The tyranny of images.

[bruno]

<i>It is normal that something in a museum will get more attention if it is a painting or a photograph. </i><p>

It's true, but unluckily I think it's only because you paid the entrance and you choose to view.

<p><i>

Paintings and photos apart from that are a parallel process, all the signals come at the same time. Music and novels, for example, are serial and they "require" a certain amount of time and attention.</i><p>I should stop taking photos and start playing the guitar again. Or maybe I could invent pictures that change with time. Moving pictures. Now, that's a good idea!<p>

Hmm, seriously, the problem of the oversaturation is that now images are fighting to catch attention. The media are full of eye candies that catch your view for that second that's enough to sell you some soap. At the same time, intelligent pictures that invite you to think are less and less.

[eugene_scherba]

1. There is a difference between reality (realities) and real.

Reality is produced; real just exists out there.<br>

2. There is a difference between (a) the raw material of the real,

(b) the reality where the artist operates, © the reality which the

artist creates, (d) the intent of the artist, (e) the reality where

the viewer operates, (f) the reality which the viewer creates while

looking at the picture, and (g) the link between the artist and the

viewer that makes the whole thing function. Now which one of these

entities do you call "truth"? <br>

3. There are many realities and therefore many truths. The real is

only one, but its raw material is not continuous or whole. <br>

4. The intent of the artist, insofar as it is expressible, is

symbolic. The intent of the artist is what connects the reality

where the artist operates to the reality which the artist creates,

and therefore it exists insofar as the reality which the artist

creates exist. Again, since realities as such do not exist, this

link is purely symbolic.<br>

5. The link between the artist and the viewer can also usually be

abstracted into the domain of the symbolic (the language). <br>

6. Real is not expressible, therefore no truth ever corresponds to

the real. What is expressed is always symbolic; if truth is in any

way expressible, it must rely on the symbolic; therefore all truths

are in one or another way removed from the real. <br>

7. If intent of the artist is symbolic, it can be rewritten in any

other way. The difference between the intent and the rest of the

picture constitutes the authenticity of the picture. <br>

8. Authenticity of the picture represents the link between the

artist and the real. <br>

9. Authenticity of the picture is a reality -- it is created and it

is never real. <br>

10. It is the viewer who subtracts the rest of the picture (its

authenticity) from the whole as he or she perceives it, therefore

neither intent nor authenticity are kept whole during the process of

interpretation. <br>

11. It should be made clear that the "truth" you see in the picture

is either its intent or its authenticity or both. <br>

12. The authenticity is the baggage that differentiates the artwork

from a symbolic expression such as you find in language. <br>

13. The language (except perhaps its mathematical expressions) is

never free from this baggage, which is not that bad, because this

baggage allows poetry to exist. <br> <br>

 

I could go on and on, but I don't know which direction do you want

me to go into.

[vasilis]

I know that these things about novels and music sounds off topic. But every time someone reads a novel he gives the time for it like he enters a museum. So maybe these forms of art are not affected that much from our oversaturated age.

 

Eitherway, the problem is that the amount of information that we accept each day is enormous compared with past eras. We give our time in accepting and rejecting information automatically and almost no time to thinking. This rejection process goes to automatically erase information about wars, people that are hungry etc. Sometimes I doubt what is more bad, watching the news or watching commercials. Most people if they see a picture of a dead child from hunger they will just automatically erase it in a msec and continue. Each one of us has seen thousands of pictures from wars and human distress and this is the perfect way to become a cynic.

 

Photography is based (partially) on directness and surprise and cynicism is its worst enemy, how can you surprise a modern cynic?

[bruno]

Let's say that it easy to make confusion between the truth and The Truth. Of course I'm not trying to grasp the second one, but there are some small truths that we can try to understand.

 

It is true that I'm typing on a keyboard right now. For example. But you don't know if someone is forcing me to do it with a gun.

 

I like to imagine it like a spaghetti-western set. It's about cowboys and indians, but it's filmed in the spanish sierra and there are only the fronts of the houses. I don't care about this second level (not in this thread, I mean)... but once I believe the illusion of being in the Far West I can still play my game of truth and lies.

