Is Photography Over?

So this lecture was really interesting to watch, I really enjoyed the fact that there were two different panels of people because it allowed this question to be answered a many of different ways.

The first question the mediator asked was if there is something in photography that is over and what is it? That made me think to myself and drift a little away from what I was hearing to come up with my own answer. I came to the conclusion that photography will never be over, but the traditional practice of photography is being replaced by the digital process so in a sense we are starting anew with the digital camera/photography. However, we cannot say that "analog" photography is over because while the mass majority of people are using digital DSLR camera's there are still those who use film (me included) and hold onto the chemical practices.

Corey Keller is the assistant curator of SFMOMA, and her argument I definitely agree with as well as Jennifer Blessing (why did I choose two woman?). In any case they made very clear points about the ontological identity of photography. Blessing made a point to say that the she belongs to one niche of photography-being contemporary (conceptual) photography and to lump all kinds of photography into one solid mass would be to miss calculate. By miss calculate I mean that you cannot describe or theorize one thing when it is made of many things, you must break it apart and start with each individual piece.

A lot of the discussion fell off the band wagon and trailed onto other topics, knew that was coming, but it was interesting to hear what all these different people from different walks of life educated in the art world came to understand. I can't remember who said this but they said, "photography is a forward thinking medium" and this really made me think. What does he mean? Is he talking about the literal forwardness of photography or the ever moving change in photography? I understood this to mean that photography has come to be something of a cataloguing machine, it represents our history and propels us forward. With out  images as pictures, images as history where would we stand now? To answer my own question, we would probably still be building things that fell apart and non complacent about racism, terrorism and all the other ism's.

On a totally different tangent I want to bring up one more thing that Corey Keller said. She stated that there was a decline in quality in the prints being made. The photograph looked awesome on screen but then when it was printed it wasn't desirable anymore, also saying that people now don't know what a good print looks like or even how to achieve what they see on screen. This is a true statement because after working in the digital lab for about 2 years I have seen some of the most horrendous prints and being such a fan of analog printing (having taken b&w AP photo for 4 years in high school) it really shows the lack of care that people have with digital printing. If someone were to make the same print in the darkroom it would have to be perfect before leaving because after spending so much time, why would you walk away with a mediocre print? If there is something in photography that is over then it is the relationship between the creator and the creation, we have lost touch with what it is we are actually doing. It has become a ubiquitous form of everyday life.

Photography's Expanded Field

Photography's Expanded Field by George Baker is putting to terms how the digital world has transformed the world of contemporary art. One of the main themes was that in todays world, photography has become "infinitely malleable" because our definition of image based work always goes back to being refered to as photography. It's like saying a poster with text on it is photography when obviously it is something completely different, it speaks differently then how we render the photograph. Baker uses the phrase, "photography itself has been outmoded technologically and displaced aesthetically" (122). His argument is that while some artist still revel in the old forms of photography and image making there is a new counterpart to the photograph being a video, a moving scene or some kind of motion embedded in the imagery. He uses the term "insufficient" for describing the photograph as a bridge to video/film/moving image. I don't think that Baker is saying that the photograph has lost it intrigue but that now we are seeing the trend of images that are directly linked to something in motion, or have been set up like a moving image although remaining static.

He mentions a few artist like Rineke Dijkstra and Cindy Sherman as two end of the spectrum. Rineke Dijkstra includes a video (sometimes) next to her image of the same person and allows the image and video to work as a team almost as though one is your reference point and the other is your in between. Baker made a really interesting point that seeing the final outcome of an image makes you wonder how the artist got to the point of saying, this is the image, and this is how I am going to portray my subject-and seeing this along side a video allows you to see the intermediate steps of choosing the right expression, pose and whatever else. I had never thought of a moving image as the precursor to the static image before and it seems...instinctual?

Ruth Drawing Picasso by Rineke Dijkstra

The other end of the spectrum he insinuates is Cindy Sherman and Philip-Locra diCorcia graze the lines of cinema while still only using the static image. Cindy Sherman's Film Stills are a great example of how you can achieve the look of cinema and motion in an image without actual motion. We are allowed to see a "clip" if you will of the action, Baker says a hiccup of indecision--not so sure I agree with that.  The next point that Baker is trying to make is that there is this duality of dedication in photography to both cinema and photography which he then asks if it is now an "expanded field of operation" meaning that we have more image based outlets to use and it has forever expanded what we think to be a photograph. 

