Reading (check the links under the authors names):
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin
Extracts from Camera Lucida by Roland Barths
What has Occurred Only Once: Barthes's Winter Garden/Boltanski's Archives of the Dead by Marjorie Perloff
Benjamin and the Political Economy of the Photograph by W. J. T. Mitchell
Post a short (two – three paragraph) synopsis of the readings on the class blog. In addition to each text synopsis you are to provide a brief autobiographical summation of the author.
Bring to class quotes and subjects to discuss from the readings
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
ReplyDeleteAs a whole, this essay was tough to understand. It seemed that each section has its own idea that had little or nothing to do with the previous. That being said, I feel that each section was incredible insightful and went into tremendous detail on it’s focused topic. The beginning explained the history of reproduction from the Greeks to the middle ages and was followed by the idea of “aura”. I found the concept of authenticity Benjamin describes in section four is accurate, “the unique value of the “authentic” work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value. This ritualistic basis, however remote, is still recognizable as secularized ritual even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty.” He is saying that WE give it its authenticity. Following that, he also believes that WE caption each photograph and when someone else does, no matter how specific it may be, it can get lost in discourse. “Pictorial language has not yet matured because our eyes have not yet adjusted to it.” After, he compares theatre VS film with sound, magician VS surgeon, and painter VS cameraman. I thought these comparisons were cleaver, yet confusing. Following his comparisons, he explains that now that we have a camera, anything is worthy of shooting. I really enjoyed this quote, “Our taverns and our metropolitan streets, our offices and furnished rooms, our railroad stations and our factories appeared to have us locked up hopelessly. Then came the film and burst this prison-world asunder by the dynamite of the tenth of a second, so that now, in the midst of its far-flung ruins and debris, we calmly and adventurously go traveling.” At the end of his essay, he completely loses me. He explains Dadaism and follows that with was and fascism…
Extracts from Camera Lucida
I enjoyed this essay much better than Walter Benjamin’s even though it was wordy and slightly confusing. Roland Barthes essay was mainly about his quest for the Photograph. This Photograph was something he searched for throughout the entire essay, starting with looking for help, to figuring out what exactly he was looking for. I thought this idea was cleaver and interesting. Like The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, I found a lot of quotes throughout are that I enjoyed, thought important and inspired me for idea of photo projects. One of the most important quotes was “the Photograph is never anything but an antiphon of ‘Look,’ ‘See’ ‘Here it is;’ This bold quote is accurate, yet wrong. Yes the photograph shows an instant in time, yet you can read beyond just that and understand or feel what the photo is trying to convey.
He continues to explain what he thinks is the three practices, to do, to undergo, to look. I think this is an accurate explanation. These three practices are what help create a photograph.
He decides to get his photograph taken and the essay takes quite a turn. He starts explain how if you know you are being photographed; you act different, which I completely agree with. Following that, he wonders about ownership. Who owns this image? The object/subject or the photographers?
This somehow leads into him talking about Death. “What I am seeking in the photograph taken of me is Death.” Which leads, finally, into a photograph of his mother.
The ending of this essay, again is confusing.
(part one od two, Nick Schietromo)
What Has Occurred Only Once
ReplyDeleteThis essay seemed to be a criticism on Barth’s Camera Lucida. However, it did help me understand Camera Lucida better. Perloff pulls out key points and talks about them. The most interesting to me was “As soon as the click of the shutter has taken place, what was photographed no longer exists; subject is transformed into object, and even into a museum object.” I really enjoy this theory. I would like to continue talking about it in class.
Perloff continues with a statement by Barthes that I feel we talked about in class week one, about photographic discourse; “Every photograph is somehow co-natural with its referent” Even though it was in CL, Perloff explain it in a more simpler way.
Later in the essay, Perloff speaks of Delphine Renard interviewing Barthes asking “why had he chosen photography as his medium?” Responding with “what interested me was the property granted to photography of furnishing the evidence of the real; a scene that has been photographed is experienced as being true.” He continues explaining the idea of what’s true/real.
Finally finishing the essay with the idea of photographic context. Giving examples of Boltanski’s Les Suisses. The idea was if you put mixed pictures of murderers and victims without labels, you think you know who it is, but in reality without the caption you don’t.
Benjamin and the Political Economy of the Photograph
This essay seemed the toughest as a whole. It spoke a lot about photography’s relationship to capitalism. A few quotes I liked were very bold, yet interesting. “the camera is, on the one hand, the epitome of the destructive, consumptive political economy of capitalism; it dispels the aura of things.” I feel that this one quote describes the entire idea/motive of the essay. He also goes into detail about Marx’s faith and its correlation to photography. The idea of whether photography is a fine art or a mere industry is also brought up.
Finally, the idea of a fetishism was brought up. At this point, I’m pretty lost in the essay.
