Advanced Concepts in Photography -lecture one
5IMAG004W
One Essay – 70%. 2500-3000 words
Dissertation proposal submission - Graded 30% 1000-1500
Total (100%) = 4000 words (-+ 10%)
ONE FORMATIVE SUBMISSION: – Presentation on the planned dissertation topic. ( 8 mins )
DEADLINE:
SUMMATIVE SUBMISSIONS (BOTH ESSAY AND PROPOSAL):
29th April 2020, 1pm, Turnitin.
Question- can you present the presentation and then change the idea for the proposal submission.
Advanced concepts of Photo theory and history
Discuss/ consider interesting themes to develop from lectures
4th lesson dissertation samples – asses and mark work Teemu + marking sheet
----
Wednesday 22nd January 2020
Photography was capable of imagine things that were presumably considered in photography previously. In photojournalism we have seen case’s that show this. Adnan Hajj, Beirut, 2006. He manipulated the smoke in the image and the public responded negatively to this. Worry that photography is losing it identity as a distinctive medium. What describes photography? Similarities and difference between analogue and digital photography.
“Given the proliferation of digital images that look exactly like photographs, photography may even be robbed of its cultural identity as a distinctive medium” (Batchen, 1994, p.47).
Analogue users have manipulated photography as early as 1931. The user and consumers are arguably what give the medium the representation. Photography could have seemed objective arguably because of the context given to photography historically.
“[T]echnology (in itself) is nothing until and unless it is given cultural and social purpose, gaining definition and meaning in specific historical circumstances” (Lister, 2007, p.251).
READ. Arielle Azula – civil contract of photography
Does it illuminate anything about actual relate, what are the values of these links ?
Osborne’s analogy:
Analogue Use Value
————— = ——————
Digital Exchange Value
What, if anything, does digitalization tell us about the nature of photography in art?
(Osborne, 2010, p.62)
How to fine art- what is considered art? Since digitalization there have been more connection of the idea of photography and the consideration of what is considered art.
Calues of truth and indexicality are threatened. Citizens could take the place of photojournalists, basic idea that the public could take over the photographic profession. What are photographers supposed to do if their profession is not needed ?
Change beyond consideration that digitalisation has caused. Is it just an anxiety?
Martine Neddam, Mouchette, 1996– [http://www.mouchette.org/].
Osbourne argues that analogue photography has since its ‘inception’ carried an anxiety about the loss of the real. Photographs such as Oscar Rejlander, Two Ways of Life, 1857. Projects the idea that the anxiety has nothing to do with photography itself but the social/ cultural concepts ideas .
[The] anxiety appears irrational – which is, of course, no more than to acknowledge it as an anxiety: a free-floating anxiousness about the real that has ‘latched on’ to digital photography as a cultural site in which to invest, because of the social importance but current uncertainty about the various documentary functions of photography. The basic source of such anxiety has nothing to do with photography itself (Osborne, 2010, p.64).
Use value – Objective
Something that has a purpose ‘use value’ something objects just seem to have the qualities are anchored within their subject. Strawberry is qualities are that is it edible, which is its use value, however I cannot sit on the strawberry. A chair has the use value as I can sit on it, but I cannot eat the chair. Exchange value can be used to compare the values of two or more objects - the value of 10 strawberries is worth the value of one chair.
Can you make more money from digital photography than you can using analogue photography?
Andreas Gursky, Chicago Board of Trade II, 1999. Example of digitalization being used to its advantage by the artist. Context of exchange value within photography. Money commodity doesn’t have value in its own right.
Richard Prince, from New Portraits, 2015.
Thomas Ruff, jpeg ny02, 2004. Photograph can be considered differently after reading Osbourne’s work.
Capitalist idea:
In a capitalist exchange of the form M–C–M,
“[i]ts leading motive, and the goal that attracts it, is therefore mere exchange-value”
(Marx, 2015/1867, p.106 – available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf).
Commodity – Money – Commodity (selling in order to buy)
Could be endless process with the gain of reoccurrence
Money – Commodity – Money (buying in order to sell)
This idea corresponds with the purpose that photographer use upload images online. Cameras are now catered for the viewing of others – not generating for its own purpose but more for a social gain/profit. Or this may be to portray an image of the person – their exchangeable self. Not producing work for its own sake, but for a social reward.
“By posting selfies, people can keep themselves in other people’s minds. In addition, like all photographs that are posted online, selfies are used to convey a particular impression of oneself. Through the clothes one wears, one’s expression, staging of the physical setting, and the style of the photo, people can convey a particular public image of themselves, presumably one that they think will garner social rewards.”
(Leary, 2013, n.p.)
(http://blog.oup.com/2013/11/scholarly-reflections-on-the-selfie-woty-2013/#sthash.XU6B4yT2.dpuf)
Early impressions of the modern day ‘selfie’:
Carte de Visite, details uncertain (ca. 1863–4).
André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, Napoleon III Carte de Visite, 1859.
Why there might be anxiety attached to digitalisation:
The power that digitalization in photography has the capabilities is has now have created anxiety as new commodities can be applied to an image once uploaded onto the internet. Exhibition poster, Big Bang Data,Somerset House, 3rd December. 2015–20th March 2016.
This exhibition is great to consider how easy it is to generate new value or meaning to a photograph, none of the new meaning consider the original point or intention of the image.
Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico, Face to Facebook, 2011. Example – artist took Facebook display pictures and created a fake dating site with details creating connotations towards the character of the person. Recognizing photography are very easy with the use of digitalization.
Technology… the ‘cloud’ stores data but this data is stored in a physical building somewhere. Timo Arnall, Internet Machine, 2014.
Example 2016 scandal Cambridge Analytica and the US voting system.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram
----
End of Lecture Discussions-
Does the amount of attention you get on social media matter?
Do you have to have a brand if your active/available socially?
Argument that technology has effected the process of the use value of photography could be argued to have been started its effects as early as when the kodak brownie was invented. The idea of photographs being created and
Analogue had less capticy of echanvge value, old photographs are kept or stored but are they shared to a greater extent. Arguably analogue photographs can be achieved better than a digital image as there are unknown variables that can take place to files digitalized, for example ‘the cloud’.
Gratification from the audience is wanted.
Analogue is the past has had an exchange value…
Idea that we have to be involved with the exchange of photography – M,C,M. the internet is a space that encourages people to invest, with each upload there is the context of m,c,m that drives the purpose of digitalization. Idea that people are producing work that is digitalization but are these images safe? – Timo Arnall, Internet Machine. The fact that we cannot see our images physically but the data which it is stored in is an actual building.
Sharing your images may give the photograph a longer ‘afterlife’, durability to digitalized images. You can recontextualise images, which is aided by digitalization.