Hustlers by Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Philip-Lorca diCorcia is an image based artist but as you can see, his work is very cinematic and is often compared to Gregory Crewdson for his lighting aesthetics. Baker says, "the image as suspended between neither narrative nor fully static" (127). Baker says that there is an inherent war between the construction of  a narrative while being disrupted by the mediums "stasis." He uses this word over and over again in order to bash it into our heads as an undisrupted image, a photographic term used to describe a non-moving object (in our case, the photograph). 

Rosalind Krauss author of, Sculpture in the Expanded Field is on-page debated with in the essay by George Baker using her essay as a primary source of information to pick apart and glue back together. They both have ideas that work together but I think Baker is simplifying what she has already said. 

"Thus to paraphrase Krauss one last time, "[Photography] is no longer the privileged middle term between two things that it isn't. [Photography] is rather only one term on the periphery of a field in which there are other, differently structure possibilities" (136). This quote seems to say that the practice of photography in the contemporary art world today is given many different arena's or outlets for play. Then Baker asks the question or rather states that our practices have deconstructed and potentially opened the medium to many different facets of life. The photograph is no longer just a photograph when it is put to audio, or made into an installation and this is exactly what the expanded field of photography means. The photograph is being outmoded by other forms of technology but will never cease to exist because without the static image there is no record of our history, no understanding of our cultures. While there are still newspapers, online new sites and magazines in print we will not see the demise of photography to the video. 

Words Without Pictures

In the first essay by Christopher Beford, "Qualifying Photography as Art, or, Is Photography All It Can Be" speaks about the specificity of language and critical theorizing of photography and the lack of awareness of the dialect used to critique photographs. He uses both Thomas Demand and Fried as his centering point, comparing their views on the critique of photography and what it means to interpret a photograph. The very large difference Bedford points out is that Demands' practice is based upon his control rather then the photographic practice or technical processes which allows the viewer to direct their attention to it as a whole.

  "The photograph is simply the incidental conclusion, the polished index of a more complex back-story to be researched and unpacked by the viewer/critic. In this sense, the photograph is not independently productive of meaning, but is rather the document that records and implies the extended process behind the image."


I think this is a very concise quote, it says a lot without saying much at all. Photography is just an index of a past moment and until it is "unpacked" it remains just an object for viewing rather then something of theoretical meaning.




On to the next one.

I had to. And I love Jay Z.

The next essay called "Online Photographic Thinking" by Jason Evans is about the online medium of photography and its many facets of expansion. One of the first things he mentions is that the digital versus analog debate is more or less just different sides of the coin. Though that is not the main idea of the essay I just wanted to mention and underlying theme I keep reading in EVERY essay. He talks about the volume and diversity of imagery there is to find via the internet (tumblr, flickr etc.) and this is the time to be a photographer because there are so many different ways to be creative now that we have this wonderful platform that starts with "www."

www.thedailynice.com
www.thenewscent.com
www.kevinbeckphotography.com
www.tinyvices.com
www.squareamerica.com

I have now spent 2 hours looking through these websites and I highly encourage everyone to.

This is my new favorite website (For all you book/zine lovers out there)

http://vimeo.com/37862257


www.haveanicebook.com

1. I am studying Jennifer Blessing's article Rose is a Rose is a Rose and the issues of instinctual gender. I am interested in finding out how you can interpret gender by subtle changes in wardrobe, ultimately I will mascaraed as both a feminine woman and a masculine woman captured by the camera. 

3. I want to study Blessing's article and try and come up with a clear understanding of what it means to a woman, and that is a very loaded discussion. 

...I have been thinking this through for awhile but don't know how it will start until I start it (next week). 

