ART HISTORY (ARTH) 3140: HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
This course was offered in a condensed format during the Summer 2024 Semester at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, as taught by Dr. Dorothy Barenscott.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course surveys the history and evolving debates and theories concerning photography and photographic practices from the mid-19th century to the present. Present and past uses of the medium will be discussed in several specific historical, social, and theoretical contexts that expose how photographic images have circulated as both unstable and highly mobile objects within and outside the history of modern art and modernism writ large. While a rough chronological outline will be utilized, the course will be organized within the context of contemporary debates that have recast the history of photography within the broader field of visual culture studies. Therefore, rather than studying photography within the framework of traditional art historical paradigms concerning art producers, patrons, and institutions, this course will tackle the complexities of “photographic seeing” and “photographic reading” as key components in the understanding of photography’s broad cross-disciplinary appeal and historical importance. Through an introduction to critical and historical methods, students will develop the basic tools and terminology for analyzing photographic images, a skill set of crucial importance in understanding the barrage of photographic images and technological stimulus at play in our media-intensive world.
Class 1 Notes
This lecture will provide an introduction to the course - a broad overview of the contemporary debates concerning photography and how they will shape the content of this course.
This class will examine artists working with photography as a medium of expression (LENS BASED ARTISTS), with an eye towards avant-guard artists from the modern and contemporary art movements.
Who are the artists using photography in new, interesting, and challenging ways?
Today’s discussion will look at the following artists to frame the discussion surrounding today’s core question (What are the contemporary debates that drove artistic interest in the medium of photography?):
REVIEW OF FORM, CONTENT, and CONTEXT…
Form means the constituent elements of a work of art independent of their meaning (e.g., the colour, composition, medium or size of a flag, rather than its emotional or national significance). Formal elements include primary features which are not a matter of semantic significance (i.e., which do not carry meaning the way a word does): these include colour, dimensions, line, mass, medium, scale, shape, space, texture, value, and their corollaries. The secondary features are the relations of the primary features with one another: these include balance, composition, contrast, dominance, harmony, movement, proportion, proximity, rhythm, similarity, unity, and variety.”
— Dr. Robert Belton
“MORE SIMPLY PUT, CONTENT IS "WHAT" THE WORK IS ABOUT, FORM IS "HOW" THE WORK IS, AND CONTEXT IS "IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES" THE WORK IS (AND WAS).”
Round 1
What is your personal relationship to photography?
Photography has always been a part of my life and more recently, a key part of my emerging artistic practice. I’ve used photography to explore various issues important to me, such as examining
environmental concerns;
our changing landscape; and
portrayals of the self / myself - through self-portraiture and the written word of self-reflective memoir.
I’ve always enjoyed photographing others, but without them necessarily knowing I’m photographing them. I’ve also enjoyed doing photo walks, and engaging with street photography.
Do you like being photographed, or do you prefer to be the one behind the camera?
As I grow older, I find that I have become more comfortable with being photographed. I used to prefer being the one behind the camera until I began doing a subverted selfie project, where I try to take a selfie everyday and pair it with a caption story about how I’m doing on that particular day. It’s become a way for me to explore both the positive and negative aspects of my life, and to shine a light on my health issues such as anxiety, depression, diabetes, and heart disease.
How many photographs do you think you took in the past week?
Over three hundred.
Round 2: Jeff Wall
ARTIFACT 01 > Art21. “Jeff Wall in “Vancouver” = Season 8 | Art21.” YouTube, 19 Mar 2023.
ARTIFACT 02 > Art21. “Jeff Wall: An Impossible Photograph | Art21 “Extended Play”.” YouTube, 30 Jun 2017.
As you watch artist Jeff Wall discuss his photographic practice, pay attention to how he selects subjects for his pictures and what interests him about the nature of photographs. Discuss with the group your impressions following the screening.
When one studies a photographer (or any artist), it’s important to ask WHAT INTERESTS THEM ABOUT THE MEDIUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY?
The video opens with Jeff Wall describing how he’s “…always looking for that picture.” For Wall, the idea of a ‘subject’ is synonymous with the idea of a ‘starting point.’ Wall isn’t the type of artist who carries a camera around with him all the time, and his starting points ultimately become a reconstruction of an event. He notes, “I would have never even known I wanted to make it, till it saw that thing happen, so it’s an accident. The accident connects me to something I wasn’t connected to before.” A starting-point to something he hasn’t done before, something he hasn’t considered. Ideas and subjects can reveal themselves in unexpected ways, with unrealized potentials and qualities. In the Impossible Photograph video, Wall states how “When I realized I liked the subject, the question was, ‘How on Earth could you photograph that?’ The impossibility of seeing it was one of the triggers for it becoming interesting.”
