Is photography reality? No.

[Arthurwg]

“On Photography, A Philosophical Inquiry” Diarmuid Costello, published by Routledge Press, First published in 2018.

I'm interested in a very basic question: Why do humans need pictures? This includes painting and photography as well as other images on the wall. Must be something primeval here.

 

[Arthurwg]

Photographers talk about light or the absence thereof. Musicians talk about the power of what you do not play in certain phrasings. (Or in the words of one of my teachers, "The funk is in the holes.")

This reminds me of an old saying, "The art is the idea."

 

[chuckroast]

I'm interested in a very basic question: Why do humans need pictures? This includes painting and photography as well as other images on the wall. Must be something primeval here.

Because we are all trying to achieve some level of immortality.

 

[BrianShaw]

Because we are all trying to achieve some level of immortality.

Not really...

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I find it interesting, but I read a fair number of academic texts. I’ll say that this particular text is less off-putting. The author summarizes contemporary schools of thought about photography and then proceeds to present ontological and epistemological arguments—again from the “orthodox” to the “postmodern” camps. I don’t know how difficult it would be to follow-up on some of the citations … unless you had a good library or, more likely, access to a university or college library.
I’d be curious to hear others’ reactions to this small, but engaging text.

When I did my undergrad, poststructuralism/deconstruction was all the rage, and being both an academic and bibliophile, there's a decent chance I have some of them at least on my shelves. I've got over 2500 books in my library now.

 

[MattKing]

When I did my undergrad, poststructuralism/deconstruction was all the rage, and being both an academic and bibliophile, there's a decent chance I have some of them at least on my shelves. I've got over 2500 books in my library now.

No wonder you are looking for reality .

 

[MattKing]

You can tell a good photo in two seconds. We know.

And what do you say about the photos where you start out being unsure about them, but they grow and grow and grow in your estimation of them until you realize they are great?
In my experience, those photos provide the most reliable depictions of reality.

 

[chuckroast]

No wonder you are looking for reality .

Concur. Nothing did more damage to human knowledge IMHO than desconstructionism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. In less than 50 years, these "thinkers" managed to wipe out 5000 years of developed human thought, not to mention aesthetics and ethics ...

 

[Pieter12]

Concur. Nothing did more damage to human knowledge IMHO than desconstructionism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. In less than 50 years, these "thinkers" managed to wipe out 5000 years of developed human thought, not to mention aesthetics and ethics ...

On the contrary. It has opened up and stimulated new avenues of thought. What is lacking today is visual literacy.

 

[chuckroast]

On the contrary. It has opened up and stimulated new avenues of thought. What is lacking today is visual literacy.

Oh, it definitely opened up new avenues of thought like:

• Filtering historically great art like Van Gogh or Carravagio though modern PC pieties
• Denying that objective truth exists in any domain whatsoever including ethics, aesthetics, or normative law
• Proposing that everything is entirely self-referential and only the individual responds to the art is what matters, not the actual intent or message of the artist

And that only in the domain of art. The nonstop attack on history, philosophy, and political thought is certainly awe inspiring...

 

[TomR55]

Who can say? It’s likely that the need to <you fill in the verb here, e.g., paint, write, …> is an expression of our desire to avoid dying, or, knowing that we will die, to live in the memories of others … ? Now, we many might then ask from whence does this need/desire arise? Is it an expression of our genetic code or something from outside of our experience of the world, … or evidence of other modes of being … etc.? And one question leads to another … and the next thing you know we’re where we are at this moment and place.

I'm interested in a very basic question: Why do humans need pictures? This includes painting and photography as well as other images on the wall. Must be something primeval hereCouCo

 

[Pieter12]

Oh, it definitely opened up new avenues of thought like:

• Filtering historically great art like Van Gogh or Carravagio though modern PC pieties
• Denying that objective truth exists in any real whatsoever including ethics, aesthetics, or normative law
• Proposing that everything is entirely self-referential and only the individual responds to the art is what matters, not the actual intent or message of the artist

And that only in the domain of art. The nonstop attack on history, philosophy, and political thought is certain awe inspiring...

You are being rather selective in your examples, bringing up only those that align with your narrative.