This is going to be a pair of photographs that are meant to engage the beholder and hopefully be able to translate what I believe they will. I need to read, re-read and re-re-re read Blessing's article a couple more times to get a real hold on this idea. These will be large scale images at least 24x 30 each. 

an example of how clothes change how we perceive although not in the gender way this time. 

http://www.andrepenteado.com/ 

Andre Penteado is a great artist, and this body of work is about his father who committed suicide. After Andre took all his dad's clothes to the studio, still embodied with his father's hair and the smell of his cologne and photographed himself wearing each outfit. This kind of changes our understanding of what an outfit can do and I think it really talks about the idea that is brewing in my head. Hopefully I will be able to make a more concise articulation by the end of class or this week. 

PICTURING VIOLENCE: AESTHETICS AND THE ANXIETY OF CRITIQUE

This essay written by Mark Reinhardt is about images of suffering. We are given the term "aestheticizing suffering" as our base of understanding his stance on the matter. Reinhardt believes that these images of suffering are artistically and politically reactionary meaning they invite passive consumption (the reader/viewer) and narcissistic consumption, condescension (the trait of displaying arrogance by patronizing those considered inferior) and even sadism. A lot of the imagery of war and suffering we see in magazines, newspapers on the t.v. and online avenues only give you a glimpse of what is really going on. 


Another theme of this essay was the photographic representation of suffering as an instrument used to "abuse and humiliate prisoners." Are images of people being tortured and suffering really to inform and mobilize relevant issues or are they only really causing injury to the individuals pictured or the culture and cause they stand for? Being photographed like many men/women captured in war makes you question why  we are given these images and of what benefit they are having on us, the reader. "The aestheticizing tendency of photography conveys distress and ends by neutralizing it." This quote sums up a lot of what Reinhardt is calling into question. Not knowing these people pictured, the images begin to group into past images we have seen of this nature, totally neutralizing our view we become the passive consumer. One image pops into my mind when thinking about images of war that are so overly saturated in media we have become unengaged by its tragedy. 

These images we all have seen before, whether they are the same images or different ones we all remember this tragedy. Yet having seen these so many times, scratch that thousands of times on numerous platforms they begin to stop having impact on us. This arouses the issue of the importance of the context of circulation and/or display. Why is it so important to thrust these graphic images and burn them into our minds forever remember this image? We cannot do anything about what has happened, we cannot help these people and ultimately we are left feeling emotionless. 

One more main theme is defining aesthetic's? "Are we supposed to be cheered by the triumph of artistry?" This question begs to be answered, does the image have more impact because it is composed formally, should it matter, why should we even care? Reinhardt goes to define aesthetic as a noun then as an adjective and each definition mentions beauty- how are these war images or images of people suffering beautiful? Are we supposed to be happy and exclaim how beautiful, when we see something so disturbing but formally composed? He questions how this affects our rendering of the images, if in fact it does make us pay more attention to what is going on in the images or detracts from the human suffering depicted. BEAUTIFICATION-IN-THE-SERVICE-OF-PLEASURE. I find this phrase to be humiliating, it makes humans seen like emotionless beings only looking for spectatorial gratification via photographs. 

Another couple images of war that I cannot forget no matter how hard I try. The worst thing is that these are a staple figure in our history, so we are forced to remember these things. (Images from the vietnam war-last image of a monk in America burning himself during the Vietnam war era). 

In Part Actual, In Part Virtual

In the introduction of The Civil Contract of Photography by Ariella Azoulay, there are quite a few memories that become the table-setter for her arguments. Azoulay makes it clear that photography is evidence for what has happened and it creates a relationship between the spectator and that particular photography, a "contract." The word contract is used to show us that we are bound to what we are seeing, or "watching" as she puts it and it holds us just as a contract does. She uses the example of Johnathan Walker the supposed "slave stealer" who was accused of freeing slaves and sent to jail for it. Walker' hand was photographed and eternalized by the photograph. Azoulay refers to this image as a "shell, a hat, a fossil."

The differences I see between Azoulay and Fried is that Fried talks more specifically about the art photograph rather then the war photograph/photojournalist photograph. I also want to make the distinction that Fried focuses on how one interprets the construction of the image rather then how Azoulay says the photograph becomes a contract between the photographed, the photographer, and the spectator. Fried mentions the more technical side of photography including the size and what does to our interpretation as well as the absorption of the beholder into an illusory image. In comparison to Azoulay, Fried does not talk about the lasting effects a photograph has on the beholder, this "contract" we are bound to after we have watched upon it. Azoulay is not talking about the illusion but rather the reality of the image.

