This work is amazing!
The projects that I am drawn to involve human behavior. I am especially fascinated with how we interact with strangers. Hopefully this is a jumping off point!
The projects that I am drawn to involve human behavior. I am especially fascinated with how we interact with strangers. Hopefully this is a jumping off point!
Comments
How does the "photographer function" differ from the "photographer"?
Is "active" photography something completely different than it's "passive"/"Observer" brother?
I don't think I would do a project just like this. It's hard enough for me to photograph one stranger, much less two.
I appreciate the artists desire to break down barriers and reinforce just how similar we all are.
...else why would the subjects comply with his "intimate" request.
...else why would the subjects comply with his "intimate" request.
I would say it's because they want to be a part of something. I think it's weird that people would NOT want to.
Would you do it? ;-)
People's expressions change if they even see the camera, much less if asked to pose.
Ducky might say that all photography is a lie...and i understand the idea, but you can see exactly how some of the subjects were feeling, which is the truth (or a partial truth) in that moment.
As for me, i freely confess i never ask myself who the photographer is — which leads me to believe that it is not a very powerful sign ... but let us ask Jen.
Is "active" photography something completely different than it's "passive"/"Observer" brother?
...i hope you do realize that they are two very different questions, with no link whatsoever between them. The first i've tried to answer above; as to the second i will have to think. :)
When I am studying (technique, subject matter, etc.), then the photographer becomes much more important.
I see it as two different issues. I can study the function (decor, personal expansion, social change, documentation, etc) or I can observe the beauty of the photo. If I am in "learning mode", I am interested in the photographer, motives, inspirations, etc. If I am in the mood to look at images, I'm not interested in the photographer.
p.s. I apologize for not having thought it through the very first time, and commenting in such a hasty manner.
Okay, just so I understand.... in this case, "sign" = photographer, "unity" = photo, "form" = subjects ?
form=the art form; in this case, the photo; or a collection of photos
unity=the fact that you can assign it to a signle person, i.e., the photographer [the man], and call it his "work", or the product of his "genius".
All this will tell you what Beckett meant when he said: what matter who is speaking, someone said, what matter who is speaking. :)
Now you're talking! This, to me, is the heart of the matter! This is the good stuff.
At times, there has been so much of me behind my images, that I will not share it with others. Not out of fear of revealing something bad, but something beautiful, and too precious for general viewing.
And so of course, dealing with "paid actors" and/or "models" gives the filmmaker/photographer much greater "control" over his results.
These "spontaneous" film projects seem to be attempting to achieve ends altogether different.. So I don't quite know what to make of them. More a data collection tool for studying the "science" aspects of "human behavior" than attempt at full-filling an "art" related "photographer function" (of crafting a fiction).
And no, Jen, I would NOT participate, as I would find the photographer's request a rude invasion of my privacy, and would think him/her a "rather cheeky fellow". ;)
But I still think of Adams as full-filling more of an "observer" function that "photographer" function... in many ways of the same ways that perhaps a "realist" painter differs from a "Surrealist" painter and/or abstract impressionist.
For example, Breathless' elliptical editing, which denies the viewer a fluid narrative typical of mainstream cinema, forces the viewers to take on more critical roles, connecting the pieces themselves and coming away with more investment in the work's content.[citation needed] Godard also employs other devices, including asynchronous sound and alarming title frames, with perhaps his favorite being the character aside. In many of his most political pieces, specifically Week End, Pierrot le fou, and La Chinoise, characters address the audience with thoughts, feelings, and instructions.
Perhaps these little adventures of photographers interacting with strangers represents attempts at "criticism"? I suppose in the case of the female photographer's interactions/ response to the male cat-callers?
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If you want to know what a work means, the last person to ask is the artist.
Of course. I am too connected with most of my images.
This is something that I remember, then forget... that detaching is the way to go. The photographer (or author, or painter) puts herself on view for the other but must let go of expectations.
