Publics and Publishing Blog

8 blogs covering my studies of Publics and Publishing at UNSW, Australia.

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Essay In Lieu Of Examination

Intro

The development of the first commercial photographic camera in 1839, and the establishment of YouTube, a revolutionary way to broadcast visual material in 2005, are two turning points in the history of publishing technologies and have altered the creative industries completely. Through this essay, the impact of these two technologies will be explored, a relation between the two will be recognized and it will be seen that nomatter the point in history, steps such as these in publishing can have a butterfly effects way into the future. Beginning with Louis Daguerre’s ‘daguerreotype’ camera, developed in Paris by Joseph Niépce, it can be seen how the ability to freeze a single frame of reality for unlimited viewing can have a range of social and artistic impacts (Gustavson 2009). Advancing to the modern age, and the ability to reproduce moving images again and again for an unlimited audience to view simultaneously, it can be seen how a relatively simple progression in technology can one day lead to a platform considered to be “revolutionary” (Gehl 2009).

The Giroux Daguerreotype Camera (1839)

Changing of the concept of ‘looking’.

“Ever since the birth of the camera it has been accused of upsetting the divide between public worlds and private selves, transforming the very act of looking and giving rise to a whole series of characterizations of this condition: the society of spectacle, the politics of representation, the gendered gaze and so forth, are among the more well known” (Carrabine 2014). With the ability to hold a single perspective from a single moment in time in your hands comes a different way of seeing the world. As Carrabine says, a number of factors come into play, not only in the eyes of the beholder of a photograph, but also in the way the photographer wished the photograph to be seen. With the commercialization of the Daguerreotype camera, one could now freeze a moment unlike anything possible through a painting or drawing or any other previous form of publication. It was in the freezing of this moment that one could now stop and examine the world exactly how it is seen to the human eye, only frozen forever, open to the scrutiny of the viewer. The concept of ‘looking’ at the world changed then, as it was now possible to see a frame at a time, as opposed to an infinite number of ‘frames’ simultaneously flashing before our eyes, gone as quickly as they came. In the artistic world, an artists impression of a subject was in many cases now dictated by the ‘looking’ ability of a camera, as opposed to their flawed and affected ‘looking’ as a human being. For example, it became practice to use a photograph to ‘trace’ a landscape scene instead of reproduce it from memory or from real-time vision.

Creation of an archive.

Only in retrospect could we see “the importance of photography as a record of historically-specific ways of seeing the world” (Rose 2000). As time has gone on and the use of archives as a base of knowledge has become so important, the value of a visual representation of events has become apparent making the development of the first camera a turning point. As Rose points out, it is the “ways of seeing the world” or perspectives given through the record of events which can be valuable, and many of the most famous images in history are results of the perspective from which they were created.

This famous photograph taken during the Vietnam War is one such ‘historically specific’ image, and is a strong example of the photographer using their own creative perspective to create a single image, freezing a single message in time as an archive. It could be argued that the creative industries are an amalgamation of past influences, regurgitated into new works, and it is this visual record which is turned to over and over again for inspiration. With the ability to build a history of art and a visual history of events comes the ability to drastically change the future. The act of capturing a single moment in time itself is the act of creating an archive, producing a spark of knowledge of that exact moment which can be referenced and drawn upon countless times as long as the image remains intact.

“The birth of realism”.

Up until the mid 19th century, artistic representation of the world had greatly relied on paintings, drawings and sculpture, forms of craft which all carried their own artistic conventions. Art movements reining at the time of development of the Daguerreotype Camera were Romanticism and the Hudson River movement. The ability of an artist to pick the very shapes, colours and state of the subject of their work was a stark contrast to the introduction of the photograph, a format which collected all these things in the time of a single exposure. The resulting image was not a picture of the world according to the whims of the artist, but a relatively sterile, absolute representation of what is in front of the camera. With this ability to represent the world so similarly to how it actually appeared came an entire new wave of artistic convention, leading academics to suggest that “1839 marks the birth of realism” (Posner 2013). Further evidence of the social impacts of photography on art comes in form of modern articles “arguing that the invention of photography in 1839 ushered in an era of unprecedented literary realism” (Posner 2013). It could be suggested then that the now relatively simple idea of displaying an unaltered image of the world on paper for all to see drastically altered the way humans think about the world and affected our artistic pursuits across a range of visual and textual artistic platforms.

YouTube (2005)

The impact of creative works on society.