 

[chuckroast]

`

You are being rather selective in your examples, bringing up only those that align with your narrative.

I actually don't have a particular narrative - that is, I am not promoting a singular worldview. But I do think that retrospectively inflicting contemporary thought on old art is just plain dishonest. I also think that relativizing aesthetics to "my truth" is deadly for art. All of this arises from a foundational premise common to these schools: That objective truth does not exist. That is, things that are true in their own right without regard to the individual experience and are normative for us all.

My narrative has to do with why people like Foucalt, Derridas, and their eventual intellectual heirs rejected the thinking of the Enlightenment ... but that's a discussion not for here.

OT but amusing...

But I do have a fun relevant story that may elicit a chuckle, heard as told by one of the people who was directly involved.

Years ago, Bell Labs was doing research into how human language is expressed and how it could be made recognizable by machines (in this case only English was in scope). They ended up writing a program that would take arbitrary standard English as input and produce output that was correct grammatically but utter gibberish. For example, one might see sentences like, "The Lord is my Shepherd, but I need a 1/2-20 washer to put into my beef stew."

These guys were not only very smart, but they had a vicious sense of humor so ... they put Derrida's original work through the program, and published the output on USENET (and early precursor to things like Reddit) as "Jacques Derrida's' newest book!!!!" It went viral and there was much rejoicing and celebration for this new font of thinking from the master of Deconstructionism.

They eventually had to confess their fraud when it turned out that there were Ph.D. students doing research based on this "new work". So, Derrida was apparently indistinguishable from gibberish even among the experts. The story, as told, had several hundred computer scientists rolling on the floor in laughter.

See also:

https://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook

Sokal affair - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Oh, it definitely opened up new avenues of thought like:

• Filtering historically great art like Van Gogh or Carravagio though modern PC pieties
• Denying that objective truth exists in any real whatsoever including ethics, aesthetics, or normative law
• Proposing that everything is entirely self-referential and only the individual responds to the art is what matters, not the actual intent or message of the artist

And that only in the domain of art. The nonstop attack on history, philosophy, and political thought is certain awe inspiring...

Actually, I think the critique of the established canon (of any genre, be it art, architecture, literature, music, politics, etc) is an entirely valid and valuable activity. Particularly as it pertains to analyzing WHY certain things are canonical or more importantly why certain things are NOT canonical. Why is it that the standard of canonical art is so Western/European driven? How many photographers who are considered canonical can you name who are European or Anglo/American? Conversely, how many Mexican? Peruvian? Argentinian? Egyptian? Nigerian? Indian? Thai? How many of those can you name who are women? The camera is an incredibly democratic tool - the talent required to use one is not the sole province of formal academic training. There is no good reason why there should not be equal numbers (in proportion to population) of Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Brazilian, Nigerian, Ugandan, Egyptian, or other ethnic/national groups.

Now maybe I'm not reading the right sources but I don't recall hearing any scathing postmodern critiques of Van Gogh or Caravaggio... where have you seen those and what were they? If anything Caravaggio has come in in the last 30 or so years for a major re-evaluation and elevation within the canon of Western art because of his social dissident nature. Foucault would have loved Caravaggio.

There is a balance between intent and viewer response - we should not discount either when evaluating a work of art. To say that the artist's intent is meaningless is asinine - if the artist's intent had no meaning, they wouldn't have created the work in the first place. Conversely, to say that the artist's intent is the only way to interpret a work is equally asinine - if you see something in the work, you see it and respond to it that way. I may not share that experience, and I may align with the artist's intention, or I may see something else also distinct from both your interpretation and the artist's intent. That doesn't make you or me wrong - it just means that either A: we have to make our case for our interpretation, B: we're both on crack and delusional, or C: the artist failed to clearly convey their intent because their audience doesn't respond the way they intended.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

`



I actually don't have a particular narrative - that is, I am not promoting a singular worldview. But I do think that retrospectively inflicting contemporary thought on old art is just plain dishonest. I also think that relativizing aesthetics to "my truth" is deadly for art. All of this arises from a foundational premise common to these schools: That objective truth does not exist. That is, things that are true in their own right without regard to the individual experience and are normative for us all.

