What is an image today?
In our last meeting we considered how, historically, there exists a correspondence between techniques of representation and the dominant ideas (ideologies) of each particular epoch.
Our next class we will continue these reflections, this time focusing on the present: WHAT IS AN IMAGE TODAY?
In preparation, this homework is an invitation to consider the characteristic features of contemporary images.
1. Read The Truth of experience and post your reflections or favorite passages
2. Spend some time in the image-sharing sites of your choice and comment on the nature of the images:
What are their unique features? How are they created? How do they exist and disseminate?
WHAT IS THE ‘REAL’ THAT THUS EMERGES?
1. After reading The Truth of Experience, I felt like I had a new understanding of the role of images today. Images are such a huge means of communication in current society, yet it doesn’t seem that we ever stop to think about exactly how large a role images play in our everyday lives. I thought that the article described the role of images today very eloquently, with the following passages standing out most to me:
“It’s as though our society has freed image-making from specific applications, and rendered the photographic image an autonomous subject on its own, detached from any function or relation.”
“[Images] have become a commodity. We trade our existence in images, and we shape ourselves through them.”
“Instead of assuming that photography is a mechanism that transforms reality into images, we can invert the terms and see the photographer as a translator, as a facilitator of narratives.”
“Inscribing oneself into the image and image-making process is the only way left to participate in life: moving into the core of the image, into the work and the discourse that lies behind the image and becoming part of it, as well as of the medium.”
Each of these passages describes how images are woven into our lives today, and how we use them to express ourselves in ways that are very different from the past. As the author mentions, we shape ourselves through images and use them to construct a social idea of who we are and what our life is like.
The author refers to photographers as translators, which I think is an interesting view. This idea suggests that a photographer is able to take an experience or concept and capture it in a way that presents viewers with a narrative. I believe that photographers are indeed translators that can take a moment or experience and create an image from it that communicates whatever they wish. In that way, they are using pieces of reality to construct a new kind of reality. Because of this, I believe that photographers today are less like early photographers, and more like a hybrid between early photographers and painters. They can capture physical reality, but they can also integrate pieces of their imagination into photographs as well.
While I agree with many parts of the article, I am not sure if I agree with the author’s statement that “Inscribing oneself into the image and image-making process is the only way left to participate in life.” Though image-making and image-sharing are certainly important activities today, I disagree with the notion that the only way to “live” today is to be involved in these things. I would argue that the only way to be truly engaged with young people today is to participate in these activities, but that surely one can live without doing so. In essence, I found that argument to be a little overdramatic.
On the whole, The Truth of Experience was an interesting read that presented thoughtful ideas about images and life today. It brought up questions about the way that the majority of current society shares information, and what that might suggest about the world today. It is articles like this that go a long way in illuminating the truth about how we live in this hyper-connected existence.
2. When I look at today’s images, three common themes seem to emerge:
a) Many images are retouched, altered, or “perfected” using Photoshop or other digital manipulation tools.
b) Many images are used as “memes” and are accompanied with short captions to express relatable or self-deprecating humour.
c) Many images “turn the camera around,” focusing on the life of of the photographer (such as “selfies” or images of everyday events)
With these themes in mind, the images of today seem to be communicating the nature of today’s society and what it means to be alive today. Like representations from Medieval times and the Renaissance, today’s images are reflections of how we see the world in its current climate.
The prevalence of photoshopping and altering in images today speaks to the increasing sophistication of technology and the major role it plays in everyday life. It is so easy to manipulate images today that images no longer represent the physical reality that they once did. We can no longer trust photos as depictions of the physical real. Rather, we must approach photos with skepticism, and the understanding that they could have been greatly altered. The vast amount of photoshopping also speaks to today’s “sky’s the limit” worldview. With the major technological advances seen today, we have started to wonder whether anything is truly impossible. This idea is also reflected in images where the imagined is made visible using photoshopping technology.
Memes and other humorous images speak to our desires to connect and relate to others. This kind of comedy brings out the humanity in people, which can be hard to see in such a tech-focused, online world. People use these kinds of humorous images to connect with others, and to help themselves deal with difficult emotions. Moreover, humorous images like memes also speak to the desire of many young people today to be liked and admired. By creating a good meme, or successfully funny image that goes viral on the internet, you are lauded and recognized as someone special. In a world where we are constantly sharing our experiences and want to be liked and accepted, it makes sense that we would strive to create things that make us seem more likeable or part of the “in-crowd”.
Many images today focus on the personal lives of people, such as “selfies” and images documenting one’s daily activities. The prevalence of self-focused images speaks to the nature of society today, and how we are constantly focusing on ourselves. We strive to be the best possible versions of ourselves, are told to think of ourselves first, and are told to practice “self care.” This kind of messaging has led to a society of people who feel the need to put themselves first, but also sell themselves like a commodity. Social media is a major player in this kind of “commodification of self through images”. It acts as a platform for us to construct these sort of personal representations, creating a social image of who we are that may be more or less fabricated. All in all, these self-focused kinds of images direct attention to the way society is so self-focused today, and how many individuals’ biggest priority is being well liked, or more specifically, the best.