Imagery-the Driver of the Media

This week we read Susan Sontag's essay called Regarding the Pain of Others, she analyzes our society quoting it as a "society of spectacle." This is to say that our media in today's confinement of newspaper, magazines, online resources and books are driven by imagery but specifically highlights war imagery. Sontag goes to question that without the photograph, is this really happening? Yes, it is really happening but the photograph makes it "real." The war has become a spectacle, our news has become a form of entertainment whether it is horrifying images or not. Yet, without having any real connection to these images we begin to feel immune to their horror using the example of the borgeouis sitting eating their breakfast reading about the war without any sympathy since our media has become so hyper-saturated with these tales and images it is all the same to them. Stemming from that idea Sontag then goes to say being "adept of proximity, without risk" viewers are safely able to question the sincerity in order to refrain from being moved by these images. With that, our appetite has become wet, and hungers for more (she uses the term "ghoulishness"). With photography we are offered a glimpse of this reality from a distance but when these images are hung in a gallery does this change what we are seeing? We then have more questions of rationalization as it asks the viewer to really pay attention, reflect and examine: Who caused what the picture shows? Who is responcible? Is it excusable? Was it inevitable?
These kinds of questions are what we should already be asking, but with only the representation of an image surrounded by a story we loose context of what the photograph really is asking us to see. Great point of Susan Sontag's.

 

Thomas Struth's Museum Photographs

This chapter focuses on Thomas Struth's 3 bodies of work entitled: Museum Photographs, Pergamon Museum I-VI and Audience. All three series is being photographed in museums or churches, to visually put these images into words would be to say Struth is engaging the idea of physical permeability of the picture plane. A collapse of space connects two separate worlds by means of the photograph. Each painting hung in these museums live in their own reality on a wall in a museum or church, yet, the photograph holds a moment in time when these figures were part of this, however this world depicted in the photograph is not our reality it only lives in the picture plane. 

Kunsthistorisches Museum 3, Vienna

Map 1

For example one of Struth's pictures Kunsthistorisches Museum 3, Vienna (refer to image) shows a man who is looking at paintings of a married couple looking towards each other despite the frames that contain them. He is a older man with white hair and a blue sweater, grasping his hands behind his back while studying the paintings.  Looking at this image you begin to be aware of this "imaginary moment" (refer to map 1). The woman in the painting looks as if she is staring right at the old man but if this photograph was taken at any other angle would the same effect happen? By assuming that the white haired man is not part of the conversation we realize that the collapse of space or the intersection of these two worlds connect painting and photography and creates a world we cannot identify with but resemble ours extremely closely. (refer to Art Institute of Chicago 2)

The Art Institute of Chicago 2

Map 2

Lee Friedlander "At Work"

 Boston, Massachusetts, 1986

The second major intension of Struth's Museum Photographs was to catch a beholder transfixed and completely absorbed (and unaware of being beheld) to represent "a world of their own, a world in that respect-so to speak metaphorically-distinct and apart from that of the beholder" (Fried, 127). (refer to map 2) While most of his museum photographs fit this description, there are few that do not. Including, Rijksmuseum I, Amsterdam, 1990 where a young woman is sitting on a bench placed in front a painting, she sits towards the camera starring at us. Not absorbed and ultimately not as interesting as Struth's other work. Fried then asks the question of Lee Friedlander's series called "At Work" if they are truthful or just faking it for the camera? Significantly, no one has ever suggested that his subject weren't truthful (refer to image Boston, Massachusetts, 1986).

Pergamon Museum I

Map 3

I would like to agree with what Fried has said about Thomas Struth in regards to Riksmuseum I, because by making contact with the beholder we lose sense of a 3 dimension and all of a sudden it becomes too obvious. Struth as well realizes that he needs figures to respond to other figures not towards the camera. In his body called Pergamon I-VI, Struth actually went to the length of setting up a shot. (refer to Pergamon Museum I) In this image you see the artifacts that let you know that these are constructed and posed, which I find to be almost seamless except for the mistakes Fried points out (refer to map 3) what I understand is that the exposure was about 15 seconds so in order to get the shot he needed to have the people set up. But then how do we know that this wasn't what he was trying to convey, just this time his figures were deliberately performing absorption. There is a quote the Fried goes back to often, "There is an ineffable but fatal difference in attitude between people behaving naturally and people behaving naturally for a camera" (Fried, 137). To me that really sums up what you see, without knowing your are being photographed you allow a part of yourself to be captured that you weren't even aware you possessed but to know you will be photographed one usually gives away a part of themselves that they know well. 

