural to us now. It would be absurd to consider a landscape or nature without some sort of man-made existence in it. 

William Henry Jackson

Ansel Adams

            System art and system theory involve multiple ideals, many different from each other and between artists, but one consistent ideal is in the serial work, the single connected point in the project that represents the intentions and outcome of a project. In serial work there is no hierarchy. From the concept, to the image, to the presentation of the work everything is equal and just as important as the others. Though for many artists the presentation was not as different from traditional approaches to presentation, other than the Becher’s and few others, but it was mainly in the frame that this point struck out in its importance. This familiar imagery of the vernacular is new in topography in that we are not viewing distant landscapes of the national parks or the uninhabited West; we are looking at our cities the connection land between our cities and our involvement within both of these. We are being tied into the images, familiar landscapes, that we experience everyday. The locations of these images are meaningless in that we do not need to know the location of the photograph because they are location-less. Even images of visually known cities and places become un-map-able (each way I write this word it looks weird so sorry…) due to their consistency among other cities and areas. So long is the view of the unknown landscape where we are looking at an area that is distinct in its location such as images by Ansel Adams. We are taking a psychological and sociological perspective and intertwining it with art.

Robert Frank

            These photographers, Robert Frank, Stephen Shore, Lewis Baltz, examine various conceptions, but are looking into the same core interest. Through this topographic representation the interest is not in one single subject but the community in the subject, the subject being the image/print itself. Robert Frank’s image of Mobile Home’s eliminates the frames edges as the ending point of the perspective. Frank in this manner is not limiting the viewer from what is being shown he is bringing up front the continuous and unending image, the image being our world and the subject being what he framed in his camera. Frank also examines and questions the subject by what is natural and unnatural through his exposure. Papageorge mentions Frank’s light as equivalency of differentiation, every photograph has the same quality of light. In this Papageorge is commenting on Frank’s continuous clarity between the final, presented prints as being involved in no hierarchy. This is an important and true point, but there is another key feature that this equivalency pertains: the equivalency between perceived subjects in the frame. The consistency in lightness between the natural and human aspect are similar in that Frank is revealing or questioning this connection.

Lewis Batz

Stephen Shore

            Two other photographers who draw upon this questioning of the landscape or man-altered landscape, Minor White and the Becher’s, use vantage point and perspective to achieve a look that gives the viewer no entry point or location of the image. It is not simply about the disinterest for the viewer to want or know how to locate themselves in the frame, but to force the viewer to be an outsider looking in on their world. We are forced to examine each area as if it is not familiar to us or a part of our world, when we know that it is. This is all conceived in the process of framing. More traditional forms of framing for topography is used in referring the subject to use up all portions of the frame from the center to the edges, but, like I stated earlier, now the frame is simply a barrier that the viewer must get overcome. Take for instance image c1, bellow, the focus is on the street light, yet it is not as important as the cracked road that surrounds it or the scattered trees and houses in the background, or the foggy sky and frozen farm land. The scene is just as much a part of the surround environments that are not visible in the image, and it is understood that the non-visual surroundings mimic that of what is visual. Tone, for example, becomes an important factor in how one reads an image from the intended subject to what is considered open space. In c1 the tone of the asphalt is similar to that of the non-snow covered field, the trees in the background to that of the houses around them, these all eliminate the meanings from one to the other incorporating everything not merely as equal, but rather it is for the viewer to decide its meaning and concern or lack of. New topography for me falls down to not only what the photographer intends, they have control as to how the image will appear visually, but to how the viewer interprets and sees the image.  