Overall, we see that today’s images reflect the current zeitgeist and the major beliefs and trends of a 2018 society. This includes concepts such as technological advancement, desires to connect with humanity, an intense focus on oneself, and a desire to have more. We will see how the images of tomorrow reflect future societal patterns, leaving today’s images as merely artifacts of an old world.
hey mikayla,
I agree with your interest in referring to photographers as translators, I think I would take it a little further and also argue that artists as a whole are translators to society, as we serve to reflect and express our observations of the world. I also agree with your statement about how its a little over dramatic of the article to claim that inscribing oneself into the image-making process is the only way to truly participate in life- while I believe that it is merely impossible for anyone who lives in a city to avoid being accidentally included in someone else’s photo or video, I don’t think it is crucial to truly immerse oneself into this process. I would actually argue that those who immerse themselves too deeply into the photo-taking process ironically miss out on some aspects of life that truly let you feel the essence of being alive. Of course I believe in the power of images, but I also believe there is a fine balance.
1. After reading the Truth of Experience, I have some understanding about the photography and image.
On the one hand, as author suggests, photography is more like a database, a formation. I think it is an interesting idea because when we think carefully about the relationship between the data and photography, we can figure out that every image represents something and tries to explain, to tell, to record — a way to express something for the audiences but also restore the information about the moment. In the past, photography can be regarded as a “producer” due to making and pictures; but now, it is more like an appreciator, translator and narrator due to its characteristics. Photography is more like a creative project: we add our personal experiences, emotions and intentions to form it. During this process, photography is not the result only but also the way from brainstorming to the finished picture.
On the other hand, not only the creator (narrator) makes connection between the reality and their photography, but also the audiences. The photographer tries to add personal symbols in the picture, but audiences have somewhat common emotions or feelings about the image, which means the photography connects audiences to evoke and to resonate. I really agree one sentence in the article: “If today the important element is not ‘what’ information but ‘how’ information is delivered”. Generally, the creator tries to make senses in the image, and they aim to “making of meanings” and at the same time the audiences need to feel and put the photography in context to analyze. (like culture, background, environment, political situation, society, etc.)
What is more, personally, I think the digital technology changes our life. Nowadays, digital technology promotes greater ease in editing than analog photography, because it transforms photographs from objects into data, and digital imaging technology theoretically disrupts previous notions of the indexical connection between photographic images and “reality.” Marshall McLuhan describes the impact of new media with the phrase “the medium is the message.” Digital photography recently challenges the historical belief that photography is representative of reality. But have viewers’ perceptions shifted in relation to theoretical discussions? While digital affects the theoretical notion of the photographic index, these theories overlook the appearance of the image and the social applications of transparent lens-based media. Viewers continue to read digital photographs as representative of reality, a function images maintain despite the transition
from analog to digital. The notion of the photograph as index relies on the physical and chemical processes that constitute the medium. Photography nowadays is more like what the creator wants to show instead of taking picture at the moment.
Finally, the tool and technique for photography changed from camera to mobile phone and some other technical tool. With digital technology, it is arguably easier to edit and create images of objects that never existed in reality, thus casting doubt on the reliability of photography’s connection to the real.
2. As for the image today, I think the following image is a good example to show.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pJB2Y54MFa3HMbLw_XqP1gUDRO9ZSiHD
From the image, there is a contrast between the entity and shadow – I try to express the different between the photography and reality, and to show the characteristics of images:
a) Images present information, which is like a database. From each image, we can figure out the information and story behind it;
b) Images can be deceptive. Sometimes, photography is a way for creator to “make a meaning” and show what they wanted instead of the reality. In the past, people tried to record the moment but nowadays, image can be a tool to tell something, a narrator to make a story; The perceived connection between photographs and reality has always been ideological;
c) Image evokes the emotions and feelings for both audiences and creator. Some of the emotions can be common and pervasive, but some are not due to various experiences and subconsciousness from different people.
While the process of reading photographs is influenced by the context of the image, just because a photograph is created or distributed with digital technology does not negate its indexical function. People make the image from feeling an object, and then observing, recording, adding their own thought, and finally creating it with the meaning. With the development of modern society, we need to use a new sight to evaluate the image and the function of it.
The extended analysis given to still and moving photography in the article was interesting as it shed light on the extensive role this medium plays in all aspects of our society– within arts and outside of it as well.
“The image-making process is always and necessarily the ‘making of meaning’. The process continually melds past, present and future, cognition and emotion.”
This was one of my favorite quotes from the passage as I have and still truly believe this of photography, film, and other mediums among the visual arts. However, as I mentioned in a comment previously, I think there is a fine line we need to recognize as artists in regards to the significance we allow these artistic tools/mediums to have over our lives. It is difficult to create a work that holds significance other than pure aesthetics if we are not in touch with ourselves, our experiences, or our observations of the world that surrounds us. That being said, we need to be able to communicate through these mediums for our own artistic purposes but also be able to step back and truly live our own lives, create new experiences, and explore- as this enables our work to have more depth.