For Wall, he either likes a place or hates it - which leads to mixed feelings that he has for Vancouver. Ultimately, he finds he is working out of his FEELINGS about a place. In other words, whether he has an objective or subjective viewpoint about a starting point, he “…can never really tell which has the upper hand at any given moment.”
Wall knows he isn’t a painter. He stopped painting in 1964 when he was 19 or 20. He tried other things, and eventually exploded into conceptual art, as it had “…potential energies inside the medium that were not being realized…” in terms of size, scale, and other technical concerns. Wall loves the “…beautiful molecular structure and granular surface that both shows itself and hides itself in the image it makes. So there are qualities that are revealed in photography when it gets larger.” Wall saw backlit advertisements and was attracted to the look of that, which he incorporated into how he displays his finished artworks.
Wall works to build replicas of scenes and places. He believes that nothing is fake, as everything you see in a photograph is happening. In the Impossible Photograph video, Wall specifically states how “What you see happening, happened… How it happened (choices about clothing, for example) is secondary to the fact that it happened.”
When creating his images, Wall’s standards are high, as Wall believes that “…there’s really no difference between capturing a gesture by accident and capturing a gesture by design.” Ultimately, he’s not sure that it’s not possible to have fakery in photography (although one wonders how he’d feel about AI). Wall also works collaboratively with his performers and designs a flexible open ended schedule into his shoots to allow for that collaboration and exploration in the creation of an artwork. Wall tries to identify with everyone he photographs to help give the work a sense of authenticity. He explores the potential of colour, and uses it to explore the banal, and the ordinary.
Wall also talks about how the one thing that photography can’t do is capture talking, which is a limiting and elusive element in photography. It can only imply that characters are talking and listening. Furthermore, Wall also discusses how pictures can never narrate, they can only imply a narrative, but they can never deliver it. Wall works to bring people to a certain place and as such, viewers are the ones who ultimately write the story, “…intuiting a narrative for themselves, which will not be the same narrative for everybody.” In the Impossible Photograph video, Wall notes that “…the most beautiful artistry hidden. But there’s no secret… it’s a condition.” And in an interview with PBS, Wall explains how, “I don’t write the story. I erase the story… (so) the process of picture-making is the exact opposite of narrating. What you’re doing is you’re stilling the narrative. You’re ending it. You’re congealing it. You’re stopping it, which means essentially you’re un-writing it. It’s the viewer that will come back in real time and rewrite the narrative.”
To that end, Wall is ultimately cognizant of how people often do not stand in front of photographs for very long. He’s always searching for ways that allow “…works of pictorial art have to be something that can be looked at endlessly.” Ideas can be like flashes, setting off photographic possibilities that has Wall always searching for the next picture.
Round 3: Jeff Wall
Examine this early Jeff Wall photograph (Picture for Women, 1979) carefully. What stories is this one photograph telling us about the nature of photography, or the image-making process? What is this photograph revealing as much as it is concealing?
ARTIFACT 03 > Wall, Jeff. “Picture for Women.” Transparency in Lightbox, 56 1/8 x 80 1/2 inches (142.5 x 204.5 cm), Gagosian, 1979.
FORM: Jeff Wall’s Picture for Women (1979) is a large (56 1/8 x 80 1/2 inches), cibachrome transparency mounted on a light-box. It is nighttime, and the studio space is lit by light bulbs that are giving off a fairly neutral, bright white glow. The large format camera capturing this moment sits on a tripod in the centre of the frame, recording everything that is reflected into the mirror the camera is facing. So what we see is a reflection of everything in the room which has been reflected by the mirror, sent back to us into the lens of the camera onto the surface of Wall’s large format film negative. The centrality of the camera is further emphasized by its positioning between the centre of three windows that are at the back of the room. These windows are themselves centred between two floor to ceiling autopoles (devices that help support lights, grip arms, or booms, and mounts between the floor and the ceiling). The autopoles serve as a framing device that segments the photo into three distinct areas, like a triptych.
The room the figures occupy is somewhat long, and forms an “L” shape, as the far left hand side of the room continues into an area the viewer cannot see. Various classroom like studio chairs, and a work table sit on the old, battered hardwood flooring, taking up the spaces along the right hand side of the room and the far back wall near the darkened windows. Wall occupies the far right hand side of the picture frame, his gaze directed at the woman who occupies the far left hand side of the photo. Wall is a somewhat shadowy figure, as none of the room’s lighting is directed towards him, and there are only four bulbs hanging from the ceiling behind him, compared to seven hanging above and behind the woman in the picture. The low light leaves his skin to appear muted, and his black clothes almost bleeding into the dark, muted colouring of the floor and the chair directly behind him. His left hand, holding the shutter release cable that is attached to the camera, acts as a pointer leading a viewer’s line of sight towards the woman on the left of the picture plane.