c1

            Hal Foster’s response is going to be short. Foster’s piece on The Archive connects to the new topographies in a way of connecting the past and present and relying on the photographer and viewer as deciphering their own meaning and judgment. Foster examines in this essay the relevance in art, literature and objects of the past for their pertinence in the present. Archives “are recalcitrantly material, fragmentary rather than fungible and as such they call out for human interpretation rather than mechanical reprocessing.” I feel that in this Foster is describing archives as objects and theories that have been lost to time and abandoned but not destroyed. These objects are everywhere and were of importance but now they faded into the environment and their importance is for us to decide instead of calculated reasoning’s for the outcome of the object. These artists are re-identifying these archives to the modern time and concept brings back to light their prolonged intention and reinstating it with the artists own. This form of art relies on the openness in all aspects of the piece instead of it being constrained to a specific forum or concept. It draws upon the individual for meaning and recognition as well as power, and in doing so with these new and variety of concepts and inputs about the archive it begins to shift form and meaning in an unending way. This transformation is due to the fact that everyone can conceive his or her own ideas and concepts of the piece. There are no guidelines or constraints to limit ones thoughts. This archive art I feel is limited in many ways to specific mediums, and I can’t see its potency in photography other than through history images or reconsidering our decisions but not being able to alter them. However this archive has opened many new mapping points drawing on maps from the past and connecting them to our modern times, as well as evolving the map to be a three-dimensional map in that we are mapping on various levels of each other, such as physical or topographic map, and re-examining mapped points in different manners such as completely turning mapped points up side down to look at them in new ways and reconsider their factual points on our said map.

Nikki S. Lee

   
        The two photographers I feel reference procedure in the best manner as it referencing continuous subject matter are Nikki S Lee and Winston Link. Lee transforms herself into identities and social characteristics of various natures and submerges herself into the society to identify the unimportant separation created through race, interest, age, and environment. By transforming into the subculture of the subject she, in considering all her projects as one, is defining herself as belonging to nowhere and everywhere. She is ridiculing all societies as segregating from each other based of subtle and insignificant differences. Each society is going to be different from another but these subcultures and cultures are not, and through her consistent and involved approach in each of them she is visually and literally showing us that anyone can be anyone and that we are all virtually the same.

Winston Link

            Weston Link on the more literal side is using procedure to literally show the same subject in each image: a train. This type of procedure, I feel, does not have any sub-context to its meaning, but that he is showing us the capability of variety of a subject through different perspectives, uses and interaction with the environment around itself. I guess on a insignificant sublevel there can be a context that it refers to, but I don’t know if it is true. These trains possibly can be, like Nikki Lee, a connecting point of environments and people. That one single object can reference multiple societies and transportation to and from these societies. Like Lee, simply being an Asian women, these images show just a train, but it is in thinking about the message and idea of the intention of Lee or Link’s train where the power and context arises.

So in regards to the chart from last week I have added this weeks terms, exagerated a little, but here it is:

 

So in my mind I could not locate in a percise location these two terms in the mapping, NT and Archive, but its plausable, right? I mean Archive totally agrees and also is completely disconcerned with everything. And the New Topographies are not referencing a specific time and place thought they are, they are narrating our time and they are simply images of environments, I placed the topography in this area because in theory they are projections of landscapes onto the medium of photography and well they are images telling us things, but we have to figure that out for ourselves. I am pretty sure this is wrong but it was fun destroying this frustrating and confusing chart!!! Have a nice week.

 

Fried you've been challenged!!!!

George Baker is calling upon photography to expand upon its conscious ideals on what is photography. Baker thinks that the concern of photography being in crisis is not a negative connotation but one that can bring it back into importance of Art. In this mindset Baker is going against Michael Fried by Fried’s negative assumption of the objecthood and theatrical approach in this medium. Baker wants to draw upon all aspects that this medium can indulge in from stasis, non-stasis, narrative and non-narrative. With this the crisis becomes the reform.

            Two negative affiliates that is commonly discussed in this medium, analog vs. digital, and the wide affiliation among the mediums users with the availability to everyone, have, in my mind, become the main expanses in this field. Kodak’s Brownie has given the medium to everyone with the meaning that everyone can take photographs. This has expanded the viewpoint of the field to those beyond the dominating professions that seems to exist. Even with these photographers who are not intending to pursue this field in the professional level they are still being able to interact with this field in their own personal expansions. This draws upon a newer and more widespread affect that occurs solely in this medium. The continuous debate of analog vs. digital is also an expansion of this field in that with the invention of the scanner we are now incorporating both analog and digital into one.