(part two of two_Nick Schietromo)
The Work & Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
ReplyDeleteBy Walter Benjamin
In Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” he a) investigates the meaning of art during the brink of the Industrial Revolution, when it had become easy to manipulate and distribute to the masses due to the advancements in technology and b) analyzes the methods and reasons for art reproduction.
When the reproduction of art began, it was an incredible development. It introduced people from all over the world by sharing visual treasures – paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, films, etc. People no longer had to read or hear about something, they could actually see it with their owns eyes. Not only was it possible to see it, they had the ability to purchase a copy at a small fraction of the cost compared to the value of the original masterpiece. For example, the original Mona Lisa painting hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, but someone in a small town in the middle of nowhere drinks their morning coffee everyday from a Mona Lisa Mug. Although it is not the original, the replication is probably good enough for and they have the knowledge of knowing what the painting looks like. For those who cannot physically go to the Louvre, a calendar, t-shirt, post-card or poster of the Mona Lisa is a fantastic alternative.
However, what Benjamin discusses in his essay is the loss of “the aura” in a reproduced piece of art. Despite the advantages of mechanically reproduced art, there are many disadvantages as well. He mourns the awe-at-first-sight moment for a first-time viewer of an original. Benjamin insists that commercialization and mass-production has tarnished “the aura” and depleted the uniqueness of authentic art, resulting in cheapened and depreciated “cult value” products. Well-stated in part two of the essay, Benjamin explains how even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element- its presence and space… it’s distinct existence.
Bio ...
Walter Benjamin (July 15, 1892 – September 26, 1940) was a German-Jewish literary critic, philosopher, translator, radio broadcaster, and essayist. He became interested in Marxism, which led him to visit Russia for a year. He later moved to Paris, France. In 1940, while attempting to move to Spain and eventually the United States, Walter committed suicide by poison in fear of being punished for betraying the Gestapo.
Extracts from Camera Lucida
ReplyDeleteBy Roland Barthes
My favorite part of this reading is when Barthes reminisces about his mother. In section twenty-five, Barthes discusses how he felt while sorting through his mother’s old photographs after her death. He mourns that the images only reflect the physical qualities of his mother, not the spiritual – which is what he is yearning for. It is not until later in section twenty-seven that he finds satisfaction from a photograph. Although the picture is of his mother as a child, Barthes finally recognizes his mother – her presence, her aura, “the brightness of her eyes”. He does not just see his mother, he feels her. The photograph, not taken by a skillfull person helps justify Barthes’s theory that an amateur photograph is closer to the “truth” than a professional. Barthes believes it is not technicality that legitimizes a great image, it is the ability to make a viewer feel honest emotion.
Thinking about Barthes’s theory, he seems to be very accurate. A photographer can have all the skills in the world to make great photographs, however, what good will it do if they are unable to capture not only the physical beauty of life but also the ambience. When you think about the average person with a regular point-and-shoot camera, they might make the most horribly composed, over-exposed photograph. Yet, if they might capture that split second of someone’s laughter, smile, or tear, that one horrible, over-exposed photograph can have the ability to resonate with someone who is a stranger to the person in the image.
Bio...
Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 – March 25, 1980) was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes explored a wide range of fields, including being a significant figure in establishing structuralism as one of the leading intellectual movement of the 20th century. He also analyzed mass culture and contributed to semiotics with his radical analysis S/Z.
What has Occurred Only Once: Barthes's Winter Garden/Boltanski's Archives of the Dead
ReplyDeleteBy Majorie Perloff
In this essay, I found Majorie Perloff’s discussion of the correlation between death and photography to be very interesting. Her selected quotes from Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida strongly supported her idea.
“What the photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.”
“When we look at a photograph of ourselves or of others, we are really looking at the return of the dead.”
Photography really is sort of like death. A photograph is a specific moment in time that can never, ever be recreated. A photograph is “what was” never “what is”.
I really enjoyed reading about Christian Boltanski’s photographic “social experiments” Tout ce qui reste de mo enfance but especially his Détective instillation. It is such a fascinating idea of how he placed murderers and victims on the same level, forcing his audience to decide who was innocent and who was guilty. Not knowing anything but what they looked like, it must have been truly a mind game to decipher who was who because as the saying goes“ you should never judge a book by a cover.”
Bio...
Marjoie Perloff (September 28, 1931) is a poety scholar and critic in the United States. Attended Catholic University and taught there from 1966-1971. She also taught at the University of Maryland, University of Southern California and Stanford University. Perloff’s work includes the interpretation of experimental and avant-garde poets relating to modernism and post-modernism through visual arts and cultural theory.
Benjamin and the Political Economy of the Photograph
ReplyDeleteBy W.J.T. Mitchell
After reading through this short essay several times, it still has not entirely clicked in my mind yet. I would really like to discuss this further in class so I can get a better understanding of what is being talked about.
Favorite Quote: The camera is a “two handed engine wielded at the gateway to the revolutionary millennium (pg.54)
Bio...