As reflecting upon my own image-sharing sites, most of the images shared were of information (as another way to spread news) or people sharing a [very posed and engineered] glimpse of an outing in their social life. Their existence is within the bubble of social expectations and personal ego-centric gain, but also becomes part of the physical world as it affects the “image” we may create of ourselves therefore influencing possible opportunities, or the people who become part of our life. There were a lot of other images that were people sharing glimpses of their life in a very raw, unfiltered manner, sharing real emotions, random thoughts etc in their “captions” instead or the traditional. In my opinion, this is a more balanced way of using these image-sharing mediums (in this category of one’s “personal” life) and i relate most to this “style” as well as, but this is just my opinion for me personally, and these things vary with everyone depending on one’s personality.
Hi,
I really agree that you use the phrase “bubble of social expectations and personal ego-centric gain” to describe image-sharing site. Due to the development of modern technology, people have more chance to share their moments timely, the image-sharing site is more like a platform to shape or create our “personality” (what we want to be).
We are exposed to so many photographic images on a daily basis. Text is not the only way to communicate in the modern day society. People are able to communicate with images only. After reading the article, it gave me a more concrete understanding of the photographic realm. Below are some of my favourite quotes from the article:
“transforming photographic practice into something heterogeneous, performative, seamless and infinite.”
“Instead of assuming that photography is a mechanism that transforms reality into images, we can invert the terms and see the photographer as a translator, as a facilitator of narratives.”
“The image-making process is always and necessarily the ‘making of meaning’. The process continually melds past, present, and future, cognition and emotion.”
“Inscribing oneself into the image and image-making process is the only way left to participate in life: moving into the core of the image, into the work and the discourse that lies behind the image and becoming part of it, as well as of the medium. Expanded photography is, thus, about experiential truth.”
It seems like it circles back to the validity of meaning in images. It’s so easy to produce images nowadays, but how much value is in your images? Or does it matter? Do people create images just to express their own feelings? Does the image maker think of the images that they are creating when they are making images? Or is it just emotions, atmosphere, expression all bundled up and compacted into an image?
With the emerging technology, the creation of different software…making images has become a process with many different dimensions and layers. For some reason, it makes me want to go back to shooting street photography, to the sole purpose of documenting something—an event perhaps, to documenting things that are actually happening. Images that aren’t posed. Something that is the exact opposite of what see nowadays. Not the images we see in magazines, not the images we see on instagram—posed, trying to look candid photos. I crave images, moments perhaps that are often not noticed. Images that are still in their moment, that can somehow exist autonomously. One can also argue an image can never exist autonomously—it is a representation of something after all.
I like your question of validity of images in today’s society. You ask if value matters, and if people make images just to express their own feelings. I think making images just to express a feeling makes an image perfectly valid. Even if it is just, say, your everyday selfie, that image was made because the person, the creator, wanted to show their face, they wanted to be seen. This is just a feeling of wanting attention, even if it is increasingly common in this Internet-based era. But then again, people have different ideas of what feelings, and by extension, “realities” are “more important” to giving value to an image. You state that a posed image on Instagram is different than going out and documenting things as they happen. I think that these are just two different “realities” that one may capture in an image. You may capture in a photograph, perhaps, a person walking by, and a person on Instagram may take a photo posing as if they are casually walking by on a street. I think that both images have value, though they may be different. Both show the creator’s version of “reality”. Yours just happens to be spontaneous, while theirs is more posed.
As humans we seem to want to share our thoughts. To record or pass down these experiences. Even before the invention of photography we wrote stories, told ballads, even painted on walls. It’s only recently that we’ve found a way to further that transfer of information. A picture really is worth a thousand words, you could never describe anything in as much detail a photo or video. The article eludes to that by saying “There’s no public sphere without the sharing of experiences and opinions, and in our age what we share the most is images. They have become a commodity. We trade our existence in images, and we shape ourselves through them.”
Something else that caught my attention was near the beginning when the reader is asked to recall how many images they have been portrayed in. Personally I would never be able to determine that. My parents have taken pictures of things my whole life and used them to help with the blogs that they run. Because of this I grew up not thinking anything of someone taking a picture of their food. My exposure to having images taken of and around me is very high so I would never think to ask that.
Despite my family being very internet savvy I don’t use a lot of social media. I’ve only gotten a Facebook page and Instagram in the last few months for school purposes. I do use one site regularly and that is Tumblr. For the most part you can choose what you see by who you follow. I usually follow people with similar interest in games or other media that I enjoy and I think that gives you a completely different experience than many other sources. What appears on my feed is usually fan art or images/sounds from original sources that spawn the art. So I am not only being given feedback that others are enjoying the same things as I am but also I am being given new ideas and insight on how people are interpreting it. My “real” is being validated by others while also sometimes being expanded with new original material.
After reading “The Truth of Experience”, I realized that image occupied our lives much more than I imagined. Photography has become our daily fare, expanding their functions in multiple areas including mass-media, economics, politics, law and social science. Furthermore, an expanded photography is about constituting the self visually. Our experience, behavior and thoughts have integrated into the image. The article is divided into few parts and each parts’ subtitle have the clear theme how images get into our lives, talking about the past and present.
The following passages impress me a lot.
“We trade our existence in images, and we shape ourselves through them.”
