Photomedia in Modern and Contemporary Art - Essay Example

?Short Essay: Photomedia in Modern and Contemporary Art Week In week the essay examined was Charles Baudelaire’s 1859 essay Photography. This essay presents a number of compelling interpretations of the art object, as well as criticism of the photographic object as a potential art entity. In terms of the purpose of art, Baudelaire (1859, p. 1) notes that he considers art as the, “exact reproduction of Nature” and as such, “an industry that could give us a result identical to Nature would be the absolute of Art.” While one would consider that this would indicate that Baudelaire embraces photography as the absolute of art, the writer goes on to lambast the very medium. In large part it appears that rather than attacking the nature of photography, Baudelaire is attacking an understanding that photography replaces classical elements of painting and sculpture. Even as Baudelaire is a historically renowned writer, the essay reads more like an angry diatribe than it does a well-considered examination of art and photography. Indeed, Baudelaire even compares photography to pornography as a sort of medium of fascination over aestheticism. Even as Baudelaire’s account is highly vitriolic, one considers a similar parallel to the early era of film, wherein the primary subjects were areas of sensation and public fascination over a concern with art. While Baudelaire’s criticism of the photographic subject may be relevant for the mid-19th century, it is clear that he I criticizing the then current areas of production, rather than considering the broad ranging artistic potential for the medium. Week 2 In week 2 the articles analyzed were Laszlo’s Moholy-Nagy A New Instrument of Vision and Walter Benjamin’s the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Moholy-Nagy’s text provides a broad theoretical overview of the unique qualities of the photographic art. The most notable element is the indication that photography is not simply the replication of reality, but rather assumes new artistic forms of expression. This argument is very sound in that instead of focusing on abstract notions of aesthetics, it indicates that photography largely demonstrates newly perceptions on space and reality. Walter Benjamin’s the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a seminal work of art criticism and contains a number of important points. One of the most pervasive considerations is Benjamin’s contention that are in the current milieu has lost a sense of mystique of mysticism because of mass production methods. Benjamin’s insights make considerable sense especially when considered in light of contemporary Internet or new media art forms where the very medium is transitory. While Benjamin links this insight to the need to reimagine the political context of the art object, it is perhaps more contemporary relevant in the perspective it provides on the larger structural interpretations of the art object. In these regards, one considers that art functions not just as a plane of understanding where one judges its aesthetic qualities, but that the nature of ‘aesthetic qualities’ is also a shifting significatory pattern. Week 3 While previous readings have considered the nature of photography as an art form and the extent that the subject content bespeaks to an aesthetic form, the Photographic Conditions of Surrealism examines the nature of framing and other elements that contribute to the artistry of the photograph. In examining two pictures, the author states, “In both cases one is treated to the capture of the photographic subject by the frame, and in both, this capture has a sexual import” (‘Photographic Conditions of Surrealism,’ p.89). Even as a slight argument could be made for the sexual implications of the photographic framing techniques implemented, it seems that in large part the author has overreached in his assessment as a means of hyperbole. Still, the insight that photographic framing affects the perceptions of the specific aesthetic elements of the photograph remains a notable consideration. One of the insights gleaned from this reading was considering it in relation to the earlier readings on a historical scale. While previous readings, for instance Baudelaire, had focused on the nature of the photograph as either art or not art, this historical stage of aesthetic criticism has moved beyond considering the position of photography as art (Baudelaire), or simply the articulating the technical elements that separate it from other mediums (Moholy-Nagy), to fully embracing the ways the medium captures and alters reality through framing techniques. In this context of understanding, one can make the contention that there is a sort of evolution of theoretical approaches to photography, and an evolution of the medium itself. Week 4 The evolution of photographic criticism is further witnessed in “Marks of Indifference: Aspects of Photography in, or as, Conceptual Art”. In large part, what is analyzed is the means by which photography can achieve an avant-garde structure. The essay notes that, “Art projected itself forward