His gaze is also focussed on his female model, again leading the viewer’s gaze to her as she stands lit by an unseen lighting source that’s likely just in front of and above her, out of the view of the camera’s lens. It lights her figure, causing shadows from her hair to fall on her shoulders, and shadows from her entire figure to land on the table in front of her. The light brightens her eyes, her upper body, her earrings. The light also brightens the table to her right, until it gradually fades into shadow further to the right. She has an almost passively expressionless look on her face, one that borders on a rather forlorn look, as she stares straight ahead without necessarily engaging a viewer.
CONTENT (STORY): In examining the story being told in Jeff Wall’s Picture for Women, it can be good to start with an examination of the title an artist has given a work of art. In an article written by staff at LinkedIn called How Can You Write Engaging Titles for Your Content? it’s noted that:
“Titles are the first thing that your audience sees and decides whether to click or scroll past your content. A good title can capture attention, spark curiosity, communicate value, and entice action.”
First and foremost, Wall’s title directly tells us that this photograph, this ‘picture,’ is created and exists ‘…for women.’ ‘For’ is an important word to consider. Merriam-Webster notes that it can first be “…used as a function word to indicate purpose,” in this case, the picture’s purpose is to exist for women. It can also refer to something that is “…with respect to,” or “concerning.” In this case, the picture is concerning women.
Secondly, the woman featured in the picture has been prominently placed in the foremost left hand side of the picture frame, and is well lit, making her stand out from everything else that is behind her. The title, her placement, the way she is lit, and Wall himself looking and informally pointing in her direction further emphasizes her importance in the large, backlit picture.
Thirdly, the title references the idea of how men present gifts to women. In this case, the gift is being given by the male artist Jeff Wall, to all women. As such, one story that this picture could be is exploring is how the gift of the picture could represent the artist wishing to give agency back to women, who have a long history of being the subjects of artworks, under the male gaze. This is seemingly problematic though, as Wall is still a male artist, and his model is still under his direction. There maybe some degree of collaboration between the model and Wall, but Wall, as the photographer, still holds a large degree over the balance of the power dynamic that exists between the artist and his model.
CONTEXT: When Wall made this artwork, he was a student at UBC in the 1970s. He has a background in art history, which informs his photographic practice. The large scale presentation of this picture, and its division as a triptych evokes and reinforces the idea of presenting a photograph as a kind of contemporary painting that Wall is interested in exploring.
The picture’s tie to painting is further emphasized when one knows that Wall was inspired by impressionist paintings, and in particular, by Èdouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergere (1882 - Artifact 04 below). Formally, Wall’s Picture for Women contains several points of similarity to A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. First, both images are a reflection in a mirror of the scene that’s being represented. Both Wall and Manet are male figures who occupy the right hand side of the picture. Secondly, Manet, like Wall, is also facing the woman in the picture, his gaze directing the viewer towards the woman barkeeper. But in Manet’s work, the reflection appears to be off, we do not see the back of the man, only the front of the woman. Is the man some kind of figment of her imagination (perhaps not, as Dr. Malcolm Park of the University of New South Wales has discovered, Manet’s painting is optically correct, as explained in this 2001 Getty.edu article, Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergere: One Scholar’s Perspective )? Further to this, in Picture, both Wall and his model occupy the same horizontal plain behind the counter - whereas in Manet’s Bar the two individuals are divided by the horizontal plain of the counter which physically separates them. Thirdly, the woman in A Bar is directly lit, from an unseen light source from above her, similar to how Wall has lit his model in Picture. Fourthly, in Picture, while Wall’s gaze is directed towards his model, the permanent recording of this scene is mediated by the camera Wall uses, which feeds a very contemporary use of the camera as a formal tool used to capture pictures of women, primarily for the gaze of male viewers.
ARTIFACT 04 > Manet, Édouard. “A Bar at the Folies-Bergere,” oil on canvas, 96 cm × 130 cm (37.8 in × 51.2 in), The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust), 1882.
Round 4: Cindy Sherman
ARTIFACT 05 > Art21. “Cindy Sherman in “Transformation” - Season 5 - “Art in the Twenty-First Century” | Art21.” YouTube, 18 Mar 2024.
