SIGNIFICANCE and SIGNIFICATION

[jtk]

Fred Goldsmith mentioned this in the "ineluctible..." James Joyce thread.

 

I casually say I look for significance, but I don't know what I mean.

 

Some images rely on words or graphics: signs on buildings etc.

 

Other images have loaded subjects: bloated African babies, crosses, shockingly

perforated musicians...

 

People pictures sometimes rely heavily on eye contact, Photoshopped eye detail..

 

I can name those kinds of images so I wonder if they can possibly be

"significant" in any big sense...

 

What do you mean by "significant," "significance," and "signification" if you

use words like those, thinking about photographs?

 

Fred...what does it all mean? Help!

[Matt Laur]

When in doubt, start a conversation with a bit o' the old dictionary:

<br><br>

1 a : the act or process of signifying by signs or other symbolic means b : a formal notification

<br>2 : PURPORT; especially : the meaning that a term, symbol, or character regularly conveys or is intended to convey

<br><br>

So, any time you rely on symbols, terms or characters (whether written, or in the visual parlance of photographic coloquialisms - from the dreaded desaturated engagement shoot image with the still-red rose to the to more subtle choice of facial focal plane or deft timing with a shutter at a particular sporting event) you make presumptions about your audience and their expectations. You need to know their visual language in order to speak it. Significance requires a common understanding of the communicator's signifying symbols. No doubt that's why Japanese animation just annoys the hell out of me!

[Norma Desmond]

John, thanks for starting the thread. Heavy lifting indeed. You started it! Have to take some

time myself, but will get back to it.

 

Matt, thanks for the wise start to the conversation. Running on overload right now, so more

later.

[jtk]

Matt, good points. However, you indicate concern for an intended audience. Many of us say we respond at a gut level we evidently take to be that of our audience of one. Are we subconsciously addressing the signifiers of a larger audience? Are we being dishonest with ourselves if we fail to recognize that?

[Norma Desmond]

John/Matt-- Was going to head off to bed and think about it tomorrow, but you got me

thinking

here a little. But just a little, for now.

 

Don't think it's a subconscious addressing of our signifiers to a larger audience, even

when we

respond at that gut level to the audience of one. Think it's a necessity of the nature of

language, whether verbal or esthetic. Language is public. It is born of a larger audience

than one even if it gets used by only one (talking to oneself or responding in the moment

and from one's gut). With any language, photographic or literary, musical or architectural,

there is an inherently public aspect even in private moments. That, I think, will be part of

what I say about SIGNIFICANCE (this process or concept utilizing signs and symbols).

There is some kind of interplay between the individual and the more universal that seems

to be

involved.

[jtk]

Fred, that was some impressive "heavy lifting."

 

OK, lift this:

 

If we distance our photographing from tendencies to pander to certain audiences, if we do manage to address the "universal," have we done something significant or have we merely reiterated "The Family of Man"

or proven we're like everybody else? Maybe that's not so "merely." Hm?

[Matt Laur]

I wouldn't call actually communicating what it is you're trying to communicate a case of "pandering to certain audiences." Whether or not your work is intended to be used rhetorically, the first lesson of rhetoric still applies: ask yourself who your audience IS, if and why/not they are receptive to your message, and what you can do to improve that situation. It doesn't matter if you're trying to pursuade, enlighten, entertain, inform, frighten, shock, or encourage the purchase of particularly shiny bathroom fixture... to the extent that you aren't taking your audience into account, you aren't valuing them or their uptake of your art or message. There is value in producing a photograph strictly for yourself, written in the images of your own personal language... but that, as they say, and $3.15 will get you a grande no-fat half-caffe iced latte, with a straw.

[jtk]

Your "communicating" and "rhetoric" frameworks are interesting but I'm not prepared to buy their utility in all instances for photography.

 

"... to the extent that you aren't taking your audience into account, you aren't valuing them or their uptake of your art or message."

 

Matt, I respect and sometimes argue for your point, but that doesn't quite answer the eminent "artists" we generally seem to believe, when they say they work for themselves, devil-take the audience.

 

For example, audience-focused painters might include Dali, self-focused painters might include Picasso.

 

(obviously those are arguable...Picasso overtly pandered sometimes and Dali famously insulted his collectors on occasion)

 

...or we could consider Mingus and Gould, both of whom seem to have prioritized their own music over the experience of their audience.

 

Maybe that's it...the question of who's "prioritized."

[Matt Laur]

I'm not arguing for or against valuing the audience, I'm simply pointing out that if you <i>do</i>, then you have to take that into account when thinking through your photographic creative process. On a practical note, images that cannot - taken on their own - communicate anything to an observer in the absence of commentary or some contextual awareness of a larger body of work or circumstance are just the artist talking to herself. That's fine! I'm my own best friend and worst critic. But once you're working inside that vacuum, it's not very productive to ALSO be fretting over what Joyce might have though about your image, or how the semantics of the lighting choice relates or doesn't to some facet of cultural bias or history. You're in a vacuum, or you're not.