            Baker examines several contemporary photographers that expand the medium not only through subject matter, but also in output layouts. Jeff wall puts his tableaux imagery not for the wall but in the wall. These images now become not only images but physical implants into the structure as in a way become windows that show what is on the other side of the hanging surface. Also artists are presenting their images one step past walls by presenting their work not on the wall but merely using light to reveal an image as it appears to be on the wall but is instead just a projection of an image in a box that is being seen on the wall.

            The two photographers I have decided to discuss are Sugimoto (Sea Scapes) and Hido (House Hunting). Sugimoto with his project Sea Scapes can be placed between narrative and stasis, but possibly between stasis and non-stasis as well. The reason for his works to be either or is a matter of personal taste. I can see these Sea Scapes as being between a narrative of the various environments as well as a visual document of an undocumentable time and place: stagnant. It can also be between stasis and non-stasis because like the stagnant nature of the work they are long exposures and therefore through the exposure the environments are in an active state. Sugimoto has expanded this field by involving the existence of time in his images and unifying all places in the world into one similar place. 

            Hido’s work would be considered to be the same as Sugimoto in the manner that he is putting out of context the subject he is photographing, non-stasis, and also showing the inactive-ness of the subject. We are given a narrative through his project of these environments, but from image to image we are seeing similar subjects as they exist as being lost in time and motionless. Hido can be seen as extending this field by taking out of context what the subject is and it’s intentions. He presents objects that reveal the usage of humanity but shows the discern that exists between the subject and it’s owner. Both Hido and Sugimoto are, in a way, connecting the practices of cinematography and photography as well as painting and sculpture in the manner of deconstruction of the subject.

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMKm-PpD8Aw&list=QL&playnext=1

This is a trailer for "Funny Face" a movie with the visual inspiration of Richard Avedon. Avedon helped work on the movie, but it was with his vision and sight with which this movie was filmed.

"Nice!", "SO COOL!!!","PURR", "Where is this take?", "Holy COWZIERS!", "neat stuff", "What kind of equiptment do you use?"

This new forum of photographic placement in the web is not different from that of the argument of analog vs digital. The role of the photographer has always shifted with the introduction of media since the start of photography till now in a virtual world. Evans depicts this transition of the new photographic forum in blogs as means to expand on what photography can be. These blogs, personal websites, and photo-sharing sites allow everyone the possibility to post and comment on billions of peoples work, camouflaging the difference from the amateur and professional in work content. These sites now allow for the production of art to be broadened and unbendable. We are given countless sources to experience work that possibly would never have been viewed without these services. There is a new public voice, that though was prominent since the 18^th century, is now considered sociably acceptable as truth. This voice is more prominent in the consumer content of companies that want to be perceived as “owner enforced” in the manner that those who are potential owners have insight and influence on the product. 

TheDailyNice image for November 1st, 2010

I do not believe that through these web sites the true essence of art in a professional manner will change entirely, but as to referencing art and people it is a new type of forum that can reexamine the role of art in society. Now that people are able to put their work for anyone to see the professionals need to prove their ability more so because there is more competition. This competition is not just between few people but everyone, and in this manner is always shifting. One person’s images are compared to another’s. The competition has also shifted from bodies of work to individual images. These forums allow for people to get feedback from consumers and not just historians.

These sites have also created a shift in the imagery from images of the vernacular to vernacular images; now images are produced so rapidly that they are in a way second nature to our lives. This vernacular image is so prominent in our lives now that even well contrived images from professionals get entwined in them as to mask their uniqueness. Susan Murray discussed how the manipulation created through digital photography is now irrelevant. Now with these unprofessional databases of blogs and sharing sites the old conception that digital photography being negative by not showing the real is irrelevant since people aren’t thinking about the images as much as they are just wanted to see images. Murray discussed the new vocabulary associated with this new forum of sharing sites, but there is really no difference from that of traditional vocabulary besides in the terminology. Her example of ephemera, to me, is indifferent from what is considered minimalist photography. Murray, in a way, hints on the analog vs. digital debate in stating that these sites, uninterested in whether the photographer considers him/herself to be amateur or professional also are uninterested in the format of film vs. digital. The only thing that matters in these forums is the image, not the person not the media and not the context. There is an unlimited amount of work that coincides to each type of image, far to great to see everything, that the image itself is the sole importance and that the image must reassure the prominence of the work. With these forums the concept and writings on projects now become unimportant.

