#lecture 2

https://www.yoshikatsufujii.com/red-string-book

Red String, by Yoshikatsu Fujii, 2014.

Aside from the inspiration of my personal practice as a photobook series, the signs and symbol aspect is the heart of this artwork. The red string is a metaphor for the fate of love in Chinese or related culture, while traditional symbols were told and educated through time.

According to Taiwanese folklore, the god of love, marriage and destiny in Chinese culture will make a roster of unmarried adults in the world and report it to the heavenly court. After the god receives the roster in the next month, he will copy it into a roster of spouses according to their personality, good and evil, interests and conditions, and then bind the feet/finger of both people with red threads, so that suitable people can be matched as a couple.

Text as art

How Text can work on its own

Philosophy as Method: Ethics, Aesthetics, Ontology of Photography Philosophy of, Religion, Science, Biology, Art, Law,History, Mind, Technology, Politics , Mathematics, Language, Photography

What is philosophy?

This is a notoriously difficult question.

One of the easiest ways of answering it is to say that philosophy is what philosophers do, and then point to writings of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Russell, Wittgenstein, Sartre, and otherfamous philosophers. However, this answer is unlikely to be ofmuch use to you if you are just beginning the subject, as you probably won’t have read anything by these writers. Even if you have, it may still be difficult to say what they have in common, if indeed there is a relevant characteristic which they all share.

Philosophy is an activity: it is a way of thinking about certain sorts of question. Its most distinctive feature is its use of logical argument. Philosophers typically deal in arguments: they either invent them, criticize other people’s, or do both. They also analyse and clarify concepts. They often examine beliefs that most of us take for granted most of the time. They are concerned with questions... about religion, right and wrong, politics, the nature of the external world, the mind, science, art and numerous other topics. For instance, most people live their lives without questioning their fundamental beliefs such as that killing is wrong. But why is it wrong? Is it wrong in every circumstance? And what do I mean by ‘wrong’ anyway?

PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD

Philosophical method is generally characterised by:

• Use of logical argumentation

• Systematicity, rigour

• Questioning of even the most fundamental beliefs (not necessarily in order to subvert them, but to clarify why we hold them)

• Thoroughness

• Criticality

• Openness to re-examination of issues/to change of mind where this seems necessary

• CLARITY (hopefully)

Ontology Ethics Aesthetics

ONTOLOGY

Ontology asks:

WHAT IS PHOTOGRAPHY?

“I was overcome by an ‘ontological’ desire: I wanted to learn at all costs what Photography was ‘in itself,’ by what essential feature it was to be distinguished from the community of images.” (Barthes, 1981, p.3)

What makes photography photography? What makes it different from all other forms of image making? What defines photography as a medium? What is specific about photography? What is unique about photography?

GROUP F/64

“The name of this Group is derived from a diaphragm number of the photographic lens. It signifies to a large extent the qualities of clearness and definition of the photographic image which is an important element in the work of members of this Group. Group f/64 limits its members and invitational names to those workers who are striving to define photography as an art form by simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods. The Group will show no work at any time that does not conform to its standards of pure photography. Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form.”

(From the manifesto of Group f/64, emphases added.)

“There is an urgent need to examine old opinions and look at things from a new viewpoint. There must be an increase in the joy one takes in an object, and the photographer should become fully conscious of the splendid fidelity of reproduction made possible by his technique.” (Albert Renger-Patzsch, ‘Joy before the object’, in Phillips, Christopher [ed.] 1989, Photography in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings, 1913-1940, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY/Aperture, NY, pp.108-109.)

Indexicality

Truth

Objectivity

Realism Definition/sharpness Reproducibility Uta Barth, Field #9, 1995. Uta Barth, Field #7, 1995. Uta Barth, Field #3, 1995. Uta Barth, Field #6, 1995. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, View of the Boulevard de Temple, c. 1839. (A photograph, but not extremely sharp, not reproducible, not particularly ‘truthful’ – all moving objects have blurred into invisibility due to the long exposure.)

TO GET REALLY PHILOSOPHICAL:

Necessary and sufficient conditions:

Is quality x a necessary condition of photography? = are there images which are obviously photographs but don’t have quality x? Is quality x a sufficient condition of photography?

= are there images which have quality x but are clearly not photographs?

When a quality (or set of qualities) is simultaneously both necessaryand sufficient as a condition of images being photographs, then that quality/set of qualities is a definition of photography, and only photography.

NECESSARY CONDITIONS? DOES EVERY PHOTOGRAPH NEED TO BE... INDEXICAL? Andreas Gursky, Rhein II, 1999. (A photograph, but how indexical?) Still from Ben Lewis, Gursky World, 2002.

NECESSARY CONDITIONS? DOES EVERY PHOTOGRAPH NEED TO BE... REALISTIC? Andre Kertesz, Distortion 168, 1933. (A photograph, but how realistic?)

NECESSARY CONDITIONS? DOES EVERY PHOTOGRAPH NEED TO BE... TRUTHFUL?

Jeff Wall, Odradek, Táboritská 8, Prague, 18 July 1994 1994. (Truth? A staged photograph referring to a work of fiction – Kafka.)

SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS: IF WE LUMP ALL THE ABOVE QUALITIES TOGETHER, DOES SUFFICE TO COMPEL US TO THINK OF THE IMAGE AS A PHOTOGRAPH? Dartmouth College Electron Microscope Facility, 2004, Pollen.

Indexical, realistic, objective, sharp, clear, high definition (etc.) – but not necessarily of visible light per se.