ARTIFACT 06 > MoMA. “How mass media representations shape us | Cindy Sherman | UNIQLO ARTSPEAKS.” YouTube, 13 Nov 2020.
As you watch artist Cindy Sherman discuss her photographic practice, pay attention to how she considers self-representation and portraits and what interests her about the nature of photographs. Discuss with the group your impressions following the screening.
The video opens with Sherman curating the installation of her Society Portraits where she describes how the photos looked so different for her being blown up large. She said they felt more tragic and aggressive, and she asked whether or not she was lost in the picture, and if the figures felt like real people who were distinct from who she was as an individual.
Sherman also describes the roots of her interest in self-portraiture - the point in time when she, at the age of six or seven, recognized herself in family snapshots. It was at this point that she started gathering the photographs together in a photo album that she called A CINDY BOOK where she placed the photos in the book, and circled herself in each photo, writing below them words such as “That’s me …. That’s me …. That’s me.” She did this for several years until she forgot about it. When she was going to college Sherman found the albums again, at which point she started doing the project again, faking the hand writing style she had when she was younger. She played with makeup, and found what it could do in creating characters.
Research also informs her practice. With her clown series, she went online to see how “…one clown can look like different people underneath the makeup.” She asked: Can some be trusted? What dimensions do they represent? What would it be like if one encountered a planet of clowns?
The advent of digital cameras has also allowed Sherman to explore the possibilities for new series of photographs. She also learned how to use green-screen technology which allows her to create and insert different backgrounds that represent the worlds her characters live in. She approaches the backgrounds the way a painter might, selectively adding and removing parts of it as she works.
Sherman also has a huge amount of items in her studio which she uses to create the characters she becomes: hair, makeup, faces, clothing, accessories, and more. When she goes to stores, she tries not to have pre-conceived notions about what she’s looking for. She lets things speak to her as she looks around, she lets things give her inspiration for new works.
Sherman explained how her current practice stems from studies she did in university, where she “…made this book of doll clothes, of myself in my clothes. But then, for a film course I was taking, I wanted to bring the doll to life. So I shot myself doing all the poses. So, from here, I went to do several series where all the characters that had been cut out, and spread out like a deck of cards or something. And from there, I started putting the figures together to tell narratives, which is what the murder mystery pictures were. Just as a movement and character study. But then I got fed up with cutting the characters out to tell stories, so I knew I needed to do it in one shot, alone, because I was always working alone, and how to imply narrative when I was working alone, which led me to the film stills.”
It was interesting to hear Sherman discussed the film stills, as unlike Jeff Wall, Sherman “…didn’t want to make something that looked like art in terms of a painting. I wanted to make something that looked mass produced, and I didn’t want it to have anything to do with art theory. I wanted it to look like anyone could understand it because it looked like it comes from a movie.” Sherman studied how women appeared in films, and found she was drawn to how women looked in European films (which would have been from the European New Wave era of films which were being produced at the time). In those films, the women looked more blank, where the characters are in between a reaction: “…either they have just screened or they’re about to scream, you don’t know as the viewer, what just happened or is about to happen.”
For Sherman, film and television has always been more influential for her than the art world, as well as images found in cheap magazines. She remembers doing arts and crafts projects as a kid while watching films on television.
Sherman has never been that worried about titling her works as she never wanted people having pre-conceived ideas about what a picture might be. It lets the picture have a degree of ambiguity that she likes. In the short, Sherman also discussed how she has never attempted to make fun of anybody she portrays in her works, and she always tries to have compassion for her characters. With some works, she found she experimented with removing herself from the images. In her doll series she completely removed herself but still suggested herself, making people feel as if a part of her was in the work.
With her society portraits, she knew she wanted to make her photos as large as she could, which is something male artists working with photography have traditionally done.
Round 5: Cindy Sherman
Examine these Cindy Sherman photographs from the Society Portraits series (2008-12) carefully. What do these photographs reveal about the current image and media environment we inhabit (under the influence of social media, fashion, film, television etc.. ) that are immediately visible to someone in our contemporary culture?
ARTIFACT 07 > Sherman, Cindy. “Untitled #465.” The Cut / Metro Pictures, 2008.
ARTIFACTS 08 & 09 > Sherman, Cindy. “Untitled #466” (left) and “Untitled #470” (right). Phaidon, 2008.
ARTIFACT 10 > Sherman, Cindy. “Untitled #475.” Phaidon, 2008.
