ian_smith7

I almost forgot.

Here is an example of my work. The print measures 1m x 1m and is mounted

on aluminium. I had no involvement in the making and hanging other than

sending an email with some photoshop instructions. The file was created by a

technician (Sharon) at Spectrum Photographic in Brighton. The instructions

were followed and the print was made using the light-jet process. The file was

not saved. The title of the photograph is Academic. Post Modernist

Photography nearly taken to the extreme (I could have just conceived it) -

proclaiming the Death Of Photography - denying Aesthetic Beauty. Aaaah

bullshit.<div></div>

You are getting an education in the visual arts, an often pointless and

frustrating exercise when you just want to communicate retinally without too

much thought regarding meaning. Questions regarding the minutiae of

meaning - often the meaning of words, can cause confusion. At higher levels

of education one learns to pick out the important elements and concentrate on

those issues, eventually losing sight of the other aspects of the subject. Post

Modern Photography, Pictorial Images, Aesthetic Beauty are the key words in

your question, meaningless outside of academia. Historically one can

examine the work of 60's conceptualists Hilliard, Kosuth, Douglas Huebler

and then later in the 70's- the Bechers, Sherrie Levine, Cindy Sherman and

through to Gursky, Tillmans and more recently Idris Khan and Mohini

Chandra, to get a flavour of what Post Modern Photography might actually be.

(Of course these are my small selection - other boffins will have other

examples). Death of scenarios in the arts are often over statements from men

with too much semen - often merely indicating change. In painting there are

many instances - Malevich's Black Square is referring to a new history in

Russia after the revolution - Rodchenko paints his tricolour monochromes

proclaiming the end of painting and concentrates on his (in my opinion)

excellent photography, Joseph Kosuth gets wrapped up in Wittgenstein's

Tractatus even though Wittgenstein had already posited that the human

condition is as important as logic. Photography is experiencing a flux as all

visual art does - I'm personally waiting for the death of the watercolour. There

will always be 'pictorial images' in photography, but depending on the

zeitgeist, these 'images' will not be found in contemporary art or photography

magazines - or contemporary art and photography galleries. Aesthetic beauty

will always be a problem for analysis but (if it is beauty) not for the eye. Check

out Aristotle or read - 'From An Aesthetic Point Of View' - editor Peter

Osbourne, this might also cover some of the general problems you are

concerned with.

Alternatively just be true to what you want to create and forget about

conceptualising it.