“The image-making process is always and necessarily the ‘making of meaning’. The process continually melds past, present and future, cognition and emotion.”
“Inscribing oneself into the image and image-making process is the only way left to participate in life: moving into the core of the image, into the work and the discourse that lies behind the image and becoming part of it, as well as of the medium. Expanded photography is, thus, about experiential truth.”
From my understandings, image-sharing sites are not only the sharing of information to others, but also the communication of themselves. Every time people share images, it is a time for self-evaluation. Like the above article says, we shape ourselves through images. Sharing images sometimes become an excuse to meet people’s vanity. In image-sharing sites, Selfie plays an important role which become a way for people to express themselves. Photoshop and some other tools are used in order to present a better image. The result is, because of the fast development of these kinds of tools, images become not “real “now. Referring to the situation, we are not just seeing the images superficially and start to look for the images behind.
“We trade our existence in images, and we shape ourselves through them.” This quote immediately caught my attention when I was reading “The Truth of Experience,” it is coincidentally something I have been thinking recently. A moment does not seem to exist unless a photograph is taken and shared with someone else nowadays. People took pictures of their food, outfits, or just “snap” a random moment and share them on social media, knowing that someone (they might or might not know of) is “following” their lives and may sometimes share it with more people.
In earlier days, people take pictures with their cameras and develop the images into physical copies as a “record of existence.” There was more of privacy and preciousness of the images a people shared with each other. Back then, if one wants to keep a moment to oneself, he/she can just store the photos and never show it to someone else. However, with how convenient the internet is and how every account we have online were more or less connected to each other, it is rather easy for another person to break into your “private” online album and leak the images (or moments) you preferred not to share with anyone else. In addition, images that were shared online (even if you have them only visible to a selected few,) are all more or less public and can be passed on to strangers on the other side of the world.
On top of the sharing existence, many people start manipulating the images they share online. With standards of perfection and idealization input in the society, the images shared online were more or less being used to shape one’s life in the way one wants to be seen. I have heard someone said that looking at a person’s social media (especially Instagram) is the quickest way to get a rough idea of a person. Most people want to leave good impressions to random strangers that happen to encounter his/her Instagram or just basically want to make others (and maybe the account owner himself) to think that one’s life is better than it actually is.
It also seems like people nowadays cannot communicate without sharing contents of images. How often do your friends tag you in memes on social media? How often do you send online memes and gifs as a reply to conversations that you are not sure how to respond in words? Maybe memes are not popular among your group of friends, but how often do you just see memes while surfing the internet?
I believe most people would be quite unaware of how often do they use images rather than words to communicate just because it is so natural; even though most images we use to communicate still come with texts, it is the contents in the images that are important, not the words that came with them.
I find these things happening in our world right now very interesting. Furthermore, it is really nice how almost everyone has the access and ability to become artists or just covey their artist instincts into digital images or any media through the use of technology.
What the article has talked about are quite interesting as the idea of expanded photography was defined and explained in the article, corresponding the ideas that we have discussed during studio time. Expanded photography emphasizes the fact that image has already become a language in present days. It has also emphasized another important fact which was pointed out in class, that is, this new language has infinite possibilities, which allows us to express and share our personal sensation, memories and thoughts to the public, and vice versa, allows us to receive more of others or public thinking, knowledge and experiences. In this case, reading this article has helped me dig deeper into the understanding of the idea of image as a language through the analysis of what kind of role digital photography is playing within the “language” and what kind of contribution it has made for the development and comprehension of the language. My favorite passages are the followings:
“The photographical is a whole body of experience that embraces (and is mediated by) a great variety of relations, interests and possibilities to become the main manifestation and constitutive element of our human condition in the 21st century.”
“We need to refer to images (and image-making) in order to act politically, socially, and culturally. An expanded photography is now the set of conditions that facilitates our awareness of such interconnected layers a visual system that searches, finds and acts out meaning as it constitutes it (with or without camera).”
“Instead of assuming that photography is a mechanism that transforms reality into images, we can invert the terms and see the photographer as a translator, as a facilitator of narratives.”
“In fact, both producers and consumers become active participants in the process, since they become part of the information chain, a segment of the sequence of ‘knowledge’.”
The article has also triggered my thoughts about the question that was asked during class time— “what is an image today?” “what do our images reveal about our world?” and “what is the reality today?”
In my opinion, an image today is, as we have already discussed, infinite possibilities. While the development of technology has allowed us to somehow be able to show this kind of infinity, which corresponded to the idea of expanded photography, we would never be able to have a full understanding of the TRUE ONE image of the world. Being lack of infinite imagination while being constrained by what we are able to reach, which in other words, the “reality” we considered as the true reality, it is impossible for human beings to fully comprehend “an image today”. An artwork from Jeremy Shaw titled This Transition Will Never End would probably be the best “image” show what I considered as “an image today”.
Here is a link to the slides of screenshots of the work: http://jeremyshaw.net/transition/
It is a pity that I am not able to find the video version of it as the video version would convey the feeling of endlessness and infinity more effectively. This is a project that began in 2008 and went ongoing. It was a video that never repeated the transition scenes, and more transitions scenes are and will be adding to the video keeping the transition goes forever. In this case, the infinity and ongoing development of the transition sceneries remind me of the infinity possibilities implicated within the image today, which I think it could be considered as the image of “image today”.