<br><br>

The hard work that matters most might be that of those true visionaries that labor entirely in a vacuum, but while they're in there, they produce a body of work so solidly self-referential but also sophisticated, broad, and rich in its nuances that it <i>becomes</i> a new source of symbols and a new semantic library for the wider culture to mine. These artists are few and far between, and only the tiniest subset of them would seem to be photographers. Plenty of photographers (and other artists) work in that vaccum, but are mostly mumbling to themselves... there's no <i>there</i> there.

[Norma Desmond]

Impressions follow which continue on themes from John Kelly's "Ineluctible/Joyce" thread.

Nothing is meant dogmatically, more suggestively. Hoping to build this into a meaningful

dialogue. Sorry, this may sidestep (to an extent) the "audience" considerations you're onto

dealing with, but I've been working on this as you've been contributing. Obviously, I owe a

lot to Susanne Langer.

<br><br><p>

Charles Avison, British musicologist, 1775 (key phrases are in italics): ". . . music

naturally raises a variety of passions in the human breast . . . we are by turns elated with

joy, or sunk in <i>pleasing sorrow</i>, roused to courage, or quelled by <i>grateful

terrors</i> . . ."

<p><p>

Few of us would choose to be sad. Yet we are content to listen to melancholy or mournful

music. (<i>pleasing sorrow</i>)

<p><p>

The sadness in and of art is not sadness itself but a kind of SYMPATHETIC sadness.

<p><p>

How terrified do we normally become when we contemplate a "terrifying" photo? (Yes, it

can happen.)

<p><p>

Symbols lead to sympathy.

<p><p>

Both are part of artistic FORM.

<p><p>

Susanne Langer, from Philosophy in a New Key: "Sheer self expression requires no artistic

form. A lynching-party howling round the gallows-tree, a woman wringing her hands over

a sick child, a lover who has just rescued his sweetheart in an accident and stands

trembling, sweating, and perhaps laughing or crying with emotion, is giving vent to

intense feelings; but such scenes are not occasions for music, least of all composing. Not

even a theme, translating an impression of keenest sorrow, is apt to come to a man, a

woman, or a mob in a moment when passionate self-expression is needed. The laws of

emotional catharsis are natural laws, not artistic."

<p><p>

Next paragraph: "Yet it may well be argued that in playing music we seek, and often find,

self-expression."

<p><p>

SIGNIFICANT FORM = ARTISTIC FORM. Allows the involvement of signs and symbols to

sympathetically express feelings.

<p><p>

Susanne Langer, again: "Feelings revealed in art are essentially <i>not</i> the passion,

love or longing of such-and-such an individual, inviting us to put ourselves in that

individual's place, but are presented directly to our understanding [imagination?], that we

may grasp, realize, comprehend these feelings, without pretending to have them or

imputing them to anyone else. Just as words [symbols] can describe events we have not

witnessed, places and things we have not seen, so art can present emotions and moods we

have not felt, passions we did not know before. It's subject matter is the same as that of

'self-expression,' and its symbols may even be borrowed, upon occasion, from the realm

of expressive symptoms; yet the borrowed suggestive elements are <i>formalized</i> . .

. in an artistic perspective."

<br><br><p>

I recently spent three weeks with a European family I'm close with. I knew 19-year-old

Jeremy would make a good subject for the right photo and wanted mostly to capture his

dynamism, his quirkiness, and his charm. The right situation came along when we were in

the grand hallway of the new de Young Museum. I wound up capturing other things,

things not intentional yet appropriate and meaningful as well (accidentally? sub- or

semi-consciously? serendipitously?)

<p><p>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/6357458">MY PHOTO OF

JEREMY</a>

<p><p>

Did I really "capture" Jeremy here, his real personality? Well, simply, yes. This is very much

him.

<p><p>

The SIGNIFICANT aspects (the symbols and signs that act as emotional or personality cues,

if you will) that help express his quirkiness are the stripes and circles, their apparently

zany combination, the eyes themselves and especially as they relate to the rest, the hairdo

itself, the curls of hair also relating to the rest. The crooked smile. The unaffected stance. I

intentionally shot with the background askew because it just felt a little bit "off." Frankly, it

was also to achieve a little visual depth.

<p><p>

Now the SIGNIFICANT accidents, realized intentionally after the shot was taken or realized

later with the help of another's insights (please read Josh Dunham Wood's critique under

the photo). These seem to get deeper, not because they're accidents, just because I think

they feel deeper.