Cindy Sherman’s photographs reveal about the current image and media environment we inhabit (under the influence of social media, fashion, film, television etc.. ) that are immediately visible to someone in our contemporary culture include, first and foremost, Sherman holding a mirror up to society to examine how it operates, by tapping into the current contemporary moment. Questions of whether or not one can be outside the culture one critiques is also raised with these portraits. In class, someone also asked if there was any kind of shame attached to the women who are presented, or if it could be felt by those viewing the photos.
To this end, the photographs definitely appear to reference and speak to the types of exaggerated and constructed women who appear on reality television shows such as the Real Housewives series, of which there are more than two dozen variations airing (or have aired) worldwide. They also reference shows such as Keeping Up With the Kardashians, and Vanderpump Rules. The outfits worn by Sherman appear slightly outlandish, and the settings in which the women exist do appear to be superimposed backdrops, giving the pictures a cinematic and dramatic stage-like feel, which, for me references Drag Race or the Queer Eye series.
Sherman’s Society Portraits also recall for me the actress, comedian, and fashionista Joan Rivers, who often used her knowledge of fashion to inform her insult-shock comedy as she would stand on the runways, and red carpet galas that took place prior to award ceremonies such as the Academy Awards, complimenting and critiquing the stars and models that appeared at these venues. Rivers herself underwent a lot of plastic surgery later in life, something she had been very honest about and self-referenced in her comedy in a self-effacing / self-deprecating way. Rivers’s critiques of fashion and wealth in some ways feeds the kind of celebrity tabloid culture that so many people become obsessed with following. It’s like a separation between low class and high class - or in terms of the art world and the work of artists like Sherman, between low and high art. Rivers also had a successful line of clothing and jewelry accessories she sold online and through television channels like QVC in the US, and TSC in Canada. Some were based on her own designs, others mimicked real pieces she had in her own collection, older pieces from across Europe. Their sales made the aura of the rich and famous accessible to everyday people, who might want to emulate or become closer to the kind of people Sherman is critiquing and examining with her series. Rivers was a part of that ultra-wealthy culture later in her life, after having lost everything she had earned - and for her, it certainly placed her in a position of being within the kind of culture she skewered in her stand-up and fashion critiques.
Finally, one might find a connection to how Donald Trump acted and portrayed himself on The Apprentice, and his desire to have trophy wives, as well as affairs with various women from different walks of life. The backgrounds feel as though they could be taken from his lavishly Godly looking apartment at Trump Tower in New York City, or his estate at Mar-A-Lago in Florida. He and his family perhaps represent the highest level of posing and fakery, a wannabe high class man who has led many failed companies, and has been shown in court to be someone who overvalues himself, his assets, properties, and wealth.
Round 6: Nan Goldin
As you watch artist Nan Goldin discuss her photographic practice, pay attention to how she approaches photographing underrepresented subcultures and what interests her about the nature of photographs. Discuss with the group your impressions following the screening.
ARTIFACT 11 > “Nan Goldin - The Art of the Snapshot.” YouTube,
Impressionists share a symbiotic relationship with photographers.
Goldin’s work focussed on:
AIDS epidemic / “junkies” & the opioid crisis / NY Drag-queens / domestic violence
Using a snapshot aesthetic to explore under-represented sub-cultures
Seeing the unseen
Showing the horror, the reality of a situation, actual subject matter - not staged
“I moved in with the Queens because I worshiped them… basically I found them to be some of the most incredible people in the world. Everybody stigmatized them but I found so beautiful, and so moving and powerful in their lives. They were my supermodels and I wanted them to be supermodels in the world.” - Nan Goldin
She was a part of the subculture she photographed - as a part of the post-Stonewall gay subculture of 1970s New York. She notes, “I’m not crashing. This is my party, this is my family, my history.”
PHOTOGRAPHING FROM WITHIN > Her aesthetics were about embracing HONESTY.
Growing up, Goldin noted how she and her siblings had a huge pressure to be perfect in the things they did. Her parents didn’t know what children were. Eventually, her sister committed suicide at age 11, which led Goldin to leave home at 14.
“You can be whoever you pretend to be.” - Oscar Wilde
At school, she was very shy but discovered photography as a way to work through her fears. “The camera became my first way of talking.” The video notes how Goldin’s natural habitat was always at the edge of society. Photography was a way of remembering and immortalizing.