On the other hand, mentioning the reality, instead of considering the physical universe that we are living in as the “true reality”, I think what the images are able to represent is the “true reality”. This means that, in my opinion, the reality we believed to be reality is not the true reality anymore, while the true reality is as well impossible to be represented because of the physical and psychological limitations, just like the image. The boundary between the physical truth and the infinite imaginations implied within the possibilities an image today could achieve was blurred; moreover, because of the development of technology and the proposition of the idea of expanded photography, the role of the latter has reversed and become the “true reality”—the reality that we are not able to represent or fully understand.
After writing so many thoughts, I once again realize the fact that the “language” is much more powerful and more comprehensible than we thought, as I suddenly recognize that I am not able to express myself any better than what the artist’s work has conveyed. And this situation has once again emphasized the importance of gaining the ability to speak this language—the image.
I definitely agree with a lot of what the article talked about, especially the part where it talked about photographs becoming more of a “visual language” as photographs, and by extension, images become increasingly involved in our everyday lives. The article states, “We are all, more than ever, ‘implicated’ in photography whether we like it or not. We constitute ourselves both as individuals and communities through this visual alphabet and database, a language that is neither written nor verbal, but visual.” I definitely think that in our modern society, we have started to use pictures more and more to convey meaning to those around us. One main example that comes to mind is Snapchat, which is specifically meant for people to easily “snap” pictures and quickly send them to their friends whenever they feel like they need to share what they are doing. You can add text over these pics, but most of the ones I see on there don’t have them. Some one could, for example, send me a pic of their breakfast. They could’ve written in text something like, “for breakfast I am eating toast with jam and a side of eggs,” but instead they have just sent a picture of what that sentence describes, and I, the receiver, instantly know this is what they meant, and am not just confused as to why my friend sent me a picture of toast. If not for this “visual language” that the article describes that I have grown up with and come to learn, I probably would be very confused at this seemingly random picture of toast.
This also bleeds into how the article defines images as also “becoming a commodity. We trade our existence in images, and we shape ourselves through them.” As I stated before, because of this constant sharing of images, I, and others, have now been able to interpret them at a moment’s notice.
The article also states, “We trade our existence in images,” which I think is really interesting. Going off of my previous example, by my friend sending me a picture of their breakfast, they have shared a moment in time of their own experiences with me. While I did not eat the toast, I too, am now involved with my friend’s breakfast time, as I have visually experienced it as well.
I also like the article’s focus that “today the important element is not ‘what’ information but ‘how’ information is delivered.” I hadn’t really thought about this as much as the other two points that I already brought up. Thinking about it now, depending on where an image has been shown, or how it has been created, or possibly altered, I would probably have a different experience with it each time. Going back to that wonderful toast example, if my friend posted it on other platforms, or other mediums, I’d probably get a different message from it, assuming there is no text accompanying it. On snapchat, they are simply sharing a moment of their everyday life. On tumblr, I’d probably think they were making some joke post. On Facebook; some important memory, event, and not just your average breakfast. If they printed it out; for a photography project. If they drew it; a drawing project they’re working on.
This example also shows the ways I experience images on the different websites I frequent. I’m going to go on each and describe the first pictures that come up on my various feeds. Tumblr: first few picture posts were screen shots of text or videos. The second one in particular was making a joke about the video. Some art people had posted, and another screen shot joke post, this time of a movie. The ones that weren’t art were using images from other sources re-arranged and juxtaposed in order to make the viewer laugh. This is what I mainly encounter on tumblr, thus the earlier reaction. “Reality” here seems to be mainly contained entirely within the site; many of these pictures are only understandable by having been on the site and seeing these jokes done over and over again, while being slightly altered each time (I speak here of memes).
Instagram: a picture of a cat, cake, someone’s outfit they wore that day, someone cosplaying, a makeup tutorial. On tumblr, the images were more of other sources, or art that people had drawn digitally. Here, it’s simple pictures people have taken of their everyday, real, life. This may sound like snapchat, except Instagram differs in one crucial way: a lot of these pictures have been altered slightly in order to heighten and improve the “reality” contained within. For example, the outfit picture has a filter on it, along with several sparkles and hearts around the person’s body. This is their ideal “reality” of the way they wish for others to perceive them.
Facebook: As I said before, the toast received special treatment on Facebook. This is because the first few images I get are: someone’s memories post from something they did 4 years ago, someone talking about their anniversary with their boyfriend (accompanied by a picture of him), and someone’s photos from a concert they went too. Most of the images I see on Facebook seem to be people sharing important events or memories in their lives. As far as I know, their lives only consist of these important moments, and the mundane is nonexistent.
Last but not least, let’s return to Snapchat: my friend has sent me a picture of her hand in a thumbs up in front of her laptop keyboard. That’s it. Just a thumbs up. Visual language at its finest.