<p><p>

There are SIGNIFICANT cues that seem to reference art history and/or the photographic

style of an era. When the photo loaded from camera to computer monitor, I immediately

thought

of Warhol and Avedon. Josh seems to have as well in addition to providing his take on the

photobooth stuff of the 60s. What made me think Warhol/Avedon? I guess a feeling of

static within the dynamic. A plainer presentation than I'm used to. A different kind of

simplicity than I've experienced with my own photography before. A quirkiness (very

significant to me because it now operates on a couple of levels, personality and art

history), a strangeness. The recollection of a decade. Jeremy had been insistent on

spending as much time in the Haight as possible. That decade was already in play.

<p><p>

Two of the SIGNIFICANT things about photography that I seem to gravitate to are

voyeurism and the ability to express irony through captures of real-time juxtapositions.

My own sense of voyeurism was at play in being able to peer into the world of a

19-year-old for a solid three weeks more deeply than I normally am able to do. I found

myself

envious, reminiscent, a little inside and a little outside, very curious. The juxtapositions

probably speak for themselves.

<p><p>

There are, finally, SIGNIFICANT cues that give this photo, as Josh pointed out to me and I

readily acknowledge, a self-portrait energy. Those may be the hardest to point to and

verbalize. I saw myself in Jeremy. As a matter of fact I looked like him at that age, skinny,

big hair, a little round-shouldered. I was awkward in a similar way. I loved all things

Haight-Ashbury and all things rock music. I got along with my parents and their friends. I,

too, used to be sweet. Those are personal, and to an extent, some are visual signs. There

are others about self-portraiture in general I'm not able right now to articulate.

<p><p>

I think JEREMY is being responded to via the signifiers unique to that photo and,

additionally, the viewer responses seem to be

similar. It seems to be universally liked and the story being read in the photo seems to

stay the same across the

many comments. (And perhaps this will make things also relevant to your "audience"

discussion.) I'll bring in a different photo of mine.

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/6381585">KEN AND MARK.</a>

I'm pretty convinced that people are responding to KEN AND MARK via its own

unique signifiers as well. The comments have a certain consistency and seem to be coming

from similar places. But there is much more diversity in those responses (I like it / I don't

like it, It tells me this story / It tells me that story) than with JEREMY. Here we might be

back to a struggle between universal and particular. Is the response based on or led by

universal signifiers and then felt and interpreted individually?

[jtk]

Matt, Fred: Thank you.

 

I need to read your posts repeatedly.

[nicolerenee]

You guys make my head hurt...I'm glad my brain isnt as big as yours. If anyone needs an asprin, just let me know ;)

[jtk]

Nicole, I like your portraits! And your arachnid ("doom") is the best bug I've seen on P.N. :-)

 

I don't think anybody's straining "big brains here." These are versions of ideas and questions that many briefly notice in their passing experience but don't pause to seriously explore. That of exploration is a lot like working out in a gym...you may not become Mr. Universe and you may show more lard than you wish, but it's worthwhile in itself.

[aplumpton]

My philosophy on this subject is no doubt crude and intensely non post

modern, but I nonetheless believe to be wholly appropriate.

 

Thinking about the audience should only be the egoistic vice of an artist

whose work has been accepted by large audiences (Picasso, Cartier-

Bresson, whoever). I believe we should not worry about what significance our

art will have for particular others. Create as you see fit. Period. Don't be

encumbered by society's aesthetic paradigms. Yes our goal may also be to

communicate something of value to others, but firstly it must have value

uniquely, and absolutely uniquely, for the photographer.

 

If no one else gets it, so what? Maybe I should stop reading David Vestal?

[jtk]

Arthur, there's nothing crude (or post modern) about what you said. I agree almost entirely. I even accept your instructive use of my own most hated word, "should."

 

Perhaps my only disagreement is with "absolutely uniquely." Various photographers have left paths. Following them won't take me where the path-makers went..maybe I'll be surprised with something significant.

 

I doubt I can establish "significant surprise" as a goal, but Japanese raku' potters take a final step, toward the end of each pot's path, resulting sometimes in unintended and significant surprises.

[Norma Desmond]

Arthur--

<p><p>

What if art is, in fact, some sort of language? Language developed because

of a need to communicate and it took more than one to do it. I think your philosophy is

viable and would be helpful to many to whatever

degree it can be

accomplished. I think paradigms and signifiers are hard to avoid and more likely

to be built on or changed. The idea of "create as you see fit" is a good one. But many who

do so nevertheless immerse themselves in art history to be familiar enough with

paradigms to be able then to

break them.

<p><p>

It <i>may</i> be that there is no such thing as absolute/unique value.

How does <i>value</i> get associated with anything? Is there such thing as an

<i>intrinsic</i> value?

