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.
No comments:
Post a Comment