Hauntology of Photography - The Digital Revolution - Essay Example

Hauntology of Photography - The Digital Revolution Introduction This paper skews towards one main point Hountology, which is originally a French word, is almost identical to ontology. This branch of philosophy that deals with the study of being and the different kinds of being that may be in an entity. Hauntology has inspired various field of investigation. These are visual arts, politics fiction, philosophy and literature. Discussing the ontological status of photography is considering what kind of particular thing is in a photograph (Bazin N.D, P 10-67). André Bazin in his essay entitled ‘the ontology of the photographic image’ stated that photography was the most important invention in the history of the plastic art. He argued that it freed the west from the obsession with realism, hence allow it to regain it aesthetic autonomy. In his claim, he cited Cézanne and Picasso as good examples of painters who started their career in early days of photography, and started modernizing the art with its literal means of depicting the world. Bazin had previously suggested that painting was torn by two ambitions. One ambition was expressing spiritual reality where the symbol transcended its model, while the other one duplicate the outside world. Photography removed the burden of the second task from painting, though it was not better at showing the world as it was. Best oil paintings precise depictions were superior to the blurred black and white photographs of that time. In addition, he argued that the painting image shares by virtue of the process of its becoming. On the other hand, photography is a mechanical process which man plays no part. Consequently, we forced to accept that as real the existence of object reproduced (Azoulay, 2002, P 202). Through analogy, Bazin gave reference to the Turin shroud, where certain people believed it is the actual sheet in which the body of Christ was laid in the tomb, and the brood stain that dried on the sheet and outlined a human face figure on the cloth, gave a depiction of the physiognomy of Christ. Although scientific tests results showed it does not date back to the Christ time, but if it were what it purports to be. It would help in showing why for believers would have shared in the Christ’s sacredness. In addition, the reasons its image would be contemplated with high devotion than any painting or Jesus. The reality would have been transferred to the shroud from Christ. He also argued it the plastic arts were to be done analysis; the preservation of the dead by embalming might turn out to be fundamental factor in their creation. The then proceeded by stating the process might reveal that there lies a mummy complex at the origin of sculpture and painting. The ancient Egyptian religion aimed against death and saw survival to be depending on the existing of the body, consequently the defense against the passage of time provided a basic psychological satisfaction in man. Bazin was attracted to realism and believed in the idea of art as a production of the eternal. This is illustrated by his explanation that the image preservation was to help remember the subject and prevent his second spiritual death (Hainge, 2012, P 12). In painting, bazin explained that paintings are representational of real although not able to reproduce the physical real or truly represent the outside appearance of a thing. The painting of a thing did not represent it, but represented the painter painting the image. Hence, what was painted reefer back to the painter? This was the flaw of painting in its attempt to reproduce reality according to Bazin.he attributed the success of photography and cinema to the ability in reproducing reality. Due to the medium of the painter, he is not able to escape the appearance of the touch and this makes it. According to Bazin, photography removes the human touch and removes the artist‘s workmanship evident in the medium of a sculpture and painting. In addition, the aesthetic experience of the work is much more in line with perception, which is personal. Cinema and photography duplicates the physical real and the barrier that occurs when one is admiring a sculpture or a painting is not there. Bazin emphasis was more on the technical development process of the film as an objective and not subjective. However, the film production process is subjective to this human touch of the painting that Bazin felt were lucking. The invention of photography came with photo editing and modification, and this tread is well illustrated in some films where different scenes are colored differently. Although bazin accepted film modification, his augment was the best cinema is the one that portrays reality as it is. According to bazin, the process of photography gives credibility quality on the object. At the same times cinema and photography reflects and communicates what exists in the community and believe in it (Aroyo, 2009, P 45). Other writers on photographing like Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes have reflected these thoughts. Barthes in ‘camera Lucida’ indicates he was driven by ontological desire to write and he wanted to learn at all cost what photography was, in ‘itself’. This led him to philosophical methods of phenomenology to write his book. Jean Sartre also used the same methods when writing the book, ’L ’imaginaire’ to investigate different kind of images, including photographs. In phenomenological description of an object, there is an intention in every conscious experience and is directed to something. However, the intentionality for phenomenology is highly differentiated as there are various kind of intending that are correlated with various kind of objects. This is well illustrated when carrying out perceptual intention when one sees an ordinal object. However, when one see a photograph he must intend pictorially. A picture is taken differently from taking something as simple object (Andrew, 2011, P45). By Following the traditional phenomenological enquiry approach, Barthes gave came up with more precise categories of intentionality that involves perceiving a photograph and perceiving it as a photograph. Furthermore, he