The New Color: The Return of Black-and-White

[E. von Hoegh]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/auratic

That's as far as I went.

It pertains to Kirlian photography.

[gth]

And to give the ol' pot just one more stir....

Since the OP original links to the article don't seem to work, I suspect that some of the recent posts used rehash from previous quotations. I found the original text via Google here:

http://camramirez.com/pdf/P1_TheNewColor.pdf

and actually PRINTED and READ the article. Notwithstanding the sometimes "artful" language, her article in it's entirety is actually a homage to b/w Photography - and Photography as an art. The practitioners on this forum would do well to have more Charlotte Cottons on their side.

Here's how she ends the article:

"The contemporary black-and-white photography I’ve described above has moved my thinking about the present state of photography onto a much more optimistic platform. Through these contemporary manifestations, the true, mav- erick character of photography, of our medium’s history, is far from lost. Indeed, these threads of the past are given new and meaningful effect. I am not proposing that con- temporary black-and-white photographic prints represent the full embodiment of the future for photographic practice, just that the degree of self-determination that I am sensing in these photographers’ work is timely. I’m enjoying their contrary and imaginative choice to work in a monochrome media at a time when photography’s value as a contempo- rary way of seeing is to be questioned."

/gth

[Brian C. Miller]

Reveling in the auratic propensity of monochrome photographic thinking is perhaps not an unreconstructed Modernist impulse any longer, but rather a true
reaction to the axis shift in the way we look at photography in light of digital.

Ok, is she actually saying that we've seen too much Peter Lik, and it's all swinging back to B&W still lifes and such? Believe me, I know she likes B&W, I'd just like to read an essay without the obtuse and opaque language.

[Jim Michael]

Sometime you might investigate why a writer chose a particular word rather than dismissing it as BS, obfuscation, opaque, etc. This is particularly true in philosophical writings. Since you brought to light the use of auratic, that made me ask what relevance the term has in aesthetics. More reading required on my part, but this was interesting.

[Brian C. Miller]

From Relational Aesthetics Considered Auratic, by Rob Myers above,

Relational art is an aesthetic social space or event. If a social context is artistic, and activities or materials can be en-art-ed by that context, then the artwork is auratic. And even more so if the work en-arts the context. That is, there is something special and perceivable about the artwork and its context that would be lacking if the same base physical or social materials were not being used as art.

I think this goes back to Duchamp's "Fountain." This basically says that whatever the artist says is art, is art. But what people tend to forget is that this was part of the Dada anti-art movement. So now both art and anti-art are art, doesn't that cancel both out and there is no art? What fills the vacuum?

[E. von Hoegh]

Sometime you might investigate why a writer chose a particular word rather than dismissing it as BS, obfuscation, opaque, etc. This is particularly true in philosophical writings. Since you brought to light the use of auratic, that made me ask what relevance the term has in aesthetics. More reading required on my part, but this was interesting.

But when the writer uses what amounts to jargon, and jargon with fuzzy meaning at that, for no apparent reason other than to show that the writer is part of an "in" group, the article becomes something that can only be read and understood by constantly referring to definitions of the obscure and fuzzy terms used.
The article could better have been written in plain English, for all to understand.

[BetterSense]

But then it would have to stand on its own merits.

[E. von Hoegh]

But then it would have to stand on its own merits.

Precisely.

[Jim Michael]

But when the writer uses what amounts to jargon, and jargon with fuzzy meaning at that, for no apparent reason other than to show that the writer is part of an "in" group, the article becomes something that can only be read and understood by constantly referring to definitions of the obscure and fuzzy terms used.
The article could better have been written in plain English, for all to understand.

OK, I don't disagree with the don't use jargon for jargon's sake argument, however jargon is also a shorthand which facilitates communication at some level and in some cases very precise meaning is desired. It may be that when you don't understand what is being said you aren't the intended audience, or maybe some effort on your part is required. This isn't limited to art; e.g. there are a lot of physics papers available on the web which I can read but wouldn't understand without a lot of effort.

[E. von Hoegh]

"Good writing is clear thinking made visible".