In their chapter on photography, Howells and Negreiros survey some of the historical developments in responses to photography as an art and the relationship of the medium to reality. The paper contains much useful information and debate, however I found myself strangely disengaged from it. I previously read this when I studied both UVC and documentary and found it useful then, so I am struggling to understand what has changed. Perhaps it is me and my thinking – having extensively considered whether photography is an art (answer = it depends) or the relationship between photography and reality (answer = it is a mixture of truth and fiction) I have explored these topics as much as I want to. That is not to try and suggest that I am an authority on this, far from it, simply that these debates are not the ones that I find most engaging or relevant to my current practice. I also find myself increasingly engaged with texts that have a strong point of view or argument to make and considering if I am convinced or share the arguments being presented. Despite all of these rambling thoughts, there is much to engage with in the paper, here are some of the quotes that resonated with me:
Quote from Bazin’s Ontology of the Photographic Image:
“the photograph is like a ‘fingerprint’. It is not the finger itself, but a record of the thing itself made by the thing itself.” (p. 199)
A succinct yet deceptively simple metaphor. Anyone can recognise a finger but to truly be able to read the information contained in a fingerprint in a useful way requires specialist knowledge.
Mike Weaver – the photograph is like a novel based on a true story.
This quote enigmatically encapsulates the push/pull relationship between photography, reality and truth. It particularly chimes with my thinking as I become more comfortable with being unconcerned about notions of impartiality in my personal work and embrace ideas of authorship and presenting a personal view point. I should research the text quoted further.
Photography is “a meeting of the actual and the imaginary, where each adds to, rather than detracts from, the power of the other. When we view a photograph, we are stimulated by the hallucination and the fact at the same time – and receive the compounded stimulation of both. The effect is doubled, not halved. The relationship between photography and reality is, therefore, a complex one, but it is a complexity that explains the deep and articulate richness of the photographic image.” (p. 200)
Bibliography:
Howells, R. and Negreiros, J. (2012) ‘Photography’ In: Visual Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press. pp. 183-206
It was good to catch up with Andrew for this tutorial, and my mind is put at ease that it is the process of getting the work for CS underway by completing this assignment that has been the most important outcome. Despite this, I still feel frustrated that I have spent so much time on an essay that will not inform my dissertation, although I need to rationalise this train of thought and move on. The most surprising aspect of starting work on level 3 is how I have found having a blank canvas of opportunity to pursue has been quite paralysing – Andrew’s advice of ‘widen the research, narrow the focus’ is a key mantra to remember here. I am starting to feel more confident about where my research could be heading and themes to pursue are beginning to become apparent which is encouraging progress.
Thinking towards the literature review for A2 my approach needs to be – read, think, re-read and refine – by doing this I am sure that the themes I wish to explore in my extended project will come into focus. It is also important to note that the literature review is only a stepping stone towards the final piece and that I can still change direction afterwards and add further sources as I identify them.
The formative feedback from the tutorial (above) gives a good summary of both where I am and what actions I need to take going forward, so I will leave thoughts about this first assignment here and focus on the positive aspects that have come out of it rather than bemoan what could have been done differently.
I studied Walter Benjamin’s highly influential 1936 essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ for one of my previous courses Understanding Visual Culture. (I hope that my studies for that course will support me with CS.) I find the notion that the aura of a work of art is destroyed through the process of mechanical reproduction a compelling one – even if the commodification of visual culture and photography continues at a seemingly increasing rate. (I have made some notes about the phenomenon of NFTs below which is interesting to compare with Benjamin’s essay.) Perhaps Benjamin’s ideas, such as the democratisation and accessibility of art will be achieved through digital technology? Certainly the means to make images and publish these are now open to anyone with access to a smartphone and the internet – although the potential is there it seems that we are still some way from this being truly accessible with traditional powerful institutions trying there best to protect their status.
Benjamin’s work and ideas outside of this essay are also extremely influential in other parts of photography and visual culture theory, and I suspect that this is work that will repay further study and be important for my dissertation.