concluded that every essence of a perception of something as a photograph can be described by the phrase ‘that has been’. The phenomenological analysis gives rise to the fundamental goals in otology. This classification of all the kinds ways that object exist. Although Barthes adopted phenomenological method, he was among those 1950s generation French thinkers who begin their careers by turning away from this approach, which was dominant in Europe by then. His colleagues like Michael Foucault and Jacques Derrida were very categorical in their opposition of phenomenological method. As for Derrida, his first writing was criticizing Husserl approach to language. Husserl was the founder of phenomenology. Foucault also abandoned the approach after an attempt to describe madness failed and focused on upon discourses through which it was described. However, when Barthes sought to understand the nature of images in his final book he turned to phenomenological (Wong, 2011, P76). Through the project camera Lucida, Barthes brought his attention to the language and sign study to the subject of photography. The major component in camera Lucida is consideration of Barthes mother’s picture that was taken when she was a child posing in garden. This picture is the single image that centers his discussion. Barthes wrote shortly after the death of his mother and recounts his desire to recognize and know his mother as he was pouring over it. His mother’s image when she was a young girl triggered berth to think over the connection between death and photography. He noted that the photograph carries an indexical relationship to their referent and noted that he could never deny the referent has been there. Here there is a superimposition of the reality and the past. In his argument he termed this persistence presence of the referent the photography essence and ‘that has been’ he emphasized that he could not deny the reality of the mother’s presence I the winter garden many years back before he even knew her. According to Barthes, every photograph and mainly that of his mother, conveys a relationship to time and then to death. As far as connection to Sontag’s indication that a photograph can give a record of the light that has emanated off, Barthes noted ‘that has been’ is moment that is frozen and would touch him like the delayed star rays, hence the photograph has with in it the element he termed ‘this will die’. In his mother’s winter garden photograph, Barthes could see the reality of his mother before he knew her and he could also recognize that she will die (Benkam, 2008, P 89). Berths came up with two interrelated terms in his approach to photograph analysis. These are the studium and the penctum. He identified the studium as the general interest in the image for the information it confers to the viewer and the historical context in which the photograph was taken and which is viewed. The experience of the studium was grounded on the viewer. He noted that by the studium way one could experience photograph as historical document, cultural testimony to the gestures, figures, political history and faces of an earlier time. One the other hand, the penctum disturbs an appreciation of the studium according to Barthes. His description of punctum to photograph as an element that pricks a wound or that sting, and is like glint in the eye of a person viewing the image. Penctum is also grounded in the experience of the viewer just like the stadium. To recognize a penctum is accidental and it always commands a response. In the winter garden, for Barthes, the recognition of this ‘has been’ and ‘this will die’ is the punctum. It is from the aspect of studium and punctum that Barthes is able to identify the contextual and the personal within photographs. However, camera Lucida is not an anticipated photography reappraisal, as it does not reveal ‘grammar’ of photographs that is long sought. It is more intimate instead of being more theoretical. His views are not scholarly as such, but an abstract classification and analysis. He takes a personal point of view from which he tries to derive an otology. His argument is that, photography acts importantly without mediation and partially due to the presence of the referent. The distinction of studium and punctum provides a method for analyzing many photographs and give merits in particular instances but its cant do complex analysis like the animation of photograph. The Digital Revolution In 1988, the first digital camera was invented, though it was put in the market in 1997 for sale to the public. However, they were very expensive. As usual with electronic devices, the prices continued to decline and at present, they are the most used and the cheapest. Within few years, the whole aspect of photography, which had not changed much for over a century, underwent a great transformation. This makes it necessary to reflect on the ontology of photography to analyze and ascertain if Bazin, Sontag, Sartre and Barthes are still true. A digital photo is formed through arrangement of relevant pixels. A pixel is a dab of particular a colour. Millions of this pixels re arranged accordingly to form a digital photo. A number codes the colour of each pixel and the array of numbers is stored in form of a digital file. The programmer can alter any pixel in any way at will, using an image manipulation programs like Photoshop. Due to this factor, there is no equivalent of the permanently archived, physically photogenic negative. The image files can be transmitted and copied instantly without any examination for tempering or physical evidence, as was the norm with photogenic negative. The original file and the copy are identical were it not for the tag recording creation time and date. However, even these tags can be changed easily. Consequently, this makes image file leave no trail and impossible to establish without any doubt the provenance of a digital image. Barthes conclusion in phenomenological investigation of photography was that for any who hold photograph in his hand, he holds a fundamental belief and nothing can undo unless it’s proved that is not a photograph. From this definition it is clear then a digital photograph cannot