Introduction second part.
1. In this meeting we summarize what we have intended so far and where our efforts will go next.
In the first part of the term we tried to understand the nature of photographic images. We ask ourselves:
– what is a photographic image and how it differs from other kind of images?
– We looked at how photographic and digital images relate to the referent (images vs the ‘real’)
– We also attempted a definition of ‘digital images’

In the second part of the term we will work based on two texts. These will allow us to carry out two parallel discussions:

– With “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” we will attempt to challenge the definition of ‘real’ that we somehow took for granted before.

– By discussing “The Truth of Experience” we will revise the difference between analog and digital photography (this latter term still in question). Previously we marked the differences through their process of creation (physico-chemical vs. physico-mathematical simulation). Now we will make this comparison based on their uses and social impact.

Discussion homeworks: I made some general remarks about the projects I focused on elements on different approaches. In general, the goal of that project was to explore a contemporary way of creating images.

We will return to that approach but in order to be able to compare, we are going to pause and attempt a more traditional approach to creating images. Specifically, we will pay more attention to the photographic image as an individual element.

2. From poems to words

The invention of photography forced a reconsideration of the role of painting.

The most visible and radical response was that of the Impressionists. Their works marked a move away from faithful representation of the visible to an exploration of the invisible. For Charles Baudelaire,  definite champion of the Impressionism, such was the role of the arts, where photography was a mere technical instrument:

What man worthy of the name of artist, and what true connoisseur, has ever confused art with industry?(1)

For him, Photography should not be

“allowed to encroach upon the domain of the impalpable and the imaginary, upon anything whose value depends solely upon the addition of something of a man’s soul”

Such ‘addition of the man’s soul’ was to be the key in the first attempts to gain for Photography the range of an art by the Pictorialists. These attempts failed in that they were merely mimicking the look and feeling of Impressionist works, ignoring the specifics of the medium.

It took some years before Alfred Stieglitz, a leading member of the group embracing the true specifics of the medium (precision, sharpness, accuracy) to create an artistic result in the way that Baudelaire demanded. In creating The Steerage, he felt that he had been able to create a photograph that captured “the feeling he had about life”

Stielglitz’s influence was enormous and marked the birth of photography as an artistic medium.

Many other artist soon embraced his ideas and went on creating the

Minor White- Manifestations of the Spirit; A life in photographs

Imogen Cunningham

Edward Weston

Jan Saudek

Ralph Gibson -Chiaroscuro