८ ऑगस्ट, २०१९

"[T]aking social photos changes the way vision works—a process that began with the advent of cameras and is still evolving today. Teen-agers are cyborgs..."

"... and their phones are mechanical eyes that help them interpret their experience. 'To document,' Jurgenson writes, 'is to be involved with our own experience instead of passively letting it float by.' On this subject, Jurgenson has all the right, if somewhat dutiful, opinions: nostalgia is overrated, but he’s not into 'digital austerity.' We shouldn’t hark back to an era in which we were less attached to technology—mostly because that era doesn’t exist. 'Our reality has always been already mediated, augmented, documented,' he writes, 'and there’s no access to some state of unmediated purity.'.... For him, the risk of constant documentation is alienation: a sense that our bodies are generating still moments rather than constant movement. He cites Wolfgang Schivelbusch, a German scholar who wrote about the effect of the railway on human perception. With its speed and glass windows, 'the train flattens nature into something smooth and predictable, not something traveled within but something easily seen and consumed,' Jurgenson writes. 'As more of life is experienced through camera screens, does it occur at a similar remove, where the messiness of lived experience is made into something merely observable?'"

From "How Social Media Shapes Our Identity/The Internet constantly confronts us with evidence of our past. Are we losing the chance to remake ourselves?" by Nausicaa Renner (in The New Yorker). "Jurgenson" is Nathan Jurgenson, author of "The Social Photo/On Photography and Social Media."

३० टिप्पण्या:

Danno म्हणाले...

Skimmed to where an anecdote was contrasting queer performance art with old buddies on dirt bikes. Too New Yorkie for me.

Lucid-Ideas म्हणाले...

"...Losing the ability to remake ourselves."

To a significant extent I think that was the whole point. The level of information available on individuals is something I could've only dreamed of doing debriefs or gathering intel when I was overseas.

It is a goldmine, not just in dealing with pathological liars, but also in dealing with those few individuals who do actually manage to claw their way out of their own pathologies and become leaders and truly change their personalities.

Baghdadi is a perfect example. What could someone do with information - deep information - about his background, where he comes from, numerous failings, interpersonal connections, etc.? Could you get to him and keep him from stepping up? Could you in fact convince him to keep his head down while you shove someone milder to lead in his stead?

I am on the tail end of the Gen-Xers and it stuns me how completely documented and therefore regimented the lives of the modern young are. Knowing everything about someone else isn't just protection, it's a weapon. Naïve doesn't even scratch the surface.

joshbraid म्हणाले...

"As more of life is experienced through camera screens, does it occur at a similar remove, where the messiness of lived experience is made into something merely observable?"

I find that if I start taking pictures, yes, I start seeing the world around me through the camera lens. However, I don't have to "document" to live more intensely--what tripe! I have to be more available to others and the world around me to live more intensely; "documenting" withdraws my experience into MS WORD or Photoshop or something and out of the amazing and beautiful creation that is available to me free for the getting. I posit that the avoidance of the "messiness of lived experience" is more the motivation for much of the addiction to "documenting" through camera screens rather than being involved with our own experience of creation.

Sydney म्हणाले...

We were in LA last week for a conference and went to the Griffiths Observatory. It was impossible to see the view because the walls were lined with people taking cellphone photos of themselves.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

I developed a very good black and white perception, thanks to enormous numbers of shots and a photo darkroom. Seeing what would make a good B/W photo.

No such talent in color, since color processing was beyond the amateur and very expensive instead of a penny a shot.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

The American idea was once that you could move out west and start over.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

There's always the witness protection program. Though movie plots suggest it's not foolproof.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Does facial recognition work if you're a cyclops. Would screw up the measurement template.

Maillard Reactionary म्हणाले...

rhhardin @8:49 AM:

I do B/W exclusively (the old-fashioned wet way) although color is less expensive these days, using an inkjet printer and digital camera.

I find B/W very liberating, to not have to worry about the effect of discordant or distracting colors on the composition. It's all light, form, texture, and tone.

Two-eyed Jack म्हणाले...

Photographing with a camera allows you some measure of control of events. What is truly alienating is video.
I hated the experience of taking a video of my son's first birthday. I couldn't "be" there, because I was behind a camera for important points. I resolved not to be put in the position of having to experience events through a view-finder.
Now I look around at weddings and half the guests are holding up a phone. Everyone is recording what they would have seen if they had chosen to look.
I am definitely going to ban cell phones from my funeral.

Jaq म्हणाले...

Weddings that are run by the photographer are depressing to me. Just sayin’.

Maillard Reactionary म्हणाले...

Somebody named Jurgenson said, in part: "...taking social photos changes the way vision works."

Actually no, but it does feed into the kind of mindless, distracted entertainment that passes for life, and human relationships, in some people.