be a photograph. This also applies to fake projects and any other digital images as the necessary connection of the real image photographed has been replaced. Ambiguity occurs in the formulation of photography due to digitalization. This affects role of photography in contemporary art. There are the two different ways of the photographic process. The first reference is digitalization taking the photograph. This is transition of the distribution of light intensities to the light sensor of the digital camera. They are then received by the binary code and taken to the data file, and the photograph is taken. The next is digital production of the image from the data file. The two processes can be separated as the digital image produced is not necessarily the result of the photographic capture, and the digital image generated must not be photographic. The nature of these two processes makes it possible the manipulation and transformation of the photographic data. This possibility raises ontological concerns (Stafford, 2010, P 36). There have been discussions about the analogue digital divide since the early staged of digital photography. There were observations that attested to crush of the two different visual cultures. This caused a paradigmatic break in the history of western world. In there work, Mitchell and carry contextualized the discourse on the contemporary image in the modern history of world visual perspective. Due to the invention of digital imaging there were claims that photography will never be the same again. How ever, despite the technological invention, it never translated in renewal of the culture as it entered in to dialectical relation with the existing practices. One of the most constant arguments against the nature of digital photography is that it has undermined the old claim of image faithfulness and accuracy represented by the traditional photography. It is said traditional chemical based photography ha an indexical relation to the referent, and was a natural sign. It had a realism certificate with it as it fundamental ontology (shaviro, 2010, P 90). Mitchell in his work on realism and the digital image complicated the myth that digital photography has different ontology from the traditional chemical photography. And that this ontology had a different relation to the referent, as it involves coding and signage, rather than indexical realms of the traditional photography. This occurrence led to the question of whether the ontology that removes the being of photography from the environment in which it usually operates, provides fixed relation to matters such as fakery, authenticity and natural images. Mitchell argument was that the authority legitimacy, value, and authenticity of the photographs, does not depend on their character as chemical or digital production. In addition, the notion that character of digital image has relation to the meaning of the image is a myth. The investigation of how one medium photography is reflected on anther media by a text is well illustrated by David lynch’s film the elephant man. The reflection involves representation and imitation. The film main objects are the nineteenth century photographic portrait. The point of reference is photography, as well as the film’s main plot. Photograph also serves as reference for the allegoric frame works linking to its various developments. The photography is represented in the film as not able to render a portrait of the monster as human. This is because it is not capable of uncovering face beneath the head of the monster and its only film can, as it is able to show motions and facial expressions emerging from the merrick’s interaction with other characters (Hadizic, 2009, P 65). Lynch’s framework film illustrates the reasons for the precedence of film over photography by juxtaposing two material genealogies. This is done by gradual transformation of photography to cinematography through splitting of the single image and mobilizing the object within the in the picture and the picture, and then opening the frame, combining shot and counter shoot and sound addition. The other material development by Mallick’s framework is the fathering of the monstrous by the elephant. The film manages to arrange the two different kinds of images mediating between photography and cinema in illogical order. During the course of the film, the portrait of Merrick’s mother is transformed to cinematic from photographic and from material image in to immaterial image. In the end, the elephant man portrays film superiority over photography Simulacra According to the traditional definition of a photograph, a digital image does not fall in the category. There ontological statuses were referred as simulacra. Simulacrum is a material image which is made to represent a person, some deity or a thing and which does not guarantee the existence the entity it represents. This helps to differentiate from traditional photographs, which are said to share the being of their source. In addition, simulacra can be reproduced, copied, modified without any effect on what there are meant to represent. In essence simulacrum images reflects a profound reality, they masks and denatures a profound reality and masks the absence of profound reality. In addition, they are not related to reality. In theory, there is no particular ontological problem from digital photo taking. However, there is the problem with the convention governing the data processing in the period between the image capture and the printing or projection using a technological process that is prone to manipulation of the image components. This disconnection of the photographic image from it identical environment is significant in the art context. This is because art is a form of self-conscious illusion. There is an ontological peculiarity on the digital image. Even though most digital images are taken from real and are photographically based, they luck visual resemblance between the data and the projected or the printed image. The digital data plays the role of the original instead of the situation or the process depicted. This is deferent from the role the negative plays in photography, since it acts as the mediator between the real