Albert Renger-Patzsch, Echeveria, 1922. SEM image of the tip of a Norway Spruce branch. Karl Blossfeldt, Columbiablatt/Leaf of A Columbia-species, 1932. Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Surface of Zebrafish Skin (SEM image). Albert Renger-Patzsch, Mesembrianthemum Becca Butans, Center for Sustainable Lehmanni, ca. 1922. Nanotechnology, Nano-Koosh-balls, 2013. ETHICS Famine War/Violence/Torture Terrorism Exploitation, slavery, pollution, greed (etc.) Natural disasters Assuming that the ontology of photography allows some level of connection with reality, we face the question of the morality of the actions/situations themselves.

But there are of course differences: natural disasters may not be attributable to a moral agent (although you can try to argue that they, or some of them, are to some extent consequences of industry, globalisation – human actions).

But there are ethical questions concerning the photography of the events: eg

• who benefits from the photographs? • who should benefit from them and how? • who should photograph these events and their victims and how? • where should such photographs be shown and to whom and why? • what should the viewers make of the images – how to respond? Most ethical questions pertaining to photography are (most likely) questions of applied ethics. • You need to think and research case by case

Pvt. (pfc.) Lynndie England holds a naked detainee by a leash in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq. Sebastiao Salgado, Starved Child Looking for Food in the Region of the Former Lake Faguibine. Mali, 1985 Sebastiao Salgado, Starved Child Looking for Food in the Region of the Former Lake Faguibine. Mali, 1985 “[T]his beautification of tragedy results in pictures that ultimately reinforce our passivity toward the experience they reveal. To aestheticize is the fastest way to anesthetize the feeling of those who are witnessing it. Beauty is a call to admiration, not to action.” (Ingrid Sischy, 1991)

“Perhaps the camera promises a festive cruelty: ‘Oh, good, the camera’s here: let’s begin the torture so that the photograph might capture and commemorate our act!’ If so, the photograph is already at work prompting, framing and orchestrating the act, even as the photograph captures the act at the moment of its accomplishment.” (Butler, 2007, pp.958–959) But paying closer attention to your treatment of a case study, you may find that the arguments (your own and those of others) fall broadly within the two main categories of normative ethics/metaethics: But paying closer attention to your treatment of a case study, you may find that the arguments (your own and those of others) fall broadly within the two main categories of normative ethics/metaethics: • Consequentialism • Deontological ethics VERY BROADLY: Consequentialism: The moral value of an act is based on the act’s consequences: if the consequences are good, the act was good. (Close to colloquial expression, ‘the ends justify the means’.)

VERY BROADLY:

Deontology: You have to do your duty (Greek, δέον, deon = obligation, duty), i.e., you have to do what is right in the first place, regardless of the consequences – and you need to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do (doing what’s right is the motivation for the act). Butler’s speculation raises a clearly deontological problem: whoever photographed these events perhaps incited the very act, and therefore s/he did the wrong thing in the first place. From a consequentialist angle, these images may be seen to have had (some) good consequences: of exposing the practice of torture, of bringing (some of) the perpetrators to justice. Sischy is clearly criticising Salgado for a consequentialist mistake: his methods of representing the tragedy of famine are wrong, since they are likely not toincite the right kind of reactions in viewers.

Whereas it’s harder to criticise Salgado from a deontological point of view: his intentions are good (he wants to do the right thing), even according to the title of Sischy’s article: ‘Good Intentions’ (New Yorker, 1991). Richard Misrach, Destroy This Memory, 2010

AESTHETICS

Richard Misrach, Submerged Gazebo, Salton Sea, California, 1984. “My career, in a way, has been about navigating these two extremes - the political and the aesthetic.” (Misrach in an interview with Peter Brown, 2011.) Often, aesthetics is thought to be the theory of the beautiful in art and nature. E.g., • What beauty is • What taste is • What aesthetic experience is (like) • Which works of art are beautiful Often, aesthetics is thought to be the theory of formal properties in images: • What colours are used (if any) • How the image is composed • What formal properties produce ‘good’ images But in photography, things are less straightforward: But in photography, things are less straightforward: • Aesthetics, as a distinct philosophical discipline, predates the birth of photography (as we use the term) • Aesthetics already as a philosophical discipline is disputed: it is also said to be, e.g., the theory of sense perception in general, and ‘the philosophy of art’ in general, i.e., not necessarily to do with beauty (Hegel). • Photography, especially in its documentary forms, does not (necessarily) deal with beauty or formal properties.

So what is aesthetics in photography theory?

I am sick so this will be brief. I’m excited to dig into the meat of the history starting tomorrow.

All my classes Monday basically followed the theme of “well we can’t really know anything for sure” which is exhausting. I know it’s childish to want concrete answers. But I do! It takes a lot of energy to be okay with that and still try to piece together a picture while knowing it’ll never be complete.

In-lecture exercise B

DESCRIPTION: The image above depicts a rainforest shaped like human lungs. However, the right lung is partially burnt away, and all can be seen is the brown soil and burnt remains. At the bottom of the advertisement, the copy “Before it’s too late. wwf.org” and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) logo can be seen.

ANALYSIS: The image of the rainforest is the eye-catching as it takes up the center and most of the space in the advertisement. The brown from the burnt part of the lung contrasts with the rest of the advertisement which is green, drawing attention to it. At the side, the brand logo and copy are present but small. The main focus is still on the image depicted

INTERPRETATION: This advertisement depicted the rainforest as the earth’s lungs, its source of air and the way we sustain life. Yet, the burnt area depicts deforestation and our lack of care for the rainforest. However, the lungs are not on fire, and the deforested, burnt area is not as large as the remaining forested area. In addition, the brown, chared area, has specks of green growing, which ties in with the copy of “Before it’s too late”, suggesting to the viewer that there is still hope.