“Goldin’s photography has always focussed on the subject matter closest to her. Unlike photographers like Diane Arbus who sought out those living on the fringes of society, to Nan Goldin this was home. As a result, her photography resonates in a way no outsiders could. Rather than social documentary, it’s diaristic.” - Video Narrator
“It was not accepted as art at the beginning, because it was so personal; and i came up in a time of black and white vertical photographs about light, so my work didn’t really fit in anywhere.” - Nan Goldin
Was her work too personal? The snapshot aesthetic and lack of technical know-how alienated critics and even other photographers / artists but resonated deeply with viewers. She used colour slide film (deeply saturated colours) as opposed to black and white film used by professionals at the time. Some asked if she was promoting heroin chic (President Bill Clinton) or if she was honestly looking at addiction? Ultimately it did lead to her work holding an authenticity that was impossible to replicate - a look at world’s few would have seen. She also advocated
“The way people respond to the work is very important to me. I show myself battered, and in different countries women have come up to me and said, ‘I couldn’t show myself, I couldn’t talk about it until I saw these images.’ And that’s what the work is really about. At least in those days, something like 90% of women went back to the men who battered them and it was very important to me to have a record of what really happened. And that’s been sort of the motivating force of my whole life with my work, is to make records that nobody could re-edit or deny.” - Nan Goldin
Today, her work serves as a reflection: all of us emulate Nan Goldin with the way they present their life on social media. A lot of her work, such as her look at Queer culture resonates deeply with the cultures of today; and other work, such as her look at the AIDS crisis, provides a history of a period of time that was largely ignored.
ARTIFACT 12 > FABY LELAIT. “Nan Goldin “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency(1)” (NYC MOMA 03/2009).” YouTube, 16 Apr 2009.
HOMEWORK >
Reading Susan Sontag’s “PHOTOGRAPHY WITHIN THE HUMANITIES”
SUSAN SONTAG READING QUESTIONS - Prepare some notes (or even better, print out the article and mark up your own copy with ideas / observations) that help you understand the Sontag reading using these prompts taken directly from today’s PowerPoint slides. They will be very useful to you inn the discussion and assessment on Wednesday…
As I read this piece, I looked up and defined key words that stood out as being important to me…
In the opening of her work, she uses several terms by which she defines who she is as an individual, specifically she declares, “I am a writer and a filmmaker.”
WRITER > author, person who uses written words to communicate ideas and to produce books, articles, stories, etc.
FILMMAKER > cinéaste; refers to a person involved in filmmaking - a person who directs or produces movies for the theatre or television.
She notes how she works independently for herself. She is clear about being an outsider, which is similar to how she described herself in relation to the QUEER COMMUNITY in her book “ON CAMP” > as an outsider, “…an educated outsider” (in many respects, the way she positioned herself as an educated outsider isn’t that different from how Nan Goldin described herself as an observer and part of the cultures and people she interacted with and photographed),
Other terms that stood out for me…
PHOTOGRAPHY > the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording LIGHT, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing, and business, as well as more direct uses for art, film, and video production, recreational purposes, hobby, and mass communication.
IMAGE > (PICTURE) - “…a representation of the external form of a person or thing in art (also: the general impression of a person, organization, or product presents to the public; the way they appear to others)” (Oxford Dictionary).
Perception; Impression; Portrait; Representation; Effigy; Figure; Icon / Idol; Likeness; Picture; Statue
IMAGE - represents something > drawing / painting / graphic / photograph > MANY TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES can be used to CREATE IMAGES
HOW AN IMAGE IS CREATED DEPENDS ON THE TYPE OF IMAGE DESIRED AND THE DESIRED EFFECT SOMEONE WANTS AN IMAGE TO HAVE
“The term ‘image’ is often used in fields such as graphic design, art, and advertising to refer to visual content in general. On the other hand, a PHOTO is a specific type of image created by capturing LIGHT on a photosensitive surface, such as film or a digital sensor” (javatpoint.com).
PHOTOS are typically more realistic and detailed than other images and are often used to document real-life events or people. The term “photo” is commonly used in photography, journalism and social media to refer to photographs” (javatpoint.com).
“PICTURE is a more generalized term that can refer to any type of visual representation including drawings, paintings, graphics, and photographs. However, it is often used to refer specifically to photographs in everyday language” (javatpoint.com).
THE MEANING AND USAGE OF THE TERMS IMAGE / PHOTOGRAPH / PICTURE can vary depending on the context and audience.
ARTIFACT > Phoenix Art Museum. “How to Look at an Artwork.” YouTube, 14 Feb 2014.
Ways of Seeing - Ways of Photographic Seeing - TO SEE / OBSERVE
SIGHT: the faculty or power of seeing (n); a thing that one sees or that can be seen. (v) managed to see or observe (someone or something); catch a glimpse of.
CRITIC: a person who expresses an unfavourable opinion of something / a person who judges the MERITS of literary, artistic, or musical works - especially one who does it professionally.
