Readings

Readings 1 feedback: Chapters 1-3

Vilem Flusser who writes Towards A Philosophy on Photography has an interesting perspective on the photographic universe. In the beginning of his text, he talks about how the meaning of an image is the synthesis of two intentions: The manifest of the image itself, and the observer.  I find it fascinating how he compares images to the meditations between man and the world and how images are really just significant surfaces that make up everything. When talking about criticizing technical images, and how it is really just critiquing sight, he says that an uncritical attitude towards images can be dangerous because the objectivity of the technical image is just a delusion from the real picture. Traditional images can really be seen as just a bunch of symbols perhaps. I believe that this is true, because by not critiquing we are not only not following our human nature, but we are just accepting it for what it is and not trying to make it better or analyze it's meaning further, and what is the point of that?
Later on in the text Flusser also shows us that the world of photographs is not really the world "out there". Man cannot see the world just through photographs because while we see the photographs, photo's lie, they are doctored, constructed, and imagined to look good. It's not the experience of the place/person/thing/etc. itself, just a re-make. This leads to his argument that in the photographic universe we are really just surrounded by redundancy. All the pictures we see we've seen before in some form, we see pictures habitually and they just become redundant in our minds so that we begin to stop even noticing them. Even though the photographic world is ever changing, it is like a chameleon, and it changes without being seen by the observer so you still can't even tell that there is a change.
All in all I am impressed with the work of Mr. Flusser and how he expresses that there really is no room for human freedom in a photographic world that is automated and programmed because everything is just redundant and already been done in the past.

( I did this wrong, will update soon)



Reading 2: excerpts 1-10 Roland Barthes

In this reading by Roland Barthes, he talks about what photography is "in itself". According to Barthes, photography evades us, there are various distributions of photography, such as empiracle, rhetorical, and aesthetic, but in any case it still external to the object without relation to the essence.
In this way, he describes photography as almost unclassifiable.

In a way, he is correct. Later in the chapters he talks about how a photograph is really just mechanically repeating what can not actually be repeated in real life. But also, when viewing a photograph, we never actually view the photograph. Barthes states that "a specific photograph is never distinguished from its referent" or what it represents. He says that no photograph without a subject, something or someone, involves photography. Whatever it grants vision to, and whatever matter it is made of, that is what we see, the photograph itself is always invisible and I find that fascinating. Basically he is telling us that when we view a photograph, we don't see it as a photograph but as whatever the subject matter is, even though it is a photograph the "photograph-ness" of it isn't always the first thing that pops into our mind.

I also found it interesting how he chose to describe photography as the "intersection of 2 quite distinct procedures". The chemical order which is the action of light on certain substances, and the physical order which is the formation of the image through an optical device. I particularly liked how he tied that with the theory that a "photographers organ" is not his eye but his finger, the thing that is linked to the trigger of the lens.

Lastly, I enjoyed his theory of the 4 intersecting image repertoires of portrait photography that is when a portrait photograph is being taken.
- The one I think I am
- The one I want others to think I am
- The one the photographer thinks I am
- The one he makes use of to exhibit his art

That shows us that subject and object are all really the same when it comes to photography, and that we are neither and both at the same time as well.

Overall, I found this reading fascinating and I plan to incorporate for "studium punctum" into my future viewings of photography and my future work as well.


Reading 3: Steyerl

This reading personally was very hard to follow. But from my understanding it is defending the art that has started to come out that is purposely a poor image quality. "Grunge" and "Vintage" seems to be the new style lately, and with social media you can't use extremely large or high resolution images because its quality just gets diminished as soon as it is posted. I understand that it has become the new art trend lately, and I also understand that many artists need to adapt to today's demands in order to survive as an artist. Personally, I find the images that are taken from disposable film cameras and low quality digital cameras to be my favorite just because it gives me nostalgia from the times that I grew up in. So I can also understand that point of view of why people like the low quality look because it gives them nostalgia just like looking at pictures from their childhood. All in all, this reading wasn't my favorite but I can understand the concept and defense behind it for the poor quality images.