“The two sides of the same coin” which Evans distinguishes as analog vs. digital is in reference to both being the same thing just in different ways. This also is a good analogy in reference to the web vs. traditional outputs in the art world. Both allow others to see work and to be involved in it, but they are different in reference to acceptability of professional and amateur. This is to say that neither is totally good or bad, but it is necessary to consider those pros and cons in the context of whether it is on the web or in lets say a gallery. One cannot compare these sides in reference to both at the same time. Like a coin you can only look at one side at a time.

These sites also create a communal effect among photographers. There is a constant collaboration that exists when posting on Flickr. One can search for images through very specific terms such as cups to vague terms, like thoughts. All these images rely on the specificity that the postee has given to their images through titling and tagging. There is in a way no more general theme to images like landscape, portrait, and fine art, but now a broad ubiquitous themeing like Richard, thought, lines, imaginary, and so on. When looking up the term “star” in Flickr one can see images of stars in outer space as well as movie stars and anything one considers to be a star for them. All these images are a part of a collaboration of images within the same theme, and therefore all those people are in a similar category even if they want to or not.

Flickr search for "star"

Flickr search for "star"

Flickr search for "star"

Analog vs Digital

Fred Ritchin examines the change from traditional analog photography into the digital age. He examines the emergence of consumerism with the need to have more images, faster reproductions, and an endless flow of flat representations that become the more important object instead of the photographed object itself. With these continuous desires that the analog did not offer effectively enough digital did. This digital medium allows its images a continuous altercation to the recorded image one that has no need to appear real or fabricated. This image does not need to follow any set guidelines because it is new; there is no accepted road for people to go by in order to use this medium. He argues that the analog representation is always one step removed from the initial object, but that the digital representation can in a way remove itself completely away from that of the original.  These digital representations are not mirror exposures but contextualized codes that create an image.

            Ritchin also examines the history in which mediums have switched through its predecessors; analog from painting and digital from analog. Through this continuous pattern the rotation from analog to digital was inevitable and that this will again occur with the next generation. This reference to the “real” is not, as Ritchin described, about the desire for a photograph to appear real, but instead to appear fake, a simple representation to be “immortal and less finite.” He describes the passage from Don DeLillo who tells of his understanding of the realism that photography has conceded into our reality. That by obtaining these countless numbers of images of objects and places that we no longer want to see the real object/place itself, but to leave that place and look back upon it through our images. Sontag describes this real as not in the image but of the scene phorographed. This real is now a connection of the two; the image and the earthly scene itself. That we cannot have the real if we have not seen both or at least the actual scene.

            From the packet by Jorge Ribalta he is not entirely discussing the death of the entire photographic process or either the traditional analog process, but that there is a death in the understanding of photography. It is not that analog is dead, but that it is changing face. Photography is reallocating itself onto a new broader sphere with connection to analog. Ribalta discusses the continuous influence of analog in the digital realm and discusses its importance by the fact that digital is still borrowing from its former self. By the statement that the photographic is born is referring the the molecular identity of digital. The digital process is similar to molecules in the way that a digital capture is the bonded codes that reconstruct the scene. Instead of the absorbed reaction that light creates when hitting the silver plane of film the digital file is a mass reaction of codes constructed electronically.