My narrative has to do with why people like Foucalt, Derridas, and their eventual intellectual heirs rejected the thinking of the Enlightenment ... but that's a discussion not for here.

OT but amusing...

But I do have a fun relevant story that may elicit a chuckle, heard as told by one of the people who was directly involved.

Years ago, Bell Labs was doing research into how human language is expressed and how it could be made recognizable by machines (in this case only English was in scope). They ended up writing a program that would take arbitrary standard English as input and produce output that was correct grammatically but utter gibberish. For example, one might see sentences like, "The Lord is my Shepherd, but I need a 1/2-20 washer to put into my beef stew."

These guys were not only very smart, but they had a vicious sense of humor so ... they put Derrida's original work through the program, and published the output on USENET (and early precursor to things like Reddit) as "Jacques Derrida's' newest book!!!!" It went viral and there was much rejoicing and celebration for this new font of thinking from the master of Deconstructionism.

They eventually had to confess their fraud when it turned out that there were Ph.D. students doing research based on this "new work". So, Derrida was apparently indistinguishable from gibberish even among the experts. The story, as told, had several hundred computer scientists rolling on the floor in laughter.

See also:

https://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook

Sokal affair - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Oh, don't get me wrong- I LOATHE Derrida. He did write in unintelligible gibberish, and he KNEW it. He did it on purpose to be an arrogant snob and look down on people who didn't understand it.

 

[chuckroast]

Now maybe I'm not reading the right sources but I don't recall hearing any scathing postmodern critiques of Van Gogh or Caravaggio... where have you seen those and what were they? If anything Caravaggio has come in in the last 30 or so years for a major re-evaluation and elevation within the canon of Western art because of his social dissident nature. Foucault would have loved Caravaggio.

Kimball takes this up at some length in "The Rape Of The Masters" but I don't recall if he specifically addresses Caravaggio.

 

[chuckroast]

Actually, I think the critique of the established canon (of any genre, be it art, architecture, literature, music, politics, etc) is an entirely valid and valuable activity. Particularly as it pertains to analyzing WHY certain things are canonical or more importantly why certain things are NOT canonical. Why is it that the standard of canonical art is so Western/European driven? How many photographers who are considered canonical can you name who are European or Anglo/American? Conversely, how many Mexican? Peruvian? Argentinian? Egyptian? Nigerian? Indian? Thai? How many of those can you name who are women? The camera is an incredibly democratic tool - the talent required to use one is not the sole province of formal academic training. There is no good reason why there should not be equal numbers (in proportion to population) of Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Brazilian, Nigerian, Ugandan, Egyptian, or other ethnic/national groups.

That's all well and good if that's what's done. But far too often, current DIE pieties (Diversity, Inclusion, Equity) are imposed on those old pieces of art, architecture, et al and given standing as fair critique of the work. Old things are a product of their time, just as we are of ours, and assessing the old thing with contemporary filters is almost always dishonest and misleading.

There is a balance between intent and viewer response - we should not discount either when evaluating a work of art. To say that the artist's intent is meaningless is asinine - if the artist's intent had no meaning, they wouldn't have created the work in the first place. Conversely, to say that the artist's intent is the only way to interpret a work is equally asinine - if you see something in the work, you see it and respond to it that way. I may not share that experience, and I may align with the artist's intention, or I may see something else also distinct from both your interpretation and the artist's intent. That doesn't make you or me wrong - it just means that either A: we have to make our case for our interpretation, B: we're both on crack and delusional, or C: the artist failed to clearly convey their intent because their audience doesn't respond the way they intended.

Herein we disagree pretty fundamentally. It is my view that the only thing of significance is artistic intent and how the artist themselves interacts/responds to the resulting artifact. They are making the art for themselves. When they get it right, the viewer has much the same response. The artist has somehow tapped into common aesthetic ground and brought it to the viewer who responds because there is something inherent in how we're all wired. There is a reason that, say, Japanese music lovers are deeply drawn to American Blues or Mozart, even though there is almost no direct cultural connection between those societies - there is inherent wiring that gets people there.

And that is why I object to how postmodernism and poststructuralism treat thought - it denies any possibility of an objective grounding for aesthetics. Everything is relativized to the in-the-moment existential encounter between the arts consumer and artifact. I think it's the death of beauty.