This article reads like the kind of manifesto one sees attached to art exhibits these days (ref. "The Painted Word" by Tom Wolfe). Few students escape from a BFA program, much less an MFA, without being thoroughly marinated in this "artspeak" tripe. I imagine for those who eventually recover that it takes years.

It is beyond me what Our Hostess finds in this sort of opaque, turgid bilge that motivates her to spend the time reading it. Decades ago, thinking that I might be missing something, I'd plod through articles like this and try to parse them, but eventually decided that I wasn't missing anything.

But hey, good luck and godspeed.

Jaq म्हणाले...

" find B/W very liberating, to not have to worry about the effect of discordant or distracting colors on the composition.”

OMG! For me photography is all about the colors. When you find the exact right combination in a shot, it’s magic. I have these hastas that grow by my porch and the flowers have a kind of lilacy pink color on long stalks, one day a pair of goldfinches, the male brilliant yellow and the female more muted, landed on them and for a moment about a half a foot apart, it was visual perfection.

n.n म्हणाले...

The extent to which are molded by ghosts of the past, selfies of the present, and constructs of the future, depends on personal priorities and obsessions.

gilbar म्हणाले...

. Everyone is recording what they would have seen if they had chosen to look.

I try Hard, not to take photographs while sight seeing. If you're looking into a viewfinder, you're Not looking. More important, you're not Thinking, not thinking about the scene; you're thinking about composition, exposure, etc. If you're Just Looking you'll remember it Way Better.

Of course, nowadays, people aren't looking through a viewfinder at the important thing... they have their backs to the important thing, and they're taking a selfie of themselves in front of it. The Only Good Thing about that; is that frequently the person with their back to the Horseshoe Bend of the Glen Canyon will back up over the edge, and die: Which is Hilarious!

Jaq म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Jaq म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
gilbar म्हणाले...

If you're Going to take a picture; ask yourself: Why would someone want to see this pic?
If the picture catches beauty, like our Beloved Professor Althouse's pix do; then people (some people, anyway) are going to enjoy looking at the pic.

If your pic is a poorly composed, poorly shot pic, of a Super well known thing (like the south rim of the Grand Canyon); please ask yourself: WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO SEE MY crappy shot.

If your pic is of you, Standing on some super famous, well known thing; ask yourself:
Wouldn't MY selfie look more better if i was to back up just one more step?

Laslo Spatula म्हणाले...

Thanks to digital photography and selfies, more chicks in the last five years have seen their own asshole than two thousand years worth of chicks before.

I am Laslo.

Mike म्हणाले...

Along these lines, whenever I run into someone from ages past, they generally assume I'm the same person I was when I knew them. Which is not the case. I believe most people don't remake themselves, and those who do confound them.

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

'and there’s no access to some state of unmediated purity.'

That's a relief.

Lucien म्हणाले...

There are only two stories about black people in department stores: 1) I went to this department store and no one paid any attention to me because I was black and so they figured I couldn’t afford anything; and 2) I went to this department store and they followed me around asking if they could help me because I was black and so they figured I was going to steal something. When white people go to department stores the staff are sometimes inattentive, and sometimes over-eager. That’s white privilege.

Known Unknown म्हणाले...

James Lileks said it best:

Before the advent of digital photography, you would take 1 picture and look at it a thousand times. Now, you take a thousand pictures and never look at them again.

MikeD म्हणाले...

If you'd like further on the history of "this", here's a great book: Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L3KQ30M/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title

Ken B म्हणाले...

Long-winded way to say maybe people pay too much attention to photographs.

PluralThumb म्हणाले...

The teenager, and the documentation of the objective surrounding(s) are fragile in both as the subject or a human individual.
We all need association if not focusing on seperation.
If the competition is selfies, then a cyborg may be created for the trade of attention to one self.
Any thing used will return the favour.
That sets guidelines for association.
Reality is a synthetic word that can be played with better by introverts.
This is why the Dutch Amish denounce future from a certain point in time and maybe with a twist of fate they are an insurance policy in case cyborgs try to take over the future. Photography is a good hobby that does bot invole the patience of say painting.
Patience in itself shapes humans.


Freeman Hunt म्हणाले...

If I video an event, say blowing out candles at a birthday, I frame it holding the camera at elbow level, hold it steady, and look away and at the actual action while I let it roll.

Everyone should ban phones at weddings. What the hell are people doing? Are they really going to go home and watch the wedding ceremony again? No.

Nichevo म्हणाले...

Everybody just get off each other's lawn will you

अनामित म्हणाले...

Well if you have half a brain, you've never been on social media, so problem solved.

अनामित म्हणाले...

Am I the only person now living who has never taken a picture of himself?