bearing only its glamorous traditional name, thereby entering a troubled phase of restless searching for an alternative ground of validity” (‘Marks of Indifference’ p. 143). One of the main contentions in these considerations is that photography is unable to change its medium form one of depiction, while painting and other art forms have this ability. From a contemporary perspective it seems that such a notion is off-based as modern methods of digital photography and editing increasingly grant photographers the ability to intervene in the object and alter it from one of ‘depiction’ to one of modernist reflexivity. In considering the evolution of art photography to an avant-garde in the 1960s, one of the interesting points the essay makes is that, “important art-photographs could be purchased for under $100 not only in 1950 but in 1960” (‘Marks of Indifference’, p. 149). While partially indicating that capitalist mainstream society had not yet recognized photographs as worthy of purchase, the point also leads one to consider the interaction between economics and art. In one sense it can be argued that art exists outside this capitalist realm and is only later co-opted by the capitalist social structure; in another sense, one can contend that it is the capitalist recognition of an object of financial worth that imbues it with its qualitative worth. Either case holds important implications for the nature of photography and, indeed, the meaning of art. Week 5 The week 5 reading considers the balance between the photographic and cinematic apparatus in the context of Christopher Marker’s short film La Jetee. The essay makes the argument that the time-travel in the plot of the film mirrors the temporal dimensions of photography and film. The main point being that the photograph, as a single index, represents a past even, while film, as a moving entity, is meant to reproduce the ever-present here and now. Even as this is presented as a philosophical deliberation on the nature of time and representation, it perhaps functions more concretely as a deconstruction of the nature of photography and film. The very realization that the movement of visual presentation carries with it a sort of preconceived meaning is an interesting notion. While the essay makes the argument that it is indicative of a past (photography) vs. the ever-present (film) dichotomy, it appears that such a distinction may be overly simplistic. Nevertheless, the nature of the medium as containing a portion of the message has been widely explored in film and cultural theory, most notably through Marshall Mcluhan’s seminal ‘medium is the message’. In La Jetee’s deconstruction of this dichotomy, one considers the implications this holds for meaning making systems within film. For instance, does the nature of the close-up or deep focus contain within it different modes of meaning than do rapid paced editing, and can such an underlining meaning be reduced to a science, or connected to human instinct or biology. Week 6 In examining the week 6 readings one immediately considers the historical versions of photographic criticism; perhaps most prominently Baudelaire’s argument that photography is merely a form of sensationalism, or the nature of framing, to a consideration of staging and unconscious elements of the photographic image. Considering Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills, 1975-80, Marsh (‘Performative Perversions’, p. 193) states, “Sherman ‘herself’ is nowhere in the pictures, she is always a simulacrum.” Whereas earlier considerations argued that photography represented a simple replication of reality, or were time-constrained as indexing past events, this presentation focuses on the nature of photography as playing on the nature of depiction. While few would label Sherman a modernist, one considers the nature of Sherman’s work within the context of these theoretical investigations as a sort of self-reflexive response to these earlier forms of photographic expression. Even as Sherman has gained most attention for her investigations into the nature of identity, in considering the essay one notes that her work has gained a great degree of its esteem and ‘freshness’ as it is able to subvert these earlier forms of photographic expression through playing with the elements that are depicted or ‘captured’. In terms of the essays considerations of the psychoanalytical interpretations of photography, one questions when the visual arts will be able to abandon such mystical interpretations of reality and psychology, for those rooted in modern scientific methods. Outside of the objective critical perspectives that can be gleaned on the art, within the context of this essay such Freudian interpretations fall short. Bibliography Baudelaire, Charles. (1859) Photography. ‘Marks of Indifference: Aspects of Photography in, or as, Conceptual Art’ Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo. A New Instrument of Vision. Orlow, Uriel. The Dialectical Imagine: La Jetee and Photogaphy as Cinema. Marsh, Ann. Performative Pervsions: A Surrealist Trajectory. Photographic Conditions of Surrealism. Read More