            There is one quote that I found to be Ribalta’s main focus in this essay, “photography without realism is irrelevant photography.” Ribalta discusses the document that is the photograph, a representation of realism of life. It is in this sense that the term documentary is not fully understood. Photography does not depict realism, but rather it is a representation of realism. This realism in it’s simplest essence is distinguished between the author of the photograph and the spectator. There has never been a true photograph that is realism, but that we have all always understood the photograph to be real. It is now in this digital age that we are starting to question this realism that never fully existed, and by understanding this non-realism in digital we are beginning to question the realism pre-understood with analog. Along with its brother, analog, digital photography is examining a mutual bond between the realism and anti-realism in its work. Through the changing of time this photographic process must change as well or will be lost in time. Ribalta seems interested in this combination of the appearing nature of the real and anti-real. He asks the viewer to reconsider the real. The traditional function and arena of photography has changed with civilization changing and with a new technological world we can reveal this world in a medium that matches it technologically and in a new way. Ribalta is examining the digital process as a way to reconsider the traditional photograph’s style and meaning.

            It is also in this new style that institutions are beginning to connect to this essence in a new way. For example the Barcelonian survey he describes wants to use photography as a stage for the people to see this more modern civilization in a unified way; unified between medium and civilization. This is just as we examined our nation through the survey by the FSA in the 1930’s. Another role that institutions are taking is the arena for photographs. Jo Spence discusses the move out of museum and into the living room. That the institutions are moving toward a more consumer identity than a public one.

            Marshall McLuhan is fairly similar to that of Ribalta’s in my opinion, in that he is discussing this marriage of the two. That through this digital process there still lays a desire to appear traditional. This is also explained by the arena in which digital is being projected as being the same to that of analog.  This digital arena, now a part of the Internet through blogs and sites like flicker, allows outsiders to give comment of the work in their own opinion. This digital process, described in reference to Kerry Skarbakka’s images, creates a realism of that of analog with people due to their comments of his work.

            All in all I would have to agree with McLuhan on most of his points in this transformation of mediums, but on the other hand there are plenty of analog works that go against this “realism-ness” of the medium. Take into consideration Jerry Uelsmann who compiles multiple negatives into his final prints that depict indubitable unrealism of our world. This is an obvious anti-realism but done within a considered realistic medium. It is my personal belief of the unimportance of meaning in a piece. To me this anti-realism has no affect of photography because if a piece is beautiful or aesthetically pleasing I will accept it. If one chooses to go down the digital road instead of the analog one it is that person’s choice, I prefer analog and that is mine. Each medium offers its own pros and cons to the medium, but both have the possibility to surpass the other depending on the account. There are certain instances when one will be a better decision than the other, and within this mindset I believe that photography should be completely understood before determining which route to go down. If digital destroys the analog and the future of photography is solely digital than those down the road will be at a loss by not understanding where their process originated and/or the power that it had.

Acknowledgement of Suffrage and Identity

Azoulay reiterates her connection of the subject, photographer, and viewer as being a reflection of identity between the three. Azoulay describes that the way Laub represents the subject as being just a person like herself and the viewer that they lose their citizenship of nationality and gain a worldlier, theoretical citizenship in the gallery or presentation space. The image of the Arab woman walking into the sea brings this point directly to the top. By allowing the figures to silhouette into darkness denies all affirmable citizenship due to the fact that we can not see who the figures are. Not only are we left with the unknowing reasons for her being in the water, where she is going, and what ethnicity she is we begin to bring ourselves into a closer connection with the people. They are no longer just subjects of a photograph they become everyone involved in process. When becoming absorbed into the image we lose all critical response to how we should perceive the people, we begin to accept them as ourselves and to want to help them. Our thoughts transform from reflectance to action.

            Laub continues her portrait series of suffrage with victims of near-death encounters and sexual assault. Here she relates these two forms of victims to those who were a part of the holocaust and other extreme atrocities. This brings the importance and meaning of her subject matter, instances we hear about each day, to that which will continue to haunt countless millions for eternity. Though there is no reflection as to one being more atrocious than the others. These portraits reaffirm the connection of the individual, photographer, and spectator a step past the basic identity among the three by giving the individuals a voice, literally, in the process. Laub allows the individuals to write text on where they live and how it is perceived. By this Laub not only displays their physical appearance, but also their perceived identities, as they believe they are seen by on looking eyes.  This process eliminates the possible disarray or destruction sometimes led on by the awkwardness of a title as it relates to the image.