After reading this article, I found myself considering what I thought an image is. Although I am not a big fan of attempting to define art for the sake of analytical understanding, Mr. Cramerotti’s new definition for an image is very insightful. In terms of defining an image, I would agree that an image is absorbed more as a universal language than anything else. The idea of “the photographic” allows an image to occupy all corners of human interactions, allowing for an almost free interpretation when viewing and creating an image. Furthermore, the discussion between and within groups surrounding images or sets thereof further validates this classification. In this sense, a picture IS worth 1000 words if not more.
One passage that really stood out to me was the fact that photographs can be printed and passed from hand to hand, reproduced in books, newspapers and magazines, projected in galleries, community centers and public spaces, broadcast on television, streamed online or even processed by software that translate audio and sonic impulse in images, reveals that photography is clearly a matter of dissemination, and not of genre”. This passage/ paragraph in the article really shows the progression humanity has taken towards producing and absorbing images. With new mediums for photographs and images popping up everywhere, it is easy to see that the “classic” way to define an image is very restrictive to how an image enters our frame of understanding.
When observing image sharing sites like Facebook and Instagram, it is easy to see that the way images are created and shared has changed dramatically, even differing site to site. Somewhat unlike Instagram, Facebook contains any image you could ever want to find under the sun. Posters can either be groups or individuals, and after long term use, the images that you can see are curated to your current and ongoing interests. On both sites, the amount of online support for an image goes a long way, as the more “likes” an image receives, the “better” it is. In terms of personal posts, it appears posters seek to be “liked”, posting images of themselves or other things that boost their standing within their community. By doing this, these images lose their appeal very quickly in my opinion. If everyone is trying to doctor and manipulate their images to show their best side, then nobody has a best side.
Another question I would like to pose is: why are we attempting to define an image in the first place? As Cramerotti discussed in his piece, images have become ambiguous in nature, occupying space and time. If this is the case, what’s the point of defining it? Is it that we as humans are afraid of the unknown, or that we are trying to define a self-made creation that has become bigger than ourselves? Is it possible to accept that an image is undefinable?
Something else I noticed:
This paragraph was in the piece:
“Non c’è più “l’esterno”al visibiledal momento in cuisiamo costituitida esso. Mi rendo conto di essererecalcitrante su questo punto.Tuttavia,potrebbe essere possibile chel’immagine elo spettatore siano incastratiin un rapporto infinitamente reciproco?”
Translated:
There is no more “outside” to the visibiledal moment in cuisiamo constituted it. I realize that I am responsible for this point. However, could it be possible for the image and the viewer to be embedded in an infinitely reciprocal relationship?
Just a really quick and bad translation (thanks google) but I thought it was interesting.
After reading the article, I got some new understandings toward “photography” like the fancy terms “expanded photography”, “photographical” which I have never paid attention to identify them. In the past, my views toward photography were it’s just a tool, an instrument for human beings to record and capture beauties in life. I never regard it as a way of expression of ourselves, and we could use it to communicate with other people by disseminating some spiritual stuffs like thoughts, ideas, imaginations to the world in social media or on some image sharing websites ( As what we learned in the first class, images nowadays function as “sharing”.). The whole world is not solely about realities that are physical and tangible any more since more and more personal experiences, things that regarding to “self” is becoming visualized. In my opinion now, let’s say if we want to judge an photo is good or bad, it might be not enough to simply say whether the technical skills of photography that were used on the photo were proficient or not. Now we tend to concern about the narratives behind a photo, in other words, if this taken photo was set based on certain theories that were formed in a historical backgrounds like surrealism, or if the photographer used certain strategies or methodologies like why he or she staged and pictured the scene in this or that way. Above all, we are trying to incorporate individual elements like individual feelings and emotions into a photo to make an image be full of “vigor”, but no longer a “mechanism”. As what the article talks about, “ Instead of assuming that photography is a mechanism that transforms reality into images, we can invert the terms and see the photographer as a translator, as a facilitator of narratives.” As many classmates have noticed, I am also interested in the using word of “translator”. Here, a photographer is no longer transferring a scene monotonously by applying taught aesthetics and hidebound skills, but adding his or her own unique understandings and interpretations into an image. In this way, we can even have infinite creative ways to manifest or express a same thing, which makes me think of one of our previous assignments–“What is an apple?”. And as what Shakespeare said, “There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes.”, even if there is a same object or a scene in front of a photographer (the photographer has already taken a photo of the object or the scene), under different circumstances like different mental conditions or after going through certain particular experiences, the photographer may generate a quite unique new image that would distinguish from the old one. The proportion of “self-awareness” become more and more important in images, and it’s the part that make an image meaningful. Pictures and photos are dead, but images are alive since “we” are in the images, “we” are alive and changing. As what the article says, “Inscribing oneself into the image and image-making process is the only way left to participate in life: moving into the core of the image, into the work and the discourse that lies behind the image and becoming part of it, as well as of the medium”.
“We are all, more than ever, ‘implicated’ in photography whether we like it or not. We constitute ourselves both as individuals and communities through this visual alphabet and database, a language that is neither written nor verbal, but visual.”
– In my opinion photography is a stronger language, than verbal or written language. An image can arouse many different emotions at a glance. Since the attention span in social/digital media is usually very small, images are an easy and fast way to communicate.
