The Crisis of the Real: Photography and Postmodernism by Andy Grundberg
The Shadow of the Object: Photography and Realism by Sara Kember
Bring to class lens-based representations from each essay and be prepared to discuss the work you have selected in conjunction with the readings.
I look forward to reading your blog postings!
The Crisis of the Real:
ReplyDeleteThis article was about how photography reflects and helps shape the contemporary art world. It is also a great way of change in the way we perceive reality and having a tremendous impact on the revolution of modern art. Grundberg perceives Ansel Adams as "one of the last romantic artists, whose way of representing the world through pristine, sharp images of virginal nature has become obsolete when describing today's world." I thought the line "we are all prisoners of what we see" was quite interesting.
Appearance & Reality:
Russell seems unsure of certain things in life. Like, when he refers to the "color of an object, we actually refer to something perceived from the usual perspective should be considered real and other perspectives." He doesn't even think brown should be "considered brown of the table." Weird. He also heavily discusses our variations in our sensations. He considers sensation as an act of "belonging to the realm of experience and considers the object of that direct experience to be "sense-data." His definition of sense-data: the things that are immediately known to us in sensation."
Thoughts on Grundberg: Postmoderism IS confusing and irritating. That's one of the reasons why I personally do not like reading about it BUT this reading helped me understand postmoderism better. Postmodernism is problematic since we always try to define it using questions of intention when we really need to question “how one conceives the world.” I enjoyed the beginning and the end of this essay. The middle where he went into detail about pluralism, minimalism, conceptualism, etc. was too many ism's for me in one essay. When Grundberg talked about our perception I started thinking about my own projects and helped me brainstorm some strategies on how I want to approach them.
ReplyDeleteThoughts on Kember: The debate over digital photography and straight photography and the danger of “truth” is one I feel is going to go on just like “Is Photography art?” Since we've moved into the digital age, that sense of “truth” has been put under the magnifying glass. I do believe this debate originates from the fear that photography doesn't tell the “truth.” Rebuttal: When did it ever truly tell the “truth?” Depending on beliefs, we put a lot of faith into people we don't know. Artist's we've never met and philosophers we've never talked with. We put a lot of faith in the past and a lot in the future. Faith, not in terms of religion, we heavily depend on in our every day lives. So why should we question our faith in the newspaper article or the cover of Times magazine? Some people probably don't even think about it. Some people create arguments over it. Faith and fear go hand in hand in our lives. If we fear that the digital age will 'end photography as we know it' then our faith in photography is compromised. I think those who fear the digital aspect are afraid of the future and afraid of change. Their afraid they're views and beliefs, their faith, is going to be left behind. I don't think digital will ever “end photography as we know it.” It will just expand it, create new beliefs and views, and still pay homage to the past if we chose to do so. Photography is transformational, not just the photograph. The memory of the past will always be there to be remembered.
The Crisis Of The Real
ReplyDeleteAndy Grundberg
Andy Grundberg talks about how photography and art in particular can take on different meanings. We need to look at how it is displayed, how it is made, etc. One thing he mentions is that “art of the postmodernist style should consist of a mixture of media”. (pg 166, The Photography Reader) With Lawler, the order of images is just as important as the images themselves when shown as a series. This is because the images take on a different meaning when placed between two others.
When we entered the 20th century, modernism and photography started to become considered unique since there are things you can do with a camera versus a paintbrush or any other form of art. It was in 1970, things started to change for photography in the art world. Photography started to become documentary instead. Photography has now become postmodern.
Postmodern is in fact a part of modern. This is because without modern, there would be no post. When we make photographs today, we all have some knowledge of past images similar to the same that we are making. We (whether it be conscious or not), try to use the same tequnique as those in the past.
Photography and Realism
Sarah Kember
What Sarah is talking about is that photographs can take on many different meanings. For example, during the Vietnam War, there were news cameras taking footage to air back home, but there were also photojournalists, that were capturing the same thing on still film for newspapers and magazines. Yes we were able to see bombings, and other disturbing images in the news, but what stays in our minds is the still images. Photos can and do help those looking at family or friends go back in time by just looking at one image of a loved one, compared to a home movie that is just of a certain event. Yes, an image is from a particular moment in time, but being frozen in time, helps our minds wander to our youth and fond memories
Grundberg – The issue of postmodernism is very confusing to me. When I began reading this essay I hoped that it would clear it up for me but I feel even more confused now. Maybe it was because I was not familiar with some of the other movements discussed in the essay but I found the whole thing very hard to follow. Not till the end of the essay did the explanation become much easier to understand. Postmodernism is really about what the image is but rather how we see this artists “world”.
ReplyDeleteKember – I feel like arguing over whether or not photography is truth is a useless battle. There are many solid points to each side but you really have to decide whether or not it’s worth the time. When I am looking at photographs sometimes it is blatantly obvious that it has been altered in some way that now changes it’s meaning. For the most part though, when I look at photographs I like to believe that they are real, it doesn’t even cross my mind to think that it is only a fabrication. For me, to always battle over whether photography is truth or not just kills the magic of the photograph. Photographs can be so dramatically fabricated but in this day and age there really isn’t much we can do but stay well informed of the information we are taking it. My best example would be the Internet. We all use it to find information but we also know that not everything on the Internet is true.