Correction, above: Do you [always] see in a photograph [not your own] what the photographer wanted you to see?
I'm sure I don't. But my concern is what it means to me, which is why I am comfortable saying that the catcall photos meant little to me (but the act of taking them meant more).
....and ps When I think of a "still" photographer, Ansel Adams always comes to my mind. He took wonderful photographs with purpose, one he successfully achieved, nature conservancy.
But I still think of Adams as full-filling more of an "observer" function that "photographer" function... in many ways of the same ways that perhaps a "realist" painter differs from a "Surrealist" painter and/or abstract impressionist.
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I agree. Honestly, Adams bored me until I saw a huge collection of his work at a gallery in Santa Fe. It moved me to tears! It didn't hurt that his work was along side Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, and Paul Strand! Amazing...
It's nice when an artist can "enlarge" his/ her frame... as Wagner did at Bayreuth.
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If you want to know what a work means, the last person to ask is the artist.
A work of art may mean more than it is supposed to, mean different things to different people, even different contradictory things to the same person. It is what i have been trying to explain to Jen — my purpose in asking her the question — but she has been resisting it with her usual tenacity. ;)
I agree with your above comment completely.
I'm sitting here drinking coffee, listening to Jim Croce, and trying to make sense of fj' s comments! Lol
It is possible for something like a text, a photograph, to circulate without an "author" sign attached to it. In the realm of text, in the modern context, a good example of it would be a newspaper, which rarely has an "author" sign [the byline in its case], or at least not a very powerful one. So while the author is a given — "author" sign is not; it is a cultural phenomenon. And its function is to constrain the meaning of a "text" which is otherwise inherently "explosive".
I hope now the distinctions would be clearer.
"I will come straight to the point. The writer has no idea what she is talking about. [No wonder she is a journalist.] I mean let’s take an old-fashioned tale; how it grows, multiplies, until you have no idea of what constituted its original core [if it is even possible to speak of one in this context]; it is how a “myth” grows. What makes this possible? Is it the oral form, not bound by a fixed format? No. In fact, counterintuitive as it may seem, the oral form may have an exactly opposite effect on the “mutability” of a text, as Plato explains in the myth of Theus. [Phaedrus. What this myth also shows you is that the spoken/written word dichotomy is not new but very old. It is also an artificial dichotomy, since, once a book hits the stands, it is already a part of the oral tradition; we speak about it, exchange opinions about it, and so on.] What is it, then? In order to understand that first you will have to understand what “constrains” something like a modern-day novel, puts a “closure” to it. It is not the printed format, but something else ... what we call the signifying machinary and the system of constraints characteristic of it. In plain English, certain signs [signifiers] have exactly this function, that they constrain the meaning of a text. One such is the “truth” sign [the idea that truth itself can be contained in a text], another is the “author” sign, or as somebody called it, the “author-fucntion”. It is of the latter that i would speak now, as the one most immediate in this context.
The author is a modern figure, in the sense that he is the most important figure in any modern text, its centre, though seemingly outside of it. The very first question one asks when encountering any modern text is who is the author? He is the repositary of all meaning that is contained in it, one who binds it together. All the lines developing from it converge on him. But not so in the case of an old-fashioned tale. Here the “author-function” is either non-existent, or is completely eclipsed by the “hero-function”: The most important figure in an old-fashioned tale is its hero, who is, for narrative purposes, “immortal”; not only he lives a charmed life, spanning many “existences”, some even in conflict with each other, but even his death fails to kill him, but, consecrated by it, he merely passes into true immortality, his godhhod, demigod-hood, or whatever. And so it is that we have a whole mythology centering around such figures as Hercules, Theseus, Shiva, or, if we are looking for their more modern counterpart — to some extent — James Bond, [who is still growing strong long after the death of Ian Fleming].