HUMANITIES: “…those branches of knowledge that concern themselves with human beings and their culture with analytic and critical methods of inquiry derived from an appreciation of human values and of the unique ability of the human spirit to express itself” (Britannica).
“…subjective Saturday of humans, our history, culture, and societies.”
“Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including fundamental questions asked by humans” (Wikipedia).
Arizona university notes how the humanities “…can include the study of history, philosophy, religion, modern and ancient languages and literature, fine and performing arts, media and cultural studies.”
“Humanities involves the exploration of human experiences, values, beliefs, and ideas through critical analysis and interpretation of texts, artifacts, and other cultural products. The focus is on understanding the human experience and how it has shaped and been shaped by different cultures and societies” (edurev.in).
Arts focus on the production of art while humanities focus on the study of human culture and experience. Arts involve the use of imagination and creativity to produce works of art while humanities involve critical analysis and interpretation of cultural products. Arts are often subjective and open to interpretation while humanities are based on objective analysis and interpretation of cultural products“ (edurev.in).
ART: “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power” (Oxford). / “Something that is created with imagination and skill that is beautiful or that explores important ideas or feelings.”
VISUAL INFO
Can photography be both an ART and an ACTIVITY (debate about its merits as an art form)
“…the continuous upgrading of this activity.” (Both FORMALLY / TECHNICALLY and as a medium of expression with infinite possibilities).
Visual arts / Literary arts / Performing arts.
ACTIVTY (n): something you do / state of doing; condition in which things are (happening) being done. A quality or state of being active.
Tension > do I matter? Is my work worthwhile?
Photography as a process of creation. Choices are made.
THE NEW - why does an artist chose photography as a form to convey content as opposed to painting, etc?
IMAGES ARE UBIQUITOUS > “noise” in advertising; “if you use social media, you see (and forward) some of the 3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video shared daily… we see ~10,000 ads per day, only a few stand out as relevant.”
COMMODIFICATION / Mass Production / Multiples
Learning to LIVE WITH THE RESULT OF WHAT’S CAPTURED
Photographer assigns meaning by choosing what to photograph
Curation of life… social media… INSTAGRAM
Filmmaker is a kind of photographer working with moving images. Songtag sees with words too, in her novel, short stories, and essays. Writing comes from within, the gut - emotionality)… photographs are what are seen (as mediated by the camera)… but don’t words / thoughts also serve as a mediation on an idea?
Sontag died on the cusp of the social media explosion.
IS ANYTHING ORIGINAL?
People described Sontag as being someone who was adversarial to what she wrote about…
Sontag saw photos of WW2 and the holocaust (Dachau Concentration Camp) as a young child and this impacted her greatly. She was an anti-war activist. PHOTOGRAPHS CAN HAVE POWER (Nick Ut’s Napalm Girl).
DESENSITIZED > RISK > we are impacted by images only and not by the events they represent > to stay powerful, do images have to represent worse and worse?
PASSIVE vs ACTIVE VIEWER
REALISM
Engineering the moment / Missing the moment
FAST SEEING > Jeff Wall worked to push against this
Do a little research…
Who is Susan Sontag?
According to Wikipedia, Susan Sontag was “…a writer, critic, and public intellectual,” who, Britannica notes was “…best known for her essays on modern culture.”
She completed her undergraduate studies, beginning at the University of California, and finishing at the University of Chicago in 1951. She went on to complete a Masters in English Literature, as well as a Masters of Philosophy at Harvard.
What has she published related to photography?
Some of Sontag’s most influential writings have been in respect to the art, practice, and reception of photography. This was explored in detail in a set of essays Sontag wrote between 1973 and 1977, which were then compiled to live together in a 1977 book called On Photography. Wikipedia describes how Sontag’s essays examine “…the history and contemporary role of photography in society… Sontag argues that photography fosters a voyeuristic relationship with the world and can diminish the meaning of events. The book discusses the relationship between photography and politics and the tension between recording and intervention.”
Later in her life, Sontag revisited her earlier thoughts on the medium and practice of photography in a 2004 book she named Regarding the Pain of Others. Wikipedia summarizes this work by noting how the essay “…both underscores their importance and undercuts hopes that they can communicate very much. On the one hand, narrative and framing confer upon images most of their meaning, and on the other, Sontag says, those who have not lived through such things ‘…can’t understand, can’t imagine..’ the experiences such images represent.”
What is her approach to the study of photographs generally and how do her interests allow her to speak as an expert on the subject of photography?
The documentary bio-pic Regarding Susan Sontag notes how Sontag liked to take an adversarial approach to the topics she explored in her writing.
