kat's eyes: Feb 4, 2007

Verisimilitude

I find it interesting that one of the initial reactions to photography by viewers was that it was, and is, a truthful representation of what exists. Consider the ongoing debate on whether photography was 'invented' or 'discovered' and add to that the ambiguity of who has the right to first claim responsibility for it. In spite of the fact that Daguerre, who can claim the right to promoting it, made his living creating illusions in his Diorama, photography to this day is regarded as the ultimate in truthful documentation. Even with technology at the point where we can morph images or create our own "Capriccios" with photo-editing software, most people still tend to believe what they see.

I would even go so far as to say until most people 'see' it, they don't believe it. Take the recent execution of Saddam Hussein for example. Millions of people went to sites containing the footage captured by a cell phone camera, hardly the best of devices for recording video, to 'see' for themselves that he was executed. Our frenzy for video is evident in sites such as Google Video and Youtube. Time magazine's Person of the Year cover depicted a computer screen with YOU on the display, representing sites that give people their Warholian fame with a quote "You control the information age. Welcome to Your World". What does that tell us? Is that a basis for reality? Maybe it is.

Bayard's tongue-in-cheek images showing floating statues and his own mock suicide remind us that what we see is not what we get, but still, unless something is on TV or caught on video, we do not tend to lend it credibility. In my media criticism studies I am looking at how viewers are controlled by visual communication. Subliminal advertising is supposedly outlawed, however we are constantly bombarded with product and societal representation included in and stuck between 'programming' which, admittedly is primarily designed only to attract customers; and then often geared to the viewers with the most disposable income. Like the evolution of the camera, first technologies are often only for the wealthy and elite and many strive to emmulate them by owning the technology. Willingly we buy into this idea, literally. We are ‘programmed’ (pun intended) what to wear, how to fix our hair, how to talk, what to drive, what to weigh; the brain washing is constant and incessant and we still can't get enough. We have to carry it with us and reach out and touch someone or something during the empty spaces of our daily routines.

I also noticed the development of image capturing tools, from the room size camera obscura to the more portable capture devices such as the Wollaston camera and then to the more permanent and less subjective Daguerrotype and Calotype, mirrors today's technological progression from large to small. Computers used to be housed in large rooms and personal computing didn't catch on until the mid 1990's with the advent of the Internet which, oddly enough, included imagery (does anyone else but me remember disabling pictures so you could surf faster on that screaming 28.8 connection?) Since then computing devices evolved rapidly and diminutively until now they fit in the palm of our hand (except in the instance of monitors and LCD displays; they've gotten much bigger and I won't even go into the phallic correlation ; ) Hand held devices incorporate not only the ability to see but to record life as it happens, as if life isn't real until it is somehow given written (hence: ‘writing in light’) proof.

I'll even argue that the reasoning behind the reduction in size of the devices and the enlarging of the viewer is to further the illusion of 'real' life. The source of the information becomes more discreet while the visual representation of content is more life-like. Soon we will have entire walls through which we can view the world as if we were there, windows where we can change the scenery or season to fit our desires. It seems as we abdicate more of our personal freedoms and lessen our physical participation in the world our imaginary world is being designed to replace actually traveling or living. How sad. How Orwellian.

Early on critics such as Bayard knew of the dangers of the supposed truth of photographic imagery (photos are still used in court cases as more valid proof than eye witnesses regardless of the evidence that both are suspect). Bayard is echoed more recently by art critic Thomas Lawson who said "the camera, with all of its manifestations, is our god, dispensing what we mistakenly take for the truth." And worshippers of gods often tend to forget deities and begin to worship rituals and artifacts instead. The god becomes secondary to the power of the tangible; after all what is the bible, or Koran, but tangible proof of god's existence? The subjectivity of the written word in religious relics is never questioned (heresy) and, as we were reminded with the first slides of this class, the creation of religious paintings and such was primarily done to reach the illiterate masses; to make god more real to them, in effect giving the Church more control. Look at what status society gives to the cell phone? It has become an icon of prosperity, global awareness and coolness. Yet how much content is actually worth seeing? Do we really need to talk to someone that often?

Humans are curious creatures and somehow the ability to capture a moment or a memory and hold it somehow makes it more real. However, what we see is not always what we get, in fact, most times it is not. We should strive to develop critical comprehension of recorded imagery and be as suspect of it as we are of written histories, which are often a one-sided view of events (usually by the victor). Subjectivity isn't necessarily wrong or evil; it’s like chocolate, healthy for you in small doses; but you can ask yourself, what are you being the 'subject' of or to?

~k@

Ps
I apologize for my callous use of the common comma and the dangling of participles.

kat's eyes

Sunday, February 4, 2007

Verisimilitude

August Sander

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