Haven't we been here before?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/ar...graphy.html?hp
--Darin
Haven't we been here before?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/ar...graphy.html?hp
--Darin
these days, it's almost 'anything printed on an inkjet'
Yawn ...
I am a simple minded guy who can easily become lost in all of this heady stuff. So for give me if I sound stupid, but to me a photograph is how we have always thought of a photograph. It is made from a camera that captures an instant in time of an event that ACTUALLY occurred. Everything else lives in the virtual world of computer fabrications. To day, most fabricate while only a few truly photograph.
For me, it is just that simple....
Actually, it is not a simple question. And it needs to be asked again every once in while, because things keep changing. Turns out you don't need film anymore (a sensor will do), you don't need a lens (a pin hole is fine), you don't need a dedicated camera (just use your phone), you don't need a recognizable depiction (there are a hundred ways to make an abstract photograph). But what about images made on the glass of a scanner? They check many of the boxes associated with photography. Are they photographs? Photorealistic images from the darkroom or Photoshop, using refining tools without the underlying photographic image to start with? I'm glad that I don't have to make the call, I will get by just fine with the traditional bottom-of-the-pants use of the term. But art historians and philosophers will have to keep redefining "photography", and it is not an easy task.
It hasn't been that simple in the last 150 years! The questions these curators are asking have been confounded by work that goes back at least that far.Originally Posted by Stephen Willard
Scanners and photocopiers seem like very traditional photography machines. They make indexical images from objects in the world using light.
There is nothing about a digital image that makes it a photograph. To me, a photograph is still a physical object written onto with light. Digital images are images just the same and there is nothing worse about them than photographic images, but they are not photographs. If digital images can count as photographs because they can superficially resemble them, then photographs can count as paintings.
The fact that digital images are called photographs wouldn't bother me if it was just a matter of semantics, however, it's evidence that society did not and does not recognize what a radical innovation digital images are, and that is a sad thing.
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
--A=B by Petkovšek et. al.
I knew what the word meant, but I thought I would look it up. I'll try to use it more often.
Definition of INDEXICAL
: an indexical word, sign, or feature
First Known Use of INDEXICAL
1971
As much as I admire Merriam-Webster over its rivals, that is a horrible definition as it contains the word being defined. Ugh. The word "indexical" is one of those art world words, morphed from literature theory. If you like talking like a English grad student then you should learn it well. Start here: http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/Documents/S4B/sem02.htmlI knew what the word meant, but I thought I would look it up. I'll try to use it more often.
Definition of INDEXICAL
: an indexical word, sign, or feature
First Known Use of INDEXICAL
1971
--Darin
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