The ability of a person to pick up any camera in our modern world and use their artistic vision to present an opinionated, artistic view of any topic by publishing the footage online for all to see is a power no human has had in history before now. As the average user logs onto their YouTube homepage, they are immediately confronted with the creative works of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people. Every one of these clips has been tailored by those people to give a certain message, convey some sort of information or produce some sort of reaction.

“YouTube’s ability to share (extra)ordinary people’s insights into otherwise unseeable shocking events is testament to its capacity for changing the media landscape” (Drew 2013). It is this platform which has changed the way we think about cameras and the images they produce, and advanced the idea developed by Daguerre in 1839 to the point where the archived image is a power which influences not only the individual holding it in their hands but all with access to the Internet. A popular example today is online news vendor ‘VICE News’ which operates a channel on the YouTube website, creating content from around the world, specifically to have an impact on the politically aware or create audience.

The sites latest video at the publishing of the essay has over 60’000 views and has been online for 48 hours only.

Creation of another archive.

With the creation of YouTube, we can see the supercharged archive of the future to the original idea of the photographic archive from 1839. As the Daguerreotype photographers of the 19th century produced images to represent parts of their world, so too do we now publish our visual works online to form an archive of material from all around the world. With the existence of a publishing platform with such a huge expanse of information comes the practice of fishing for content with no end goal, but an urge to browse, be entertained and be inspired. “YouTube has a mythical “center,” and web users go to that centre to get content” (Couldry 2003). In an artistic pursuit, users will access this technology and search for content which has come before them, and this is the power of a device which will freeze content in time. “What is stored in the archive is not facts, but disaggregated classifications that can at will be reassembled to take the form of facts about the world” (Bowker 2005).

The establishment of an artistic platform.

“YouTube fosters community and acts as an agent for self-expression: the site makes possible new identities, sexualities, and modes of interaction” (Vernallis 2013). YouTube presents artists and non-artists alike with the opportunity to use relatively simple technology to produce something unique and post it online for the world to see. The ability of a 9 year old to take a video on their iPad and share it to a linked YouTube account has become so seamless now that artistic expression has become less about years of technical training and more about the ability to translate a message in as short a time as possible to a wide audience. As this publication technology changed, so too did our modern society, altering our expectations of online video content until most of what we expect is 15-minute ‘vine’ clips designed purely to entertain. Why would one buy a documentary on DVD or watch ‘Funniest Home Videos’ on television when we can access an unlimited amount of both these things in an instant online? The artistic world has adapted to the new form of publication too, one of the products being channels such “triple-j” who publish video footage from their Friday morning radio programs, in an effort to engage an online platform. One could argue that the creative world has been further commercialized with the introduction of this publishing technology, with companies such as ‘Vevo’ partnering with Google to optimize advertising across the YouTube platform.

Conclusion:

Beginning with the invention of the Daguerreotype camera in 1839, the human population (artistic and otherwise) has been fascinated with the reproduced image and has sought to shape it in many different ways. The product of this original invention can be seen everywhere in the daily life of the modern person, and it is platforms like YouTube which make this especially true. Throughout history it can be seen that the introduction of technologies such as the printing press and the Internet have changed how we publish and how we interact as humans, and the camera is no exception. Every day, artists, developers, thinkers and many other types of people are finding new ways to use the captured image to send messages, promote ideas and to interact with others, and this is something which will continue long into the future.

 Word Count: 1771

Reference List:

Bowker, G. C. (2005). Memory practices in the sciences. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 18.

Carrabine, E. (2014). Seeing things: violence, voyeurism and the camera. Theoretical Criminology. 18(2), 134-158

Couldry, N. (2003). Media rituals : a critical approach. London ; New York: Routledge.

Drew, C. (2013) Reading YouTube: the critical viewers guide, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 27:5, 757-759

Frizot, M. (1999). "Light machines: On the threshold of invention". In Michel Frizot. A New History of Photography. Koln, Germany: Konemann.

Gehl, R. (2009). YouTube as archive Who will curate this digital Wunderkammer?. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 12(1), 43-60.

Gustavson, T. (2009). Camera: a history of photography from daguerreotype to digital. New York, New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Posner, A. (2013). The Camera and the Press: American Visual and Print Culture in the Age of the Daguerreotype, History of Photography, 37:4, 462-464

Rose, G. (2000). Practising photography: an archive, a study, some photographs and a researcher. Journal of Historical Geography 26(4), 555-571

Vernallis, C. (2013). YouTube Aesthetics. In Unruly Media: YouTube, Music Video, and the New Digital Cinema. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 6 Nov. 2014, from http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199766994.001.0001/acprof-9780199766994-chapter-7.