 

It's like entering in the middle of a conversation. You just hear the words "John is an asshole", but you don't know if it was meant ironically or really or maybe the sentence was "That bitch of Sheila was drunk and said that John is an asshole". Or maybe they said John and agreed that evening that John really means "you", so that they could talk freely.

 

I think that these kind of accidents are quite common in photography. When I talk about the truth, I just talk about the reality how I percieved it in that moment.

[bruno]

Anyhow... stop reading my rants and have a look at the subway zen thread... cool pictures there.

[eugene_scherba]

<p><i>But you don't know if someone is forcing me to do it with a

gun. </i></p>

 

<p>Nor do I care... [Evil laugh follows]</p>

[eugene_scherba]

<p>Bruno,</p>

 

<p>You ever spent time looking at UFO photographs? They are all

similar to each other: neither too blurry nor too detailed. There is

always a certain level of confusion -- neither too great nor too

small. Anything that is above or belove this level of confusion is

dismissed as fake or as nonevidence. If the photo is very detailed,

for example, showing the little green men sitting in the cabin, then

it is

dismissed as fake. On the other hand, if it is just a blurry spot in

the sky, then it is dismissed as a photography artifact or as a bird

or whatever. By Darwinian rules as if, only certain photos survive.

It is no coincidence that most of the photos show

discs of a certain shape. None of the existing apparatuses flown by

humans are discs,

so, naturally, anything that doesn't resemble a helicopter or a

plane has got to be an alien spacecraft. But, remember, it's got to

be neither too detailed nor too blurry. So there are few options

left, and a somewhat blurry disc is the most common one. My point is

that you could have arrived at the possible shape of UFOs without

ever seeing one and without ever looking at reports and pictures in

the newspapers -- arrived purely and simply from your knowledge of

planes, helicopters, and hondoles flown by humans.</p>

 

<p>Take a look at <a

href="http://www.ufoevidence.org/photographs/section/1990s/Photo154.htm">this

photo</a>, for example, and the comments that some viewers left. One

of them says: "Wow. The UFO looks pretty authentic but that

helicopter doesn't look like any helicopter I've seen." Now what's

up with "authentic" UFOs? Isn't that an oxymoron? Did that viewer

ever see a real "authentic" UFO other than pictures in the

newspapers? How does he or she know it is authentic? My point here

again is that a certain level of semantic confusion (not too great

and not

too small) creates a certain reality that diverges so far from what

you'd call real that it's not even funny.</p>

[bruno]

<i>You ever spent time looking at UFO photographs?</i><p>

Got better ways to waste my time.<p>

Jokes apart, I don't get your point.

[eugene_scherba]

Nah, that was just a joke, Bruno.

[eugene_scherba]

<p>Bruno, I understand your "rant" as much as I understand UFOs.

That was my little point. Also, my joke above on UFOs merely

restates your point: <i>"I just feel

like we are living in a tyranny of the images, that we can see

everywhere and look for more and more and at some time our

perception of reality will start to adapt."</i> The point was that

the

perception of UFOs was also constantly adapting until it reached

its presently most stable form (while at the same time being a

complete divergence, perversion of reality).</p>

 

<p>See, everything you said in your original "rant" is true, so I

don't understand what the problem is. First you complain that people

expect the artwork/photograph not to require an explanation. That is

normal. People also sometimes expect the artwork/photograph to show

exactly "what the artist intended." On the other hand of the rope,

there are artists who expect people to interpret their works exactly

the way they intended it. Everybody makes these assumptions. Are you

right in criticizing them? I think so. Are you correct on

complaining about this persisting demand for explanation? Yes, I

think so. People generally do not like to think for themselves; they

want somebody to explain things to them; and, best of all, they like

not having anything explained to them at all.</p>

 

<p>In the next lines you make an argument that interpretations of an

event can change as the event unfolds. Are you correct in making

that argument about it? Yes, absolutely.</p>

 

<p>Your next argument is that Truth (whatever it is, if it exists)

can never be approached. Are you right in making that claim? I think

you are, insofar as one takes absolute Truth as a Kantian term --

that is with a good humor.</p>

 

<p>You support the preceding argument with a subargument that the

totality of experience depends on a multitude of perceptual inputs

(visual, olfactory, auditory, etc). You analyze the phenomenology of

visual perception by relating it with the personal and collective

experience (the concept of a rose as a beautiful and pleasant

object) and by trying to isolate the visual perception form other

forms of stimulation, thereby trying to get at the essence of visual

perception. You are curious about this essence and you think that it

might be different from what most people imagine (which is why make

your thought experiment about relying on visual perception alone).