Grundberg- Although there were many points in this reading I got confused, it definitely cleared up the basics of postmodernism for me. Everything from artwork looking like anything except modernist art, using multiple mediums to create originality, and how there is no "way to arrive at the 'ultimate' meaning of anything". I can see why this movement came about "It is the crisis which photography and all other forms of art face in the late twentieth century".
ReplyDeleteKember- This argument of photography being truthful or not really is pointless. I feel like it should only matter to the artist's integrity in most cases. If a photographer bends the truth in an image, then they know it's not real and are aware of what they did. In my opinion it's just an image... a piece of artwork someone fabricated a little more. If photography can be viewed alongside paintings what's the difference. I can see how it can be big deal because of how non-manipulated photographs are a true representation of the past and if 'fake' photos passing as real are what society consumes, it's a problem. However "How can we panic about the loss of the real when we know that the real is always already lost in the act of representation". I really enjoyed Sontags contribution in the reading about the strong impact of photographs yet they are so fragile also how they are more memorable compared to film.
Sarah Kember: Is a photograph what actually happened? I founf this essay to be relevant to me in many ways because I love to shoot editorial and journalistic styles. The question has come up before in our discussions in class and I am sure it always will. Photographs are representations of things that happened, and cant be thought of anything more. There is a problem when it comes to journalism because it has that tendency to rely on an image for truth, and when the realization of the fact that a photo could easily be manipulated, especially today, it brings up a lot of debate. Most is ethical and that is the usual conclusion of this topic, is that the line between manipulation is all about the morals that one has, but this essay made me think that we need to strip away that thinking of a photograph as truth and only see it as representation. Although this is much, much easier said than done, for I do it many times myself. It makes me think that photographs should be looked at as an illustration.
ReplyDeleteImages:
http://i.imgur.com/uZFga.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wlDJM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WKrTW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/SGiZw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tEYw0.jpg
Kember - she discussed about photography being real or not due to the fact that about the new technology of manipulation an event and make it more dramatic of make it fiction all together. which she has some good points that how can we know what is real and not real.trough photojournalism i believe that it shouldn't believe that it should be manipulated because if there is a tragic event that happened and you make it look more dramatic when it isn't you are giving the viewer false facts in what happend and it becomes fiction and and not real but fake.
ReplyDeleteGrundberg - i thought his was a bit hard to understand but what i did understand what is postmortem. i thought his view was interesting and how postmodem and modernism can be used together or it can be totally different and that postmodernism and can be viewed differently and mean differently to other mediums. like postmodern can mean differently to a dancer , musician .... i also thought it was interesting that postmodernism is the mixture of different medias. but overall i though it was interesting to read and learned more about postmodernism and modernism.
Thoughts on Grundberg: Andy Grundberg’s essay was very difficult for me to follow. The very beginning was discouraging enough when he explained that the idea of Postmodernism is both “confusing and irritation,” Which, I couldn’t help but agree with when I was cursing at the essay with this aforementioned Irritation. There seemed to be so many “isms” in every sentence that I was just lost. Towards the last few pages of the essay however, I felt as though I could understand were and how he was tying all his points and examples together. “The postmodernism, in its art and its theory is a reflection of the condition of our time” He began by explaining how the definition of postmodernism varies between each art form; he uses the examples of architectures, dancers and painters. This idea speaks to the quote above – how each group has its own history and movements that helped shape the art form to what it is today. These histories, and previous generations of artists and help influence each artist today. He suggests that photography is not about what is being photographed but what the artist sees. Postmodernism is the idea of being able to view and artists “world” through their work, their influences and backgrounds. Only when we look at something this way can we understand their intentions
ReplyDeleteThoughts on Kember: She brings up this question of “is computer manipulated and simulated imagery threatening the truthful status of photography?” Which is a debate within the photographic community that is never going to have a winning side. She quotes “the computer imaging practices pose a fundamental threat to the truth of the image. And indeed that they signal ‘the end of photography as we know it.’ ” But what exactly is it that we know? She mentions ‘loss of real’ but since when was photography ever really ‘real?’ A photograph is an interpretation of a moment at a given time. No matter how one person may straight photograph a scene, while another manipulates the same one, or even if two separate people capture the same instance using the same technique, it is the photographer’s representation, it will be different for each one because of their influences and how they individually perceive something. It is only a fraction of the whole truth, so to speak. Where I understand the traditional battle of “real” and “the digital image”, in the end when you look at it if you have a photograph of a pyramid, that is indeed all you have; like the example kember used. It is a representation or idea of the pyramid, not THE actual pyramid. So how can real be lost when you don’t have something that is truly real, but only a representation?
Grudberg - I would have to agree with everyone, the read was quite confusing. I understand postmodernism a little bit better now, but I still don't understand it fully. I feel like postmodernism is more philosophical than other art forms. Right in the name it says it, "after modernism." You can't have postmodernism without modernism.
ReplyDeleteKember - I don't see why it's a big deal as to why a photograph is "truthful" or not. Even if people don't think they are manipulating their photograph, they are the second they click the shutter. Just leaving something out of the frame, is manipulating. But most people do not think like that (Thanks Thomas), so to most people any image can seem real. If every in the world had taken one of Thomas's classes then I think there would be more hoopla as to what images in newspapers and magazines is real. I don't think most people, and I use most very loosely, think about how/if an image is manipulate it, instead just assume that everything they see is really what is there. I don't think we should have to worry about if an image is manipulated, we should just be able to know that its real, but sadly that is not how the media works.