But how does it all signify for a modern-day newspaper? A newspaper story, unlike almost every other modern-day text, has no “author” sign [byline in its case]; but, even where there is one, it is not very powerful — which means it is liable to “grow”; it does, both orally and otherwise. [What internet has done is to merely expedite this process and bring it out in the open, that's it.] The writer has not got even this part right. For example, there existed, long before the dawn of the internet age, a whole apocrypha regarding Gandhi, especially concerning his experiments with his sexuality [some of it true, some not.] In fact, the phenomenon is so common that it has led to such divisions within the press as tabloids, gutter press, “rag”, state press, free press, etc., as though it was exclusive to only certain parts of it. Convenient fictions."
Plato, "Meno"
Sorry for the "reframing". ;)
I cooked okra [or bhindi as we call it] if someone is interested. :)
Will read the article today, nicrap. I have a few ideas, but they need to gel.
How did you prepare your okra?
I like to slice it up, coat with a mixture of flour and cornmeal, and fry it a half inch of oil. Hmmmm....very "Southern".
But I love Greek, and your meal looks slightly similar to pita bread and tzatziki sauce.
http://www.fromvalerieskitchen.com/2013/07/toasted-pitas-with-tzatziki-sauce/
There is so little humility. No grace AT ALL.
have I changed so much that I cannot find a single point to agree upon??
I feel disconnected, politically.
I'd rather my boat be adrift than tied to what I see around me.
Rant over.
The sense of this phenomenon, however, is varied; in ethnographic societies the responsibility for a narrative is never assumed by a person but by a mediator, shaman, or speaker whose "performance" - the mastery of the narrative code - may possibly be admired but never his "genius." The author is a modern figure, a product of our society insofar as, emerging from the Middle Ages with English empiricism, French rationalism and the personal faith of the Reformation, it discovered the prestige of the individual, of, as it is more nobly put, the "human person." It is thus logical that in literature it should be this positivism, the epitome and culmination of capitalist ideology, which has attached the greatest importance to the "person" of the author. The author still reigns in histories of literature, biographies of writers, interviews, magazines, as in the very consciousness of men of letters anxious to unite their person and their work through diaries and memoirs. The image of literature to be found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions, while criticism still consists for the most part in saying that Baudelaire's work is the failure of Baudelaire the man, van Gogh's his madness, Tchaikovsky's his vice. The explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author "confiding" in us.
And i only recently learned of Tchaikocky's "vice". i never once would have attributed his "deficiencies" to it.... although i absolutely "do" in foucault's case... for Foucault chose to define himself in a way entirely different than foucault.
yes... to be continued.
Her perspective is very open, global, and sort of self negating.
From your response, I noticed the line about a truth signifier and belief that truth can be defined in text. For me, that is the scariest concept, especially if moderated comments sections are to be read for deep meaning and "truth".
Excellent points, all; except that i think a distinction needs to be made between, on one hand, the mythological/dramatic tradition represented by Homer, etc. and, on the other, the critical tradition represented by Socrates, et al. It is the latter tradition where author becomes really important: he personally signs the truth he states. However, even though his presence is important, all it ever does is to establish him in the role of the truth-teller — someone who is capable of telling the truth — a sort of “philosophical hero” whose very life bears witness to his truth. It is as one such figure that Socrates appears in the writings of Plato, who himself claims “there are no writings by Plato nor ever will be, and what now pass current as his are the work of Socrates, the ever fair and ever young*” — so that one could say that Socrates was their real author. But, even where Plato is clearly the author of some texts and present in them as such, his presence once again merely augments his role as a truth-teller: he is someone who runs who would run extreme personal risks in order to carry out the work of truth. One such text is his Seventh Letter, which makes a record of the journeys he made to Sicily, and specifically of his undertakings with Dionysius the younger — all for the sake of truth. So that, even though author is important even in the early “critical” tradition in west, it is only in so far as his life, his person, makes his words ring true; he is not yet the all-important figure he will be in modern criticism, the repository of all the truth contained in any text.
*To the Uneducated Cynic. Julian.
"moderated comments"?