            For me there is something fretful about Mark Reinhardt’s criticisms of suffrage. This first point will be short, possibly meaningless, but I am irritated at his desire to put down aesthetic interpretation. He mentions how the message of suffrage is lost when implemented with a form of aesthetic though his sub-chapter titles, in particular The Tale of Two Towers, is an adapted aesthetic interplay, a pun, of a well known literary novel and a devastating occurrence in our history. I just want to know how he can find reason to do what he claims is a failure in acknowledgement.

            Instead of the traditional approach of photographs being used to alert and inform people the images from Abu Ghraib were used for humiliation of it’s inmates. The photographs of inmates being tortured were intended to cast shame among those in the images. This brought forth a reaction also not familiar to the typical viewer; resentment instead of sympathy. The desired outcome had backfired on those who used the images, and those in the images who were intended to feel humiliated used these images as a way to reveal the atrocities they went through. Reinhardt emphasizes on the fact that in our media we presented these images to the public but never of a dead American soldier. He discusses his beliefs on the matter, which I completely disagree with. I don’t feel that the media is in any way responsible to present those dead to its widespread public. Though it is not proper to represent the enemy in this way either, but giving the families and the dignity of the dead soldiers to the humiliation that could occur this would be horrendous.

        

   

            The second theme Reinhardt talks about is the imagery after the 9-11 attacks. The two photographers discussed in this are Thomas Ruff and Joel Meyerowitz. Joel was the only photographer allowed to enter Ground Zero to photograph. This is possibly the only time Reinhardt is not aggressive with his distaste of aestheticism and suffrage. Joel uses the aesthetic properties to present his subject as being destroyed potentially in process of being rebuilt. There is a lapse in theoretical understanding of what is occurring, though it is obvious that through our understanding of the even that it is not in the process of being rebuilt. Joel reveals this building as that. There is no dead bodies or any identities of chaos that is occurring in the instance of the exposure. Though there is extreme amount of suffrage in the scene, visually it is left out. Ruff’s appropriated photograph of the towers after the hit of the planes examines the scene similar to Joel’s but that literally in the buildings, invisible to viewer, there are countless people dead or suffering.

Reinhardt discusses the acknowledgement that photographs require when dealing with themes such as suffrage rather than just knowledge. This acknowledgement of the individual photographed from the viewer means that the viewer knows and understands their new counterparts suffrage and problems. It brings to the face the concern that is being dealt with or that has been dealt with, timely speaking. This process also brings back Azoulays connection of the individual, photographer, and viewer. Through this acknowledgement the viewer is not just another “viewer,” but a potential enforcer of decisions that can occur from this connection of Azoulay’s connection of the three.

            In the selection of acknowledgement Reinhardt discusses the project of Alfredo Jaar’s The Eyes of Gutete Emerita. This series is a reflection of the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Reinhardt discusses the layout of the project being a triptych light box composed of rotating text and an image of the subject’s eyes. Along with this triptych is Jaar’s series of photographs in book form. Reinhardt is disappointed with Jaar’s decision of produce a book instead of presenting the images on the gallery walls. In my opinion Jaar’s decision was proper. By having the subject look through a book instead of images on a wall he requires the viewers to get up close and personal when glancing at the suffrage. Sometime when affronted from huge images people tend to back away, especially with sensitive subject matter as this, and not look upon the images as in-depth and with a personal connection. The book format allows the viewer to hold the individual presented to them, see them in a sensitive setting, and gives them a way to bring the suffering images outside the gallery and present them everywhere and anywhere.  

Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon

Robert Mapplethorpe

Cynics and Citizens

Both articles reveal the atrocities human kind has bestowed upon its fellow members. Susan Sontag remarks on the fact that the photographer’s intentions are irrelevant to the larger process. From all that Sontag has stated this is the phrase that I feel is most relevant to both her argument as well as Ariella Azoulay. It refers to the belief that even if the photographer does care for the future and present nature of the subject that through his personal capture of it, the fact remains, anyone who sees this representation of the subject will undoubtedly construct his or her own meaning. It does not, however, leave the photographer out of the message entirely. Azoulay discusses how even an image with a title telling the sitter exactly what is infront of them is not all there. Instead of looking at an image and simply accepting that which we are hearing or reading as evidence of what is presented we must “watch” the image, and in a way try to grasp what is given to us as a whole. 

Though Azoulay is discussing her point from a woman who has experiences the atrocities of the intifada with which we are unfamiliar. We may have been introduced to this historical point in the past and have read about it for this week’s blog but yet we still don’t know anything because we are spectators and have only been given a one-sided viewpoint. This is what the power of photography has. Azoulay describes in a way that a photographer, the photograph itself, its subject and its audience is a complete, unbiased community of unknowing citizens with each other. That through this art everyone and everything is united. They all have the same laws; there is not one subject that inevitably gets more perks than another. In the beginning Azoulay connects her understanding of instances she has not seen by what others have told her (i.e. when her mother told her that they don’t go to the beach on Fridays because that’s when the “clothed Arabs” are there.) Azoulay understands this as people swimming, uneasily and awkwardly, in the water wearing all their clothes. This is a point that Sontag discusses entirely through her passage that without these images telling us what is happening in the world we don’t fully understand anything. Even though we are only given a single view of what is happening with a photo we are still able to see the people, the colors, the atmosphere they are experiencing that cannot be explained in writing as influentially. 

Even though we are given the examples of the atrocities that are occurring around the world, we can see them and we can hear them on the TV, but we are still not there. The images are in our environments, yet we are separated by the fact that it is represented in a tiny format, a TV or a newspaper; something that we all notify as fictions. Jeff Wall’s image of Dead Troops Talking is a grand example of reiterating the fact that things are occurring. This large format print, if it were a believable situation of history, could in turn be the next stage of morbid presentation, a form of arena that gives people a personal perspective that is of realistic size. This is an issue Sontag states, at the start of her writings, that we as humans are constantly needing more and more to reiterate how to personify death as a atrocious habit. We don’t want to see continuous messages, but rather newer and more illustrative images and stories. For this reason I have come to believe that it is in fact not Sontag’s “reexamination” on her previous beliefs that photographs pose a neutral affect on us, but in a way a continuation of that fact adding further implements on the subject as well as opposing sides. This also is a part of Sontag’s relation to presentation of the images from the wall to books to newspaper and TV. No matter with what format in which we engage these images we still come to an end and tend to get loose the images when we leave gallery or close the book. Though for an instance we were “semi-a part” of this life we had just seen, but we get back into our own reality and continue along our own paths. Also the format of presentation gives the viewer a form of realism of the work. Work presented in the Fine Art realm seems staged and fictitious where as in a newspaper it can seem more realistic and informative. Nonetheless both are a part of our lives and as accurate as they will ever be: both can only be as informative as the viewer will allow.

The image of Hebron by Anat Saragusti as Azoulay presents is a portrait of a man whose show was broken into by government troops. One key feature most people affiliate with photography is that it exists in the past, what is being shown has already happened and over. But Azoulay expresses that this is not the case. That when dealing with a photograph is the subject not existing today, or at least in the minds of others. When we look at an image from previous times we are not only seeing what has happened but a glimpse of what can happen, even if it doesn’t it would still be a possibility. When confronted by this image of Hebron we see, literally, a man holding a broken lock. Plainly speaking this image is meaningless, but when one looks into the image as Azoulay wishes us to do, watching it rather, they are given the context and message that is present. We need to not only see an image as just that but also look for what else is there. Try to put ourselves into that occurrence and understand what they are going through. If the media has been good for one thing it is that they have taken away a sense of imagination by giving us, continuously throughout each and every day, their interpretation of subjects with no need to examine alternative perspectives.