Audience 7

Audience 2

His earlier Museum Photographs differ quite a bit from the Audience series, just purely because of his presence as a photographer. Meaning to say that Struth quite literally stands in front of statues, paintings or in the midst of painted ceilings with bright lights and a big camera, attracting attention. This body feels a lot different then the earlier bodies, without a reference of what they are looking at except for small detail like the reflection in a pair of sunglasses (refer to Audience 7). These images feel more intimate then Museum Photographs or Pergamon Museum for the fact of our distance from the subject. (refer to Audience 2) I haven't had the pleasure of seeing this work before so I was please to see something new. 

What is Contemporary Art?

Contemporary Art and Contemporaneity by Terry Smith is a discussion of what "contemporary" really means? She throws around different terms to categorize what contemporary means in reference to the term modern. Smith goes as far as to say that contemporary art is but a compound of modernism; both stem from the same "recursive character." This idea that both words (genre's of art) come from the each other, means one will always decide that the other is to be questioned.

Smith goes to say, "that which emerges from within the conditions of contemporaneity, including the remnants of the cultures of modernity and post modernity; but which projects itself through and around these, as an art of that which actually is in the world, of what it is to be in the world, and of that which is to come." I understood that to mean that the contemporary artists is a re-inventor of a sort pulling specific ideas from modernity and creating something that is part of the world now but still includes hints of something that once was. It is an extension of modernity a revision of it, thus it is called "contemporary."

I was looking up definitions and I thought it went along well with how Terry Smith described contemporaneity, for the simple fact that modern is thought to be a synonym; interesting that even the dictionary knows that these two words come from each other. 

Later in the article Smith says that the role of a critic is to keep advancing and interpret art "of current, recent, and past art in order to keep it in contemporary play." If you think about the role of the critic, they are trained to look at works of art and understand the style, the purpose, the process and make a relevant understanding by today's standards, not only historical standards.

 The idea of "nowness" also comes into play, but what is now? "There are three times: a present of things past, a present of things present; and a present of future things," a formulation made by St. Augustine. I see this as a way of understanding the now, we can either see things from our point of view from the present-of the past-and of the future, there is no understanding "now" from any other point of view then the present, for we can not understand our past self as we do our present. Smith talks about this idea of the contemporaneity as this immediacy, prioritizing THIS moment in time, THIS instant of life. From my understanding contemporary artists understand the meaning of modern art and the history that goes with it, but to be a creator of the present means to embark on how one feels in the present, because there is no other way to feel except for what your feeling now (although you remember how you felt at one point, it can never be translated into the present as effectively as it would if it were your present).

I am thinking of one artist that revolves around the present, her state of mind, her feelings about life RIGHT now, it is moving because it is in the present, it isn't something that has already happened-it is ongoing. This is Lisa Lindvay.

The Sound of LIght: Reflections on Art HIstory in the Visual Culture of Hip-Hop

This essay by Krista Thompson contextualizes the hip-hop culture and its reference to art history, specifically talking about two artist Luis Gispert and Kehinde Wiley. A couple of key things I took away from this was:

• Material Consumption

• "Bling"

• Surfacisim, the power of surface light

Malick Sidibe- Pho to graphs

Malick Sidibe's was a photographer in the sixties and seventies focused on the youth of Bamako, when they gained independence there was an "open door for a Pan-African and diasporic aesthetics through rock and roll." Sidibe was considered to be the James Brown of Photography. After Bamako gained independence the national culture had been nearly destroyed by Colonialism. In this essay by Manthia Diawara she notes several different theologist specifically Aime Cesaire and Frantz Fanon. Cesaire refers independence as an "authentic state of being," meaning to say that having been governed over for countless years the Bamako people were denied the chance to interpret themselves and create an identity.