<p><p>

As for not limiting the

significance of art to <i>particular</i> others, where does that line get drawn? Probably

better not to limit it to friends and family, but often it gets limited by cultural necessity

(e.g. "western" music). Of course, as you suggest, that it may be necessarily limited doesn't

mean the artist should worry about the other because, for sure, that could be stifling.

Depends on the goal, I suspect.

[Norma Desmond]

Sorry, John, we were typing simultaneously.

[jtk]

I may have erred above. Is a grasshopper an "arachnid?"

[nicolerenee]

John...actually its a sand shrimp...a favorite snack for sturgeon (big nasty dinosaur looking fish)

 

And thank you :)

 

As for the subject, I'm in general agreement Arthur. At the same time, I think its also something that escapes us and isn't completely controllable.

[Norma Desmond]

John-- Have you actually been stupefied into silence by my "significance" post or are you still

rereading?

[jtk]

Stupified. :-)

 

Significance, when identified as such, can be layered.

 

The significance in JEREMY (seen by itself) seems to me to consist mostly of a few linear-direct signifiers: the woozy pop-decor background, his youth, his hippie (Richard Farina) hair, his "innocent" deer-in-headlights eyes. To you the significance includes specific memories, which you added in words. I wondered if he was seriously stoned before you mentioned the Haight.

 

Many of us are attracted to grafitti, but some (myself) are selective about photographing it because it is, after all, someone else's ...like photographing a red stop sign in a neutral environment. Where's the significance? Proper exposure? Red? Lack of complexity itself a signifier? Beauty is significant, red might be significant, but maybe those are one-note songs.

 

JEREMY signifies several things, but perhaps not many things. KEN AND MARK signify many more things. Two men, older, openly erotic ...infinitely more signifiers. They raise more questions than would a stop sign, grafitti, or JEREMY alone, though JEREMY and KEN AND MARK actually influence each other in this context, are not independent images.

 

How's that?

[inoneeye]

.... perhaps like trying to lasso a bull and the barn he is standing beside.

There are so very many arbitrary and viable visual cues in this special system of language.

Fluency develops with awareness, experience, and hard work.<br><br>

 

from the most obvious choices a photographer has available. - film / framing /exposure /

proximity / equipment / subject / post processing (crop, contrast, sharpness......) /

presentation ( <i>perhaps less important and considered in this viewing medium, to my

chagrin</i>) ..too many

choices to cover in a single swing.<br><br>

Less obvious to a photographer in the earlier stages of their learning curve would be the

choices made intentionally or not. The stance to remain passive, active, or neutral

(<i>straight</i>) additionally the the inclusion or exclusion of signs and symbols (either

universal or individual) / history of the photographer and of the genre. <i>context</i>. /

and so

many more come to mind. Too many for me to choose the most significant tangible

examples.<br><br>

 

The excellent examples and perspectives presented by all of you here John, Fred, Arthur

and Matt have have given due weight to the importance of photography as a langauge....

and being aware of some of the cues and prompts as photographer or viewer. <br>

Nicole brought a smile

to the table. <br><br>

 

We are all trying to communicate in this medium. With that i find the study of the langauge

used fascinating. <br>

I am hesitant to present tangible examples,ie; visual aids, not really knowing if it would

help or distract. When i lay my architectural design work (from concept and creation

through presentation) under the mag. glass I find the resemblences in this context

pertinent. The langauge of combining elements is not dissimilar. <br><br>

 

This thread has been illuminating. but please excuse my lard as i don't exercise enough. If

my butt crack is showing please ignore. especially you F.

[Norma Desmond]

<i>How's that?</i>

<p><p>

Great stuff is emerging.

<p><p>

<b>John--</b> My take is that Jeremy has only simpler content (function of being a

portrait?) but may be more complex beyond that. KEN AND MARK (more of a

reflection/narrative) requires more work contentwise, more interpretation subjectwise, but

it

seems

easier to grasp on what level and in what direction to take it even if there is ambiguity

about and more thought to be given to the specific storyline or emotions projected.

<p><p>

<b>Josh--</b> Your concrete approach works. How 'bout more on the difference

between the more and less obvious (significant) choices of photographers?

[jtk]

Fred, JEREMY is undoubtedly more complex for you, however I find it dominated by simple signs...that's why I riffed on red Stops. It raises fewer questions than KEN AND MARK..

 

Evidently I think "SIGNIFICANCE" sometimes has to do with questions raised. I'm not a "believer," primarily because questions are more powerful than deities.

 

Irishman grabs a lepricon by the foot...

 

Lepricon screams "Lemmie go! Lemmie go!"

 

Irishman: "Nay, ye must first grant me wish!"

 

Lepricon sighs: "Aye, aye, alright, what's your wish?"

 

Irishman: "Make me a whisky!"

 

Lepricon : "Zap, you're a whisky."

[Norma Desmond]

The deities have derailed us.