image and the printed or projected image. As far as digitalization is concerned it be described as a process of placing photography in the generic field of the digital image. The generic digital based field represents the material medium of the general concept of the art. Simulacrum has been repressed in the history of representation as it contradicts the notion of representing itself. This is due to it tendency of subverting the dichotomy of the copy and model, reproduction and original, and image and likeness. Meanwhile the mimetic image has been taken as the affirmation of the real and the simulacrum is denigrated as it negation. Simulacrum is an image without a model and it lucks the crucial dependence upon similitude or resemblance hence it cannot claims to being. As a result, for Stuart Hall insights, Hooks and other critics for example bring up many questions about the response of women regarding the visual arts in the modern world, which includes photography and film. The black looks say a lot about race and representation. Basing this on Hook’s argument, critical spectatorship of the black female only comes up when an individual woman resist becoming the subject of looking and knowing or in other words image and story. Their resistance to identifying themselves with settings of gender and race tender for their consumption. Men critic their positive decisions and creates opposite texts and interpretations. This makes the black woman lack freedom to make decisions on her own since her wish means end of career. Hook says that any black woman featured on Hollywood’s films creates either a good image or a bad image to her race. Some independent films have empowered featured women as cultural product interpreters. Hook pioneered a research field in black women readers of culture that put together the cultural studies and the African American studies. This was possible through the techniques of interviewing and textual interpretation based on criticism. The research’s intentions were to join the two studies and eradicate criticism. After a series of lengthy interviews, she came up with conclusive answers that the black women were not happy with the image instilled on them especially on the interpretations of the press, which contrasted theirs. Her work was difficult and a historical moment is the only thing that helps. Women interpretive images from the positions they held dominated the constructions of gender and race. Hook paid extra attention to images of gender and race gotten from the gallery and the museum. At the same time, many scholars paid attention to the images intersection depicting gender and race. One of the scholars did examinations on two images totally unrelated. The images were that of the Hottentots women and that of a prostitute. There is no way the two could ever be in the same relationship. Prostitution is a very bad image in the society and no body likes the association. This lead to question on the capacity to differentiate what is represented and what is real. Simulacrum also disrupts the priority order in which the image must come second or come otter the act of taking the photograph. It is due to these reasons in traditional discourse of visual arts the term was mostly used negatively in definition of things that were deemed untrue or false like idol gods. The term went underground and was masked by the life like statue and naturalistic paintings, which were produced through the culture who emphasized the idea over its object and the role of the artist as secondary copier of nature instead of the status of the copy itself. But after 1960s, due to development of new technologies and the increase of images entering everyday life, and through concomitant transformations of what was referred to as art, forced the philosopher , critic and the artist to revive the term simulacrum. Henceforth, it became a crucial concept in the interrogation of postmodern theories of representation and artistic practices. In 1967essy by Gilles Deleuze ‘the simulacrum and ancient philosophy’, he tried to reverse ‘Platonism’ and by doing so, he revived simulacrum as a crucial and art historical term for modern times. Deleuze described simulacrum as the image without remembrance, and it does not have the claim of the copy, which is endowed with the resemblance. By reversing Platonism, Deleuzi made simulacra to rise and affirm their importance among copies and icons. In conclusion, May be bazin could have lucked the ability to reassess the modernity virtues in 1945 and this made him to trust blindly what comes out of machine and became enthusiastic and affectionate to the photographic image. However, he admitted the ambiguity of reality that was originated by surrealists that urged that the photography have the ability to make an effect on one’s imagination and realism reveals the reality even if when one don’t want to see it. Unlike the studios and their creations and fabricated stories, realism has a commitment to show the world’s state and claims it faith in humanity. Reference Azoulay, A., & Bethlehem, L. 2012. Civil imagination: a political ontology of photography. London, Verso. Bazin, A. n.d. 2002. Ontology of the photographic image Hainge, G. 2012. Noise matters: Towards ontology of noise. London, Continuum. Aroyo, L. 2009. The semantic web research and applications : 6th European Semantic Web Conference, ESWC, 2009.Heraklion, Crete, Greece. Proceedings. Berlin [etc.], SpringerLink. Andrew, D., & Joubert-Laurencin, H. 2011. Opening Bazin: postwar film theory and its afterlife. New York, Oxford University Press. Wong, W., Liu, W., & Bennamoun, M. 2011. Ontology learning and knowledge discovery using the Web: challenges and recent advances. Hershey, PA, Information Science Reference Beckman, K. R., & MA, J. 2008. Still moving between cinema and photography. Durham, Duke University Press. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/209333689.html. Stafford, A. 2010. Photo-texts: contemporary French writing of the photographic image. Liverpool, Liverpool University Press. Shaviro, S. 2010. Post cinematic affect. Winchester, UK, 0 [zero] Books Hadzic, M. 2009. Ontology-based multi-agent systems. Berlin, Springe Read More