I have many other objections, but like I said, those are not for here ...

 

[chuckroast]

Oh, don't get me wrong- I LOATHE Derrida. He did write in unintelligible gibberish, and he KNEW it. He did it on purpose to be an arrogant snob and look down on people who didn't understand it.

Ah, I found a reference to the aforementioned program:

Mark V. Shaney - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This may have been what I was thinking of:

Dewdney pointed out "perhaps Mark V. Shaney's magnum opus: a 20-page commentary on the deconstructionist philosophy of Jean Baudrillard" directed by Pike, with assistance from Henry S. Baird and Catherine Richards, to be distributed by email.[8] The piece was based on Jean Baudrillard's "The Precession of Simulacra",[13] published in Simulacra and Simulation (1981).

 

[MattKing]

Concur. Nothing did more damage to human knowledge IMHO than desconstructionism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. In less than 50 years, these "thinkers" managed to wipe out 5000 years of developed human thought, not to mention aesthetics and ethics ...

It's funny - this is about 180 degrees from what I meant by my quip .

 

[chuckroast]

It's funny - this is about 180 degrees from what I meant by my quip .

Sigh ... I have much work to do converting you heathens ...

 

[MattKing]

Sigh ... I have much work to do converting you heathens ...

Oh - you ascribe to a religious view of these issues .

 

[chuckroast]

Oh - you ascribe to a religious view of these issues .

...Complete with an Anthropology, Soteriology, Theology Proper, and Eschatology, thank you very much ...

 

[Pieter12]

I don't have enough aspirin to read through this whole thread, but addressing the title I would say that no representation is reality, except for the reality of itself. As I stated in an earlier post, what is severely lacking today is visual literacy. Not necessarily art history or appreciation, just the rudimentary skill to look at a piece of art or a photo and be able to understand what is happening composition-wise and what the artist may be trying to communicate. You know, how some were taught to read literature.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Oh, it definitely opened up new avenues of thought like:

• Filtering historically great art like Van Gogh or Carravagio though modern PC pieties
• Denying that objective truth exists in any domain whatsoever including ethics, aesthetics, or normative law
• Proposing that everything is entirely self-referential and only the individual responds to the art is what matters, not the actual intent or message of the artist

And that only in the domain of art. The nonstop attack on history, philosophy, and political thought is certainly awe inspiring...

Art inspires the viewer. Who cares or even knows what the artist's intent was?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Actually, I think the critique of the established canon (of any genre, be it art, architecture, literature, music, politics, etc) is an entirely valid and valuable activity. Particularly as it pertains to analyzing WHY certain things are canonical or more importantly why certain things are NOT canonical. Why is it that the standard of canonical art is so Western/European driven? How many photographers who are considered canonical can you name who are European or Anglo/American? Conversely, how many Mexican? Peruvian? Argentinian? Egyptian? Nigerian? Indian? Thai? How many of those can you name who are women? The camera is an incredibly democratic tool - the talent required to use one is not the sole province of formal academic training. There is no good reason why there should not be equal numbers (in proportion to population) of Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Brazilian, Nigerian, Ugandan, Egyptian, or other ethnic/national groups.

Now maybe I'm not reading the right sources but I don't recall hearing any scathing postmodern critiques of Van Gogh or Caravaggio... where have you seen those and what were they? If anything Caravaggio has come in in the last 30 or so years for a major re-evaluation and elevation within the canon of Western art because of his social dissident nature. Foucault would have loved Caravaggio.

There is a balance between intent and viewer response - we should not discount either when evaluating a work of art. To say that the artist's intent is meaningless is asinine - if the artist's intent had no meaning, they wouldn't have created the work in the first place. Conversely, to say that the artist's intent is the only way to interpret a work is equally asinine - if you see something in the work, you see it and respond to it that way. I may not share that experience, and I may align with the artist's intention, or I may see something else also distinct from both your interpretation and the artist's intent. That doesn't make you or me wrong - it just means that either A: we have to make our case for our interpretation, B: we're both on crack and delusional, or C: the artist failed to clearly convey their intent because their audience doesn't respond the way they intended.

What if the artists intent is to sell a pretty picture that would help pay his rent?