Research quotes:
Below are some quotes that resonated with me as part of my research:
Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. (Evans and Hall, 1999: 72-79)
“In principle a work of art has always been reproducible…Mechanical reproduction of a work of art, however, represents something new.” (p. 72)
“For the first time in the process of pictorial reproduction, photography freed the hand of the most important artistic functions which henceforth devolved only upon the eye looking into a lens.” (p. 73)
“Around 1900 technical reproduction had reached a standard that not only permitted it to reproduce all transmitted works of art and thus to cause the most profound change in their impact upon the public; it also had captured a place of its own among the artistic processes. For the study of this standard nothing is more revealing than the nature of repercussions that these two different manifestations – the reproduction of works of art of the film – have had on art in its traditional form.” (p. 73)
“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” (p. 73)
“The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.” (p. 73)
“The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated.” (p. 74)
“The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced.” (p. 74)
“One might subsume the eliminated element in the term ‘aura’ and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art. This is a symptomatic process whose significance points beyond the realm of art. One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition.” (p. 74)
“if changes in the medium of contemporary perception can be comprehended as decay of the aura, it is possible to show its social causes.” (p. 75)
“Every day the urge grows stronger to get old of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, it reproduction. Unmistakably, reproduction as offered by picture magazines and newsreels differs from the image seen be the unarmed eye. Uniqueness and permanence are as closely linked in the latter as are transitoriness and reproducibility in the former. To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose ‘sense of the universal equality of things’ has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in the increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process if unlimited scope as much for thinking as for perception.” (p. 75)
“The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from it being imbedded in the fabric of tradition.” (p. 75)
“Originally the contextual integration of in tradition found its expression in the cult. We know that the earliest art works originated in the service of a ritual – first the magical, then the religious kind. It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function.” (p. 76)
“An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the ‘authentic’ print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.” (p. 76)
“Works of art are received and valued on different planes. Two polar types stand out: with one, the accent is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. Artistic production begins with ceremonial objects destined to serve in a cult…With the emancipation of the various art practices from ritual go increasing opportunities for the exhibition of their products.” (p. 76)
“With the different methods of technical reproduction of a work of art, its fitness for exhibition increased to such an extent that the quantitative shift between its poles turned into a qualitative transformation of its nature.” (p. 77)
Non-Fungible Tokens:
Arguably, it is only with the prevalence of digital media that works of art truly achieve the democratic status that Benjamin envisaged. The current trend/hype surrounding non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has led me to consider how this relates to Benjamin’s paper and the seemingly endless pursuit of capitalist commodification. Hern (2021) states that NFTs can be thought of as ‘bitcoin for art’, that is, a way to make a seemingly infinitely reproducible digital artwork collectible. (Hern’s article here gives a thorough explanation about how this works.) On the surface this could be seem as a positive in that it should in theory allow for digital artists to prevent copyright theft. In reality, NFTs are often worse than simply stealing an artists work online as NFTs often end up controlled (and profited) by people who have nothing to do with their creation (and there is nothing to stop this being the case.)
Haigney (2021) sees the “NFT craze” as a new form of “the strange practice of” collecting. In the art world the collector is both fetishised and feted as “at once a connoisseur and…entrepreneur” and a driver of the art world through capital and investment. Collectors accumulate for many reasons: “love of art, love of the game of collecting, love of money.” But, the most crucial aspect of collecting is possession – something that NFTs allow of digital assets that previously were difficult to monetise.
Badger, G. (2001) The Genius of Photography: How Photography Has Changed Our Lives.London: Quadrille Publishing.
Bate, D. (2016) Photography: The Key Concepts. (2nd Ed.) London: Bloomsbury.
Benjamin, W. (1999) Illuminations. London: Pimlico
Benjamin, W. (1999) ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ In: Evans, J. and Hall, S. (ed.) Visual Culture: The Reader. London: Sage. pp. 72-79
Foster, H. et al. (2012) Art since 1900: Modernism * Antimodernism * Postmodernism. (2nd ed.)London: Thames & Hudson.
Kracauer, S. (2002) ‘The Mass Ornament’ In: Harrison, C. and Wood, P. (ed.) Art in Theory 1900–2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 477-80
Linfield, S. (2010) The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Macey, D. (2000) The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory. London: Penguin books.
Murray, C. (ed.) (2002) Key writers on art: The twentieth century. New York: Taylor & Francis