“We trade our existence in images, and we shape ourselves through them.”
– For me, this development in todays culture is very dangerous. We should not let images dominate our lives.
“Instead of assuming that photography is a mechanism that transforms reality into images, we can invert the terms and see the photographer as a translator, as a facilitator of narratives.”
– No words needed.
I spent time on the image sharing platform, which I currently use most: Instagram. On my home timeline (the channel I use most), I saw many photographs of friends and other people I know. In every case, it was a photo of their leisure time, e.g. holiday pictures, sports or food. The reality shown is a “perfect world”, in which everyone always has “awesome times”.
Browsing through the discovery part of Instagram, I mostly saw animated gifs or short videos from many different pages or stars. These images are also based on photos, but animations and captions in capital letters were added. Strong colors and shapes attract a lot of attention and they either present funny or political/philosophical content. It is difficult for me to link a “real” to these images, especially as they are very diverse.
I really enjoyed reading the provided article (The Truth of Experience), it definitely brought me to view this topic from a different perspective, beyond what I originally assumed.
When you stop and think for a second, photographs and images are the most prominent thing in todays society, weather it be sharing art, communication, or a stupid image that your friend tagged you in on facebook.
“photography is losing its historical and medium specificity, and expanding its scope. It is our daily fare”. It is 100% our daily fair and I totally agree with the fact that photography is losing its historical medium. In this age where we devices in our pockets almost 24 hours a day that can take amazing photos within seconds, we tent to forget the means of importance in images. Overlooked by just snapping away to our hearts content in the hope to find one suitable photo for our instagrams.
Instagram especially has blown up over the past few years, people have made careers out of the app and it’s a platform that hundreds of millions of people use daily. It’s unique, a place where people can share there professional photography and at the same time its a place where people can share selfies with there dog eating ice cream.
We are in a quantity over quality scenario when it comes to image sharing, and I believe as society we should make a change for the reversal.
After reading the article “The Truth of Experience”, I intend to analyze the parts that I like the most in the article and my interpretation after reading it. In the article, the writer claimed that “photography is losing its historical and its medium specificity, and expending its scope. It is our daily fare. We constitute ourselves both as individuals and communities through this visual alphabet and database, a language that is neither written nor verbal, but visual.” I have read a book named ” Forms and Lives”, a book demonstrates the relationship between art’s forms and the lives of forms before, in the book , the writer stated that the art is the fourth world. The first world is a physical world; the second world is the world of behaviors which including both human’s behaviors and animals’ behaviors and even plants’ behaviors; the third world is the world of thoughts and spirits; and fourth world is the world that use physical objects to represent thoughts and sprits. Photography is an integral part of art, it should be classified in the fourth world: Using physical object to represent thoughts and spirits, which is totally the same as language.
Moreover, the writer of the article also demonstrated that ” The photographical is a whole body of experience that embraces (and is mediated by) a great variety of relations, interests and possibilities to become the manifestation and constitutive element of our human condition in the 21st century. ” and “Photography is a mechanism that transforms reality into images, we can invert the terms and see the photographer as a translator, as a facilitator.” I agree those points of views. I think people make images is like making other art work, like music, painting, or sculpture. You make it, because you have the inspiration of it. Where does inspiration come from? The answer is reality, real life. I would like to call it as purity. To be specific, the purity of art. People live in reality, people can feel from reality. Then people can transfer those feelings into any art form. Image is a part of them. It is reality, the reality that people lives in makes people highly sensitive with the content of the art they are making.
I like to visit image sharing website in my spare time. Some of the image are made by some image making software like Photoshop, some of them are photography which shot by people. I think one thing very common of them is they all have the power to express information. The information of data, emotions, feelings and so on. They are transforming the reality into digital form.
The article, The Truth of Experience, (as well as class discussion) definitely gave me an interesting new perspective on today’s use of images that I had not previously considered. The idea of images being their own language, and the idea of using images to shape ourselves, resonated with me most. This is probably because both ideas immediately made me realize how prominent images are in my day-to-day life as well as how significant they really are in terms of human discourse. Increasingly, we communicate with and define ourselves by photographed images. The question of what is real becomes increasingly powerful. Am I my snapchat collection? Am I the lifestyle I project visually? Or is it pretend? Has pretend become real? Or has expanded photography created something “hyperreal.”? I am me, but even brighter and prettier after some filters and editing.
Passages that stuck out to me most:
“This is more than simply taking a picture or inventing an image. As outlined above, it is about constituting the self visually”
“We trade our existence in images, and we shape ourselves through them.”
“We constitute ourselves both as individuals and communities through this visual alphabet and database, a language that is neither written nor verbal, but visual.”
The idea of “constituting” our “selves” through this medium is particularly powerful. I am the images I take of myself and share, and I am the images others take of me and share. And these images can be manipulated to capture styles, tones, moods, even lifestyles. And rather than each image being a complete a powerful message in and of itself, each is now more like part of an “alphabet.” Once pictures were said to be worth a thousand words. Now a thousand images are the visual alphabet of who we are, or pretend to be, or sort of are. And as we interact with others using the same “alphabet”, we have a community that also trades in images. Photography is no longer easily assigned to domains like fashion, journalism, or even art. We are immersed in it. Everyday tools like smart phones have made us all photographers, and the internet and social media sites give us all a place to trade these images and interact in ways never before possible. This passage captures the point well:
“Inscribing oneself into the image and image-making process is the only way left to participate in life: moving into the core of the image, into the work and the discourse that lies behind the image and becoming part of it, as well as of the medium. Expanded photography is, thus, about experiential truth.”