Wenczel, N. (2007). The Optical Camera Obscura II Images and Texts. Inside the Camera Obscura – Optics and Art under the Spell of the Projected Image. Wolfgang Lefèvre (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science). pp. 13–30

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Blog Entry Eight- Distribution, Aggregation and the Social

This week we began to discuss "data infrastructure" as a lead-up to studying "data friction" and "infrastructural globalism" in more detail. An exercise which I actually found enjoyable in class was the task of using the University of New South Wales as a model for data infrastructure, picking apart the environment as a social-technical assemblage of data publishing. For the exercise, we walked to the main walkway of the university, turned in a 360 degree direction and tried to list all the factors which may form the present data assemblage. From it, we produced an image similar to this:

The appreciation of all these factors was highly interesting and created a pathway to consideration of how a publishing assemblage like the main walkway of a university may affect the social environment and interaction of the people within it.

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Blog Entry Seven- Visualisation Production: Peer Assessment

As part of the visualisation assessment, we were asked to assess another groups work, and give feedback in a presentation to the class. The group we were assessing created a modified version of the map players explored in the original Pokemon video game, known as Pokemon Yellow. The visualisation of data came in the form of a colour coding across the map, expressing the location of specific types of Pokemon according to the dominant colour in their appearance. For example, they found that the darker coloured, evil Pokemon would reside in caves, or far-fetched corners of the map, and this was reflected in the colour coding.    In our criticism of the group's work, I expressed that I thought this was a creative, informative way of giving extra meaning to a format usually passed off as a children's game. I know many people who play the game aim to "catch 'em all" as the Pokemon slogan says, and this map would be an incredibly useful resource for any player. Weaknesses in their design were a lack of clarity in detail and an explanation of what Pokemon was so that other class members could understand the concept. As can be seen from the below image, there is an intended colour spectrum throughout the Pokemon designed by the creators.

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Blog Entry Six- Visualisation Production: Global Traffic

Planning:

This week in class, we began planning on our visualization, to be presented to the class in two weeks. We have analysed digital and print visualisations of data and are yet to decide which data we will represent ourselves. Although my other two group members and I would love to produce a polished animation, our timeframe and other commitments do not allow for this, meaning we have to pursue a more simple, but exciting idea. Other avenues we could pursue are a simple presentation of graphs in an “infographic” format, displaying statistics in an aesthetically pleasing way. Although the use of a graph would not be blazing any new trails in the visualisation world, it could effectively show the compression of huge amounts of data into a simple graphic. An alternative could be the creation of a larger graphic, using more creative forms of data representation such as a map.

  Production:

We have decided on the representation of the flow of traffic from the CBD to the airport in various cities around the world. After previewing similar visualisations of bicycle rider patterns around Amsterdam, we saw the value in comparing driver patterns and showing what makes a cities traffic efficient.

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Blog Entry Five- Making the Invisible Visible

This week we began to explore the concept of visualisations and "making the invisible, visible". Carrying on from the concept of archives of large amounts of informations, we began to explore some of the ways we can most efficiently display all this information. A simple, aesthetically pleasing method of representing a lot of information can make a huge difference to the viewer and unlock great possibilities for finding new meaning in the seemingly mundane. The animation below, which I produced during previous studies, compresses a great amount of gathered data into a 1-minute video, using graphics and short amounts of text to convey dramatic ideas very succinctly. We will use a similar method of publishing in the upcoming visualization project!

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Blog Entry Four- Theory and Practice/ Archive Fever, Provenance, Structuring Data

This week in class we looked at the concept of theories in the study of publication and publics, as well as the practices which may be carried out by practitioners in these fields. To begin with, we discussed the difference between theories such as Jacques Derrida's "archive fever" and the the practices which may be carried out in recognition of this theory. I found a few explanations of the concept of an archive whilst researching reviews of Derrida's book, including one which was quite interesting in particular. Eric Prenowitz, through the University of Chicago Press, gave a review of Archive Fever and explained that "the organization that organizes and reorganizes its own data, its own memory, its own archive, is thereby organizing and reorganizing itself". Although not to do with the relation between practices and theories, this interested me greatly and prompted me to explore the idea in more detail. As suggested in the unit reader, I looked into the "Apartheid Archive", which is based in the "understanding that traumatic experiences from the past will constantly attempt to re-inscribe themselves (often in masked form) in the present, if they are not acknowledged, interrogated and addressed". Specifically, the project will "collect, document, analyse and provide access to over 5000 personal or narrative accounts of the impact of apartheid on the lived realities of their authors"- Apartheid Archive Project, 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.apartheidarchive.org/site/index.phpoption=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=4. This use of an archive to actively influence the present and future resounds with Derrida's Archive Fever, and illustrates the power a pool of preserved knowledge can provide.