For you then, the aesthetic judgment, in the way it was understood

ever since Kant, rarely relies on one form of perception and is

rarely empirical. Are you making the right moves on this chessboard?

I think so. You also mention that it is hard and therefore

inconvenient to translate, say, olfactory experiences with purely

visual means. I think you are right on this one as well.</p>

 

<p>Then you make a staggering claim that perception somehow adapts

to the individual's experience. In claiming so, you designate

perception as a distinct faculty of the subject that encompasses

both sensory and cerebral components. Are you right in doing so? I

am not sure. Physiologically, probably yes. But philosophically? One

could say that it is not perception that adapts but the "whatever

lies behind perception" adapts by modulating the intensities of the

passing signals. But you designate the "whatever lies behind

perception" to the faculty of perception. But maybe that's not

important; I haven't read up on Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomenology of

Perception" (1945) enough to continue arguing about this.</p>

 

<p>Your final (and equally staggering) claim has something to do

about production, reality, and aesthetics. All of these three guys

are subjects upon themselves, on which tons of stuff had been

written. I am not getting what you are saying at this point. Is a

certain reality produced as a part of the process of perception? I

think so. Is any truth revealed during the process of perception?

Which truth? Why does it have to be "revealed" and not "disovered"

or "found" or "made" or "invented" or "constructed"? All these verbs

operate on different conceptions of truth. I am not sure which truth

are you talking about here. Also, you seem to oppose the aesthetic

reality (which you describe with the word "only," as if it was

something inherently lacking in something) and truth. Why should

these two be opposites of each other? Can't we have both truth

(whatever you mean by that) and aesthetic reality at the same time?

And what does composition have to do with all this? Why are you

making the opposition of "smaller and smaller details" and the

"bigger picture"? Are these two guys opposites or are they the same?

Sometimes, I believe, they are the same. Sometimes the bigger

picture is in fact in the details. And why are you talking about

"the bigger picture that could tell us more?" Why should a bigger

picture tell us anything more than the details? Isn't a bigger

picture a mere reduction, subtraction of details, therefore

inherently lacking of something? Aren't the details the material,

the tough, gritty, and real part? Why, in your mind, does the bigger

picture seem to correspond to "truth," while the minute details seem

to correspond to the "aesthetic reality"? Isn't the aesthetic

reality very often about boiling down everything to something simple

and beautiful? The beauty that some monks used to find in

metaphysics, for example?</p>

[bruno]

<i>Then you make a staggering claim that perception somehow adapts to the individual's experience. In claiming so, you designate perception as a distinct faculty of the subject that encompasses both sensory and cerebral components. Are you right in doing so?</i>

<p>

Well, ever since Kant it has been established that perception (sensorial + cerebral experience) is subjective. Did it ever happen to you to hear a friend or an acquaitance say "hey, this situation is exactly like in that movie?".<p>If yes, well that person stripped away from his perception all the things that were not like the movie.<p>

Sometimes my eyes have no rest. I just start looking around for possible subjects for the next photo. My perception adapts to whatever I call aesthetic.<p>

My final claim... I need to think a little bit more before answering.

[eugene_scherba]

It's right, perception is subjective. And?

[nashon_tado]

Bruno's observation is accurate, however he has generalised the concepts to an extent where it seems justified to refer to our image outdoors as a tyranny. A caption will normally add insight to an image in terms of place and time. I highly value the minimal captions i find below the black and white snapshots of my former High School that were taken in the 1930s and 1940s before my time. Sometimes i wish that someone had taken the pains to add just a couple of words more! My opinion is that classic snapshots do much better with some captions added to them to clarify the when and where. Most of the subjects have usually passed on and looking at such snapshots provokes nostalgia and self-preoccupation, a perfect condition for a kind word or two to inspire companionship.

Nevertheless, some shots seem to speak for themselves and words printed to give meaning to them only spoils the impact of what has been observed. A skilled photo editor must therefore judge when to add a caption or when not to, otherwise too much enthusiasm can easily ruin something that would otherwise be a masterpiece.