Thread: Photography After Photography? (A Provocation)

Here's an example of what I mean about the future aesthetic of film and music. This is Die Antwoord with their video "I fink u freeky".

Originally Posted by Luke

I have seen some photography exhibits where I'm not even sure what I'm viewing should be called photography. Perhaps the author just needs to get out a bit more ;)

Would love to see some examples of what you mean if you could point me to some websites on the net. I feel constantly starved of inspiration and would really appreciate it.

Ok some questions then ...

where isn't the art ? Uta Barth or Andreas Gursky or David Batchelor aren't producing art?

What criteria are being used to measure "progress" in graphic design, film-making etc?

How do you want to measure the health or otherwise of photography? Would we want to measure it by the same criteria as oil painting? acrylic painting? concrete scuplture? Literature? TV?

If we "liberate photography from the photograph" does it remain photography? If I liberate omelette from eggs (perhaps I make it using dogmeat) does it remain an omelette , an evolved omelette or not an omelette at all?

I'm not saying this doesn't warrant discussion, far from it ... but this is complicated stuff, and warrants a more sophisticated and better informed approach than Mr. Colberg has applied in his short article.

Originally Posted by Boid

Here's an example of what I mean about the future aesthetic of film and music. This is Die Antwoord with their video "I fink u freeky".

that's an interesting example Boid, because to me that looks like an aesthetic informed by 1970s advertising - very much in the Hugh Hudson or Ridley Scott mode - so in itself backwards-looking rather than forwards

Originally Posted by Boid

Here's an example of what I mean about the future aesthetic of film and music. This is Die Antwoord with their video "I fink u freeky".

This is not my strongest intellectual area (the meaning, history or future of art), but this video doesn't seem revolutionary to me. It's an example of an aesthetic, but it's not reinventing the genre at all, IMO. Vs. perhaps what happened in the 19th century in art with pointillism, cubism, etc.

Without passing artistic judgment on the "I fink u freeky" music video, it is neither advancing film-making nor music. There are even parts of it that I quite enjoy, but it is still using the tools and language of the medium itself. And therein lies the crux of the discussion. How to "say" new things using the intrinsic language. I mean photography by its' nature uses a camera, right? How many things can be done with a camera that haven't been tried? When I see contemporary photographs in a gallery, sometimes they are echoes of the past, and sometimes, they are cutting edge. Whether one is "the future" of photography matters not a whit to me. To me, I look at them to see if they say anything to me. Does it tell a story? Does it instill an emotion? Or is it just a cold, clinical exercise? All of these are valid and there are many more varied reactions as well. I just don't think that because 99% of what Mr. Colberg sees doesn't move the medium forward doesn't mean the entire medium is in quicksand. By photography's very democratization (I'm looking at you cell phone), there's bound to be infinitely more pablum than profundity.

Originally Posted by pdh

Ok some questions then ...

where isn't the art ? Uta Barth or Andreas Gursky or David Batchelor aren't producing art?

What criteria are being used to measure "progress" in graphic design, film-making etc?

How do you want to measure the health or otherwise of photography? Would we want to measure it by the same criteria as oil painting? acrylic painting? concrete scuplture? Literature? TV?

If we "liberate photography from the photograph" does it remain photography? If I liberate omelette from eggs (perhaps I make it using dogmeat) does it remain an omelette , an evolved omelette or not an omelette at all?

I'm not saying this doesn't warrant discussion, far from it ... but this is complicated stuff, and warrants a more sophisticated and better informed approach than Mr. Colberg has applied in his short article.

Oh I completely agree. It addresses an idea far outside the scope of a small blog post.

What is art and what isn't is being debated quite heatedly in the courts in Britain. Maybe the court decides what is art and what isn't?
Artquest / Artlaw / Copyright / Protecting copyright / What is Sculpture?

Suddenly Banksy's graffiti, the epitome of dissent, is being protected by the Government? The government in fact hires artists to "touch up" his work attacked by his rivals!
Council adds its own touch to a Banksy - News - Evening Standard

Art it turns out, is much like a shared understanding of what is good. Much like notions of a marriage. It's seems like society wakes up, crosses a critical threshold (in empathy perhaps) and declares it as such. That, or the courts decide. We live in strange times.

I am personally not that interested in classifications or issues of identity (identity issues were what my thesis project was about many years ago) and it's a topic best left to hindsight and historians. The separation across time lends greater clarity to understand underlying structure of a linear past. We are programmed to understand and interpret symbols more easily than concepts. So the word "photography" must mean very different things to different people.

To me, for example, everything is a photograph. The surface of a piece of paper is constantly being bombarded by light and is capturing it, absorbing minute quantities of it in the process. Some minute part of the structure of all surfaces are constantly being rearranged when light hits it. Film was sensitive enough to capture the changes in light and make it visible to humans. But everything around us is taking photographs all the time. We just don't have the technology to extract information from those surfaces yet. So not only is every 'surface' a photographer, they are (it is) a far more persistent and involved a photographer than anyone with a camera. Just imagine layers upon layers of perfectly sharp full hi-definition video being captured for all time on all surfaces surrounding us.

That is as far as definitions go.

So that leaves us with the 'act' of pressing a shutter release. Which if we look at critically, in its simplest form, is a tool for communication. Communication with either one's future self, or to other people as a shared experience.

I think "what is art" is a different discussion than how photography can change/reinvent itself.

edit: re-read the bottom part of your post. I think I understand a bit more of your meaning, where "photography" and "Painting" are irrelevant labels??

Originally Posted by wt21

This is not my strongest intellectual area (the meaning, history or future of art), but this video doesn't seem revolutionary to me. It's an example of an aesthetic, but it's not reinventing the genre at all, IMO. Vs. perhaps what happened in the 19th century in art with pointillism, cubism, etc.

There are a couple of things that really stood out for me in the video. The use of kids almost as adults, the treatment, and most importantly the demographic its targeted towards. There are a lot of cuss words in there. The music is too simplistic to appeal to teens/tweens, an almost repetitive chant "I fink u freeky". I'm horrified that this video might be manufactured to cater to a much younger audience. That's my principal fascination with it I think. I do think this is the beginning of a lot more of these. Here's another one by them, quite violent towards the end -

Originally Posted by wt21

I think "what is art" is a different discussion than how photography can change/reinvent itself.

edit: re-read the bottom part of your post. I think I understand a bit more of your meaning, where "photography" and "Painting" are irrelevant labels??

Kind of. What I mean is, maybe, everything just boils down to a form of communication. Like language