Sontag writes on page 60 of the text, “In some ways I would suggest that photography is not so much an art as a meta-art. It’s an art which devours other art.” What do you think Sontag means by this and how is it relevant to the way we need to approach the study of photographs?
Adrian Piper, American conceptual artist and Kantian philosopher, in her 1973 article, IN SUPPORT OF META-ART, appearing in Artforum, defines ‘meta-art’ as “…the activity of making explicit the thought processes, procedures, and presuppositions of making whatever kind of art we make. Thought processes might include how we hypothesize a work into existence: wether we think subliminally and suddenly lay have it pop into consciousness fully formed; or reason from problems encountered in the last work to possible solutions in the next; or get ‘inspired’ by seeing someone else’s work, or a previously unnoticed aspect of our own; or read something, or experience something, or talk; or find ourselves blindly working away for no good reason; or any, all, or other processes of this kind.” She continues, explaining how: “Generally what is required in meta-art is that we stand off and view our role of artist reflectively; that we see the fact of our art-making itself a discrete state or process with interesting implications worthy of pursuing; that we articulate and present these implications to an audience (either the same as or broader than the art audience) for comment, evaluation, and feedback.”
Widewalls,
What is the new kind of seeing that Sontag believes photography helps promote?
REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG
Briefly describe what your expectations for the film were?
The homework for the first class of the History of Photography course I’m taking has me doing a close reading of critic, filmmaker, and writer Susan Sontag’s essay, Photography in the Humanities. In it, Sontag explores the ways in which photography can be classified. I expected the documentary to explore who Sontag was as a writer, as well as what influenced and inspired her through archival footage and contemporary interviews with people who knew her or were influenced by her.
What did you already know about the film and from what source?
I had purchased this film on Apple-TV iTunes several years ago but had yet to sit down and watch it. I knew Regarding Susan Sontag was a documentary released in 2014, almost a decade after her death from leukemia.
What did you know about the country and historical period/style of its origin?
At the time of this documentary’s release, the American economy was growing rapidly following its collapse in 2008. President Barack Obama was around halfway through second term in office, and the race for his successor was just about to begin with candidates from both parties jockeying to win the nomination to run for President, including Democrat Hillary Clinton, and Republican Donald Trump.
At the 2014 Oscars, host Ellen DeGeneres got Bradley Cooper to snap what would become the most re-Tweeted selfie of all time featuring her posing with several famous A-List celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence, Lupita Nyong’o, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts.
ARTIFACT > Cooper, Bradley. “Oscar Selfie.” 2014.
Snapchat was becoming a very popular app among young people, allowing them to talk with friends where the app’s settings could be set to delete conversations and attachments like photos. I also remember that 2014 was the year that we lost comedian Joan Rivers, comedic legend and Academy Award winning actor Robin Williams, and Academy Award winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. The passing of Williams was especially troubling for me as Williams suffered from depression throughout his life and ultimately chose to end his own life. Finally, 2014 saw Russia host that year’s Winter Olympics, which many viewed as a public relations stunt by Russia, basically using slave labour to build its sporting venues.
Did you know anything about the director?
Going into this film, I admit I knew nothing about the film’s director, Nancy Kates. A quick glance at her IMdB profile reveals how her most famous documentary film prior to Regarding Susan Sontag was her 2003 biographical documentary Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, which explores the life of Rustin, a prominent civil rights activist who fought for racial equality, Queer Rights, and also helped organize the 1963 March on Washington. Her Wikipedia entry also chronicles her experience with making a documentary called Their Own Vietnam, which was Kates’s master thesis at Stanford University, presenting a harrowingly honest tale about five American women who served in the Vietnam War. The film won several awards and played at many independent film festivals in the mid-1990s. One other film stood out for me by Kates, and that is her short film called Castro Cowboy, a 7 minute film that explores the life of Christen Haren, a Marlboro Man model who died of AIDS in 1996. The Marlboro Man advertisements would become tied to the work of artist Richard Prince, who would appropriate the ads by re-photographing them, focussing solely on the model and removing all references to the Marlboro cigarette brand.
What was the most important feature of the film you were looking for?
For me, the most important feature of Regarding Susan Sontag I was looking for was how the film would present and explore the life of Sontag. A key question for me was whether or not the film would be as compelling as Sontag herself, who will forever live on through her thought-provoking writings on 20th century culture.
Secondly, I wondered if the film would explore her connection to photography – and why she appeared to be so interested in photography and the world of images that continued to grow exponentially over the course of her lifetime.