William J. Thomas Mitchell (1942) is the Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago. Mitchell is also the editor of the “Critical Inquiry” and is a contributor to the journal “October”.
Merrisa Brierly
ReplyDeleteEXTRACTS FROM THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF MECHANCIAL REPRODUCTION – Walter Benjamin
This essay is about mechanical reproduction starting for the middle ages and the reason for reproducing images or art. Replicas were made by people in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their work, and by third partied in the pursuit of gain. The Greeks only knew two procedures of technically reproducing works of art. They were founding and stamping. Bronzes, terra cottas, and coins were the only art works that they could produce in quantity. Woodcut graphic art became mechanically reproduced before script did as well. In the beginning of the 19th century, lithography made its appearance. It was distinguished by the tracing of the design on the stone rather than on wood. It was surpassed by photography and by film. Although reproduction was important it didn’t live up to the original work of art. The traced of the first can be revealed only by chemical or physical analysis, which is impossible to perform on a replica. “The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity,” (Benjamin, 43). Process reproduction is more independent and technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations that would be out of reach. We also know that the earliest art works were originated from a service of a ritual – first the magical, then the religious kind. Along the lines of reproduction, some art is made to be reproduced, to make the most money possible which proposes the question of what’s “pure” and what’s not. Film is said to be a more pure form of art. It captures more than 1/60th of a second, it can capture minutes to hours of one thing allowing the viewer to technically know more.
Walter Benjamin Biography:
Was born in Berlin on July 15, 1892. He was a philosopher, a literary critic, translator, and radio broadcaster. He had committed suicide and died September 26, 1940.
Merrisa Brierly
ReplyDeleteEXTRACTS FROM CAMERA LUCIDA – Roland Barthes
This reading I enjoyed because it wasn’t all facts and information. It was kind of a story from Barthes about “finding” his mother through a picture. Barthes explains what he was feeling while going through his mother’s old photographs. He was trying to see if the photographs showed his mother spiritually instead of just physically. He had no luck however. Everything he found was just an image, a documentation of what his mother may have looked like. After searching for a while he finds a photograph that portrays who his mother is as a person. It was a photograph of his mother as a child with her family. He said he could feel her presences through the brightness of her eyes and her posture.
Another part of the reading that I found interesting was in the beginning of it when he was talking about “posing” for the camera. From what I got out of it he was saying that you are more vulnerable when posing for the camera. You have more control on what you want the photographer, the viewer, etc. to see who you are. I disagree with this statement because I feel that a candid shot can show who you are the most. You are unaware of what’s happening allowing the camera to capture you when you least expect it. I feel that, that unexpected photograph is more accurate than the posed one.
Roland Barthes Biography:
Roland Barthes was born in Cherbough, Manche in 1915. His father died young forcing his family to move to Bayonne then Paris. He suffered from tuberculosis, spending time in sanatoriums in the years 1934-1935 and 1942-1946, during the occupation. He was a philosopher, critic, French literary theorist, a structuralist and semiotician. Barthes died in a street accident in Paris on March 23, 1980.
Merrisa Brierly
ReplyDeleteWHAT HAS OCCURRED ONLY ONCE
BARTHES’S WINTER GARDEN/BOLTANSKI’S ARCHIVES OF THE DEAD – Majorie Perloff
This reading talked about the photograph telling you what it is. An example would be the photograph of a family. It only shows you what the family looked liked, not what or who the family is. Kind of going back to the reading by Roland Barthes when he’s talking about trying to find his mother in his family photographs. It’s about finding the meaning behind the photograph.
“As soon as the click of the shutter has taken place, what was photographed no longer exists…” (Perloff, 31).
The other part of the reading was comparing photography to death. A photograph captures a specific time that cannot be recreated. She also talked about a photo by Christian Boltanski. It was a series of photographs that were placed next each other leaving you distinction between who was a murder and who was the victim.
Majorie Perloff Biography:
Was born September 28, 1931. She’s a poetry scholar and a collage teacher. Her work includes the interpretation of experimental and avant-garde poets relating to modernism and post-modernism through visual arts and cultural theory.
Merrisa Brierly
ReplyDeleteBENJAMIN AND THE POLTICAL ECONOMY OF THE PHOTOGRAPH – W.J.T. Mitchell
Although this may have been the shortest reading, it was the hardest. Some key things that I got out of it was that photography was referred to as an industry. It was a way to make money and that there as a biblical blessing to early photographs/photographers.
W.J.T. Mitchell Biography:
Born in 1942. He’s Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago and an editor of the interdisciplinary journal, Critical Inquiry, and quarterly devoted to critical theory in the arts and human sciences. He’s a scholar and theorist of media, visual art, and literature. Mitchell is also associated with the emergent fields of visual culture and iconology .He is known especially for his work on the relations of visual and verbal representations in the context of social and political issues.