On “Snapchat”
I use the app Snapchat and spent time reflecting on its use. This app is used by millions of people and literally is designed to trade in “images.” The “snap” is the photograph we take and with the click of a button, share with others, hundreds or more in some cases.
I have an acquaintance who has almost one million “snaps” These have accumulated over a period of three or four years. This speaks again to the notion of a “visual alphabet” and a transformation in how we communicate.
The use of filters and the ability to edit again raises the question of “reality.” And as the community that trades and interacts through such media expands, the very notion of community becomes a fascinating one. One thing is very clear, however, “expanded photography” is more than a proliferation of pictures, it is an actual “approach to life.” And as we increasingly pass “through different stages, visual systems, signs and formats” along the way, we have to wonder, what is happening to the self, the community, and reality itself.
WEEK 4 Note and Reflection on Lecture and Reading
What is an image today? -What do images reveal about our world?
Image as a visual language that depicts things, reveals our world in many forms. Back in time, when painting(drawing) was the main approach of visual representations, the artistic autonomy largely determined what image would look like. Since the invention of photography, human capacity in capturing accuracy surpasses every other kinds of imaging techniques in our history. Later on, the development of technology also provided a variety of possibilities in representing subject matters, which reached beyond conventional human understanding(e.g. the science-fiction, virtual-reality, etc.). As human lifestyle has experienced a tremendous change, image as a representing and recording mean also involves much broader ideologies in order to serving modern human activities. That is to say, our life today largely decides what is an image today.
In “The Truth of Experience. Notes of Expanded Photography”, the article investigated in photographical image as a vehicle of representation that engaged with and act in our modern life. So to speak that image has positioned itself as not only a visual language that record and represent subject matters but also an [Architecture of Reception] that could be transcoded and translated into political/social/cultural ideologies, and furthermore engaged with human life. In the beginning of the article, a question was raised: “how to make sense of photography in excess? how to transcends its established definitions?” In my perspective, image(image-making) as a product(activity) of human life, are deemed to be embedded with functions that serves human, either it is politically, socially, culturally, etc. The dramatic change of image-making(especially photography as a modern invention) that we are now experiencing is actually the change of depicted subject matters(change of reality). That is to say, technological development in modern reality is the major force that oriented the content of modern images. Image is a representation of reality. Talking about our life(reality) today, I would like to bring in Edmund Husserl’s notion of “lifeworld” in clarifying my understanding of “reality”, which quoted Husserl: “In whatever way we may be conscious of the world as universal horizon, as coherent universe of existing objects, we, each “I-the-man” and all of us together, belong to the world as living with one another in the world; and the world is our world, valid for our consciousness as existing precisely through this ‘living together.’ We, as living in wakeful world-consciousness, are constantly active on the basis of our passive having of the world… Obviously this is true not only for me, the individual ego; rather we, in living together, have the world pre-given in this together, belong, the world as world for all, pre-given with this ontic meaning… The we-subjectivity… is constantly functioning.” In other words, lifeworld means a person’s subjective construction of reality, which he or she forms under the condition of his or her life circumstances.
However, I am more interested in the alternative identity of image nowadays, that started from modernity, the notion of “art for art’s sake” has established a much broader discourse in public realm. Since then, photography can truly deliberate itself from its established functions which was embedded by human necessity. According to Clement Greenberg, painting was above all about its very remove from the world to which photography was indexically bound—a painting was good to the extent that it dealt exclusively with problems and issues related to its own specific qualities as a flat, bounded surface on which marks were made. So does photography, which one does not make significance in recording and representing the reality, but more interested in the process of transcending itself from the mundane sphere to a beyond space. The autonomy of photography produces much more possibilities in a free ground. (Quote from text: It’s as though our society has freed image-making from specific applications, and rendered the photographic image an autonomous subject on its own, detached from any function or relation.) Therefore I would conclude contemporary image has a dual-identity: it works as a traditional mean that serves and engaged with human life, recording/representing mundane subject matters as a vehicle of communication. It also autonomously detached from any functions or relations in a purely self-expressive form, and later come back to public sphere to interact with human life. Quoted Vasily Kandinsky: the work of art consists of two elements: the inner and the out. The inner element, taken by itself, is the emotion in the should of artist. This emotion is capable of calling forth what is, essentially, a corresponding emotion in the should of the observer. As long as the soul is joined to the body, it can as a rule only receive vibrations via the medium of feelings. Feeling are therefore a bridge from the nonmaterial to the material and from the material to the nonmaterial.”
In short, image today consist of two parts, our (constantly and rapidly) changing reality on the one hand, its individual subject on the other hand. The former depicts our world as an object, the later reveals each of us that constitute our world as individual subjects.