Having such a big influence in the sixties, James Brown started a cultural upheaval of the youth and further influenced the style, music and ideals of becoming Nommo themselves. The Nommo are twin offsprings of the Almighty God and posses both male and female organs thus relying on no one to reproduce; being both used as a singular and plural the Nommo is believed to be part god and part human, part fluid and part solid, part water and part snake. This idea of being perfect transformed the youth of Bamako to see Nommo-like qualities in James Brown, using his voice and power to understand the language of the instrument and the freedom of movement.

Malick Sidibe references this type of movement in his photographs, this new body language of the sixties. What Diawara says is the most important thing about Sidibe's art is "its ability to transform the copy into an original and to turn the images of the youth of Bamako into masterpieces of the Sixties' look." I would be so blunt to say Sidibe's greatest achievement with these photographs is his understanding of change and the ways in which independence changed his way of working, his outlook on culture and an understanding of their actions not devoid of politics but a tribute to what Manthia Diawara calls the diasporia aesthetics.

Gender Trouble

SEX & GENDER AS TWO DIFFERENT THINGS

SEX: BIOLOGICAL FACILITY
GENDER: SOME PEOPLE ARE WOMEN, SOME PEOPLE ARE MEN

Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory by Judith Butler introduces us to the relationship between sex and gender. To say that sex is a fact, biologically is the complete truth. I can be a woman with all the attributing qualities, there is no argument that I could be a man with them though. Yet, to say that gender is a performance is questing the very movement of life. If we all only retain a gender by construction, then does that mean we are all the same at one point, if we are just constructions of various sources of media and historical referencing?

Butler also references the claim that women are a "historical situation," meaning that woman have come to be portrayed as we are by history itself. Women are seen as gentle, soft skinned, dainty, beautiful and many other things to add but this is all a response to what we have grown up learning from one another and through art and the media. Especially for the age I have grown up in, art and media have always played a big role in my personal development, for example when I was a kid I always wanted to have shiny beautiful soft hair because of the models in magazines that looked like the ideals of beauty I dreamed of being one day.

We are performing our own visions of gender, we as people have no inherient feminity or masculinity says Jennifer Blessing author of Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: Gender Performance in Photography. However, Judith Butler talks about the unstable nature of gender which I relate to this idea Blessing had that we don't really know where we get these ideas of what a woman is but we always refer back to it, hense it seeming "unstable." To me, gender lies in the roots of unstability, meaning we reference the social norms to construct ourselves as a woman or man following a system of evolution. Because we are ever changing, we consider this life as a woman/man as our stage to show the world who we are, it is a performance of these everyday decisions.

Everyday you get up in the morning, put on clothes that you have selected to stylize yourself, and this is one example of gender as a constructed notion. We are actors that never leave the stage, with every movement, gesture, choice we are changing and creating the ultimate performance of a simulated gender.

Light Years: Conceptual Art and The Photograph 1964-1977

Walking to the furthest corner of the Art Institute was the this exhibit. Struck by a outer layer of text, it spoke as a preface to what you were to encounter upon entering the room. Very simply this explained that conceptual art defy's our expectations of what you can consider to be "art." We are asking what the medium is, or how it is made, or the "authorial sensibility" of its maker? What can we really consider art, and why this and not that?

One of the most important arguments Light Years: Conceptual Art and The Photograph is trying to convey is the seriality of art. In every machine and/or mode of transportation there is a system that keeps these things moving and working. The parts that make up the whole of a system, are the important factors that cannot function with out each other just as a body of photographs. One without the other, convey completely different manifestations then if seen as a whole, well oiled machine.

Photography often serves as a form of communication, a language of a sort. Each image is a representation of a site-specific reality, as the viewer we can interpret this in many ways from how the scale affects my perception, to the medium it is displayed on or the physical factors of the space. This constantly can change depending on where you stand, your mood, the lights and or the people around you. I found the first room, filled with walls that made triangles in the middle of the room one of my favorite displays; I was viciously circling and each time around I would see something different. That thought brought me back to how definition of conceptual art and the photograph create a relationship that is formed through personal experiences.