Image by Paul Weinberg (direct donation from Author) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

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Blog Entry Three- Assembling Publishing- Publics/ Archive Fever

In class this week, we explored the flaws in purely social or technical views on the development of a technology, and instead worked on the idea of a socio-technical viewpoint, which takes into account all the human and non-human actors which may impact such a process. For example to attribute the development of the car purely to technological advances would be inaccurate, as it is the social environment and functionality trends of the time which dictate the aesthetic and workings of a vehicle. Similarly, it would be inaccurate to attribute modern innovations such as in-car bluetooth hands-free solely to social demand, as this would not have been possible without technical advances.

Latour combats this with the development of his 'actor-network theory', which instead takes a socio-technical standpoint, and calls for a construction or 'assemblage' of human and non-human actors (delukie, 2009). This allows for the construction of a web of factors and a more thorough understanding of a process or product.

In our tutorial, I was assigned to a group with the task of constructing an actor-network assemblage for the publishing of a non-fiction novel. We began by listing the 'big players' such as the author, the editor, the photographer, however as the list expanded, we came to realise that the list of human and non-human actors in the production of a novel could expand greatly. We began to acknowledge that the smallest details, such as the software on the editor's computer, or even the lighting in the photographer's images, could become part of the actor network. Although potentially hugely complex, this method for understanding the players in a production or product holds value in it's recognition of the relationship between the social and the technical.

Resources:

[online] delukie (2009) 'Actor-Network Theory in Plain English', YouTube.com, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2YYxS6D-ml>

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Blog Entry Two- Techniques and Machines: Scrolls,Codex, Ereaders

With shifts in technology, publishing methods are altered, and the ways we consume and produce content change. This week in Publics and Publishing, we looked at the advances in techniques and machines what effect these advances have had. In particular, my group examined the impact of the digital age on the concept and practice of archiving. For example, where we once would physically store reams of printed texts for safekeeping and reference, we now convert these texts to digital documents, or simply produce these documents digitally to begin with. Fig 1 below shows a typical archive of printed documents.

As can be seen below in Fig 2, audio information has also traditionally been kept in analogue tape format for archiving purposes. Today, in an effort to save space and allow greater sharing and manipulation, these files would be saved to a large digital hard-drive. 

Although there are clear benefits to archiving audio, visual and text material to digital hard-drive, such as greater accessibility and ease of replication, there has also been a call for a return to traditional archiving methods, especially from the Hollywood movie production scene. As is expressed in Fig. 3 below, it is thought that the abandonment of archiving on film could signal the destruction of "modern classics" and a large part of Hollywood filmmaking tradition. It has also been found that 35mm film archives have a greater life than the average modern hard drive, which is susceptible to unpredictable failure.

As modern technology becomes more reliable, and greater opportunities for sharing and accessing archived material arise, it is very likely that the way we interact with recorded material will be altered completely.

Fig. 1 PAPER ARCHIVES:

This file is in the public domain, because it is obtained from National Archives and Records Administration Listerv with the permission from the person pictured.

Fig. 2 TAPE ARCHIVES:

Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NDOC_magnetic_tape_library.jpg#mediaviewer/File:NDOC_magnetic_tape_library.jpg

Fig. 3 MODERN ADVERTISEMENT FOR FILM ARCHIVING

Original Photo by Daniel Parsons

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Blog Entry One- Publishing, Publics, Selves: history and social impacts.

The issues explored in this week’s readings revolve around the advance from paper to digital printing, and discuss some of the technological steps we took to get to where we are today. As many do, I have always taken for granted the ease with which I can access information over the web and conversely, transmit information and content I create to the other side of the planet. I found this convenience had more history and more meaning than I previously thought, and it was interesting to explore just how big of an impact even the invention of the printing press made.

  In her writing on the “typographic revolution” of the 15th century, Elizabeth Eisenstein uses the example of a man born in 1453 in Constantinople, who within 50 years, would be in environment where more books are printed than all that scribes could have done since the city’s founding over the past 1000 years. This major shift in output and spread of information carries huge social impacts which I had personally never fully explored before.

Image CC Attribution: By Rodrexmatthew (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons