http://www.e-flux.com/journal/the-silence-of-the-lens/
>Unlike Baudrillard’s schizophrenic, who cannot locate the borders of the self in the world of mass media, the world of pure ideologies perpetually projects borders onto the self that in fact do not exist, deluding us into thinking we produce some particular view on the world, when we do not. The lens was a machine for producing not only images, but authors and worlds as well. But now it has fallen silent. In the past, one had to believe that one was really a long-dead king or an alien from outer space to suffer from delusions of grandeur. Tomorrow it will be enough to consider oneself a photographer.
Pretty interesting article by David Claerbout (pic related)
thoughts?
>>2834727
No idea what he's talking about. Can someone translate from "pretentious artistic bullshit" to English please?
>>2834727
Claerbout's one of my favorite artists, cheers
>>2834727
wow just wow. the charlatan academia strikes again.
>>2834732
the objects he's talking about in his article are photographic and cinema tableaus that are made entirely with CGI and visual effects.
These type of images are more and more popular in the world of art and "mass culture."
As technology and its applications have developed, the way that cgi images are made is becoming more and more abstract. For example, actual reference photos or real life samples are less necessary now that there's a huge archive of stock material, and databases of presets for lighting or environmental effects
fundamentally, this type of image is based on photography and the conventions of lens-based rendering. a modern technology. However, as mentioned above, even though it still LOOKS like photography its becoming less and less actual (or conventional) photography. The image in OP is entirely computer generated, for example.
for this reason the meaning of these images (remember, they're more and more popular and becoming more and more ubiquitous in society) becomes unreliable and can be outright misleading. They can be precisely made to show whatever the author wants, and so can be very effective ideological propaganda.
Their effectiveness depends on the audience being ignorant or illiterate of the exact conditions of their production, and simply identifying them with "photographs."
this has serious consequences from a historical perspective, because it means that the freedom and critical power of modern photography is (and has been for a long time) seriously undermined.
Claerbout's historical argument is especially convincing because of the comparison he is making between cgi tableaus and pre-modern tableau paintings. Back in the day, painting was used as an ideological tool by royalty and the church to tell all the proles what was "real" by using an easily understood visual language (they couldn't read after all). Essentially, claerbout's point is that now the same thing is happening again
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>>2834739
So basically:
As tech improves, we can crate higher quality CGI that people will mistake for photos, and that will affect what it means to have an image to share.
Why is that so hard to say?
>>2834739
the difference is that our contemporary illiteracy isn't generated by the gap between spoken and written language like it was back in the middle ages, but between the gap between "image culture"--amateur photography, snapchat, youtube videos, flickr, etc etc--and these "pseudo photographic" representations that are literally everywhere and are completely constructed to show a specific thing or convey a specific message.
Claerbout's point about the "silence of the lens" is that formerly photography and the lens contained an irreducible quality of contingency and randomness because of the way the camera straight up recorded everything in front of the photographer, and in this way (in artspeak it's called "indexical") it reproduced and maintained the relationship between people and the physical world. It is this relationship that's more and more undermined by the so called "postmodern" state of affairs nowadays. The irony is that for all its postmodern sci-fi glamour, this is actually PRE-modern neofeudalism that's finally adapted to all the technological and societal effects of modernity
>>2834739
a "problem" created entirely by digital cameras.
lets keep shooting film and forget about this hack and his bullshit invented "problems".
>>2834747
Implying nobody ever faked a photo before digital.
>>2834744
>this is actually PRE-modern neofeudalism
lmao.
>>2834743
firstly because that's not really what he's saying, that's a simplification of what he's saying that reduces its important points down to nothing. The way you phrase that makes it seem abstract and pointless, you have to at least include the fact is that it isn't just that people are mistaking images for reality, they are mistaking images for THEMSELVES (for the reality of their own existence)
but mainly because he's making an ARGUMENT, he's trying to present his ideas in a rhetorically, logically, and historically persuasive way, and you can't do that by just stating your thesis like it's a fact. The whole point of discourse and discussion is that you can figure out what ideas are good and what ideas are bad, which are most effective and which are most irrelevant, etc... It's not about arriving at a single absolute conclusion like a science experiment, holy shit how is this not obvious, the whole point of all that "pretentious bullshit" is to give YOU, THE READER, the tools to figure out for yourself whether or not you agree with him instead of just autistically evaluating bare facts against your own preconceived moral or ideological framework like some kind of robot
>>2834747
no a "problem" created by the elite ruling class that controls ur shitty little prole existence
>>2834752
>it isn't just that people are mistaking images for reality, they are mistaking images for THEMSELVES (for the reality of their own existence)
wat.
>>2834754
instead of unpacking that i'll just copy paste from the article since Claerbout already does a good job of analogizing it
>Some time ago I tried to explain to an acquaintance what I meant by pure ideologies. It was in vain, until the next day when she described taking a magnificent picture with her iPad as she was watching the sun come up on the horizon. She showed the picture to me. It was indeed one of those images we would all like to see upon waking. Incredible colors, the sun perfectly placed, and below, an undulating countryside where animals and people are peacefully asleep.
>I asked her how much of the picture she thought she had taken herself. The vantage point is indicated by the IP address of the device. So is the weather, season, and time of day. Actually, algorithmic processes can “guess” the ideal moment for photographing such a wonderful daybreak, so as to raise the mood of the average person. There was nothing of herself in what she showed me, beyond the coincidence of technology with itself.
>>2834749
of course everybody did. thats what photo is. photo is a manipulative endeavor from day 1 of its existence.
>Then there will be a disappearance of photography as we know it. Instead of choosing how we want to see the world, we will see the world the way it wants to be seen by us. There will be a perfect equivalence between our gaze onto the world and the signals emanating from it, with no gap between the two where we might locate definitively the specificity of our own contribution.
but this faggot pretends this is is something born in the mid 90's. what a shithead. maybe he should stick to "videoart" and close his whore mouth.
>>2834743
Anon omitted a whole lot of complete fucking bullshit statements and inane rambling he slipped in there, like that bit about the difference between scanning and taking photos or how so very conscious making a shitty cg rendering is compared to that carefree photo shooting. Or all of the convenient understatements of the human factors in photography or non-human factors in cgi.
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>>2834756
>but this faggot pretends this is is something born in the mid 90's
no he doesn't you double-faggot. maybe you should read a "history book" and get the cock out of your mouth
>>2834755
no fun allowed: the artist
and what would be geniune creation, making 3d rendered motonegros under the rain? geniune enough?
>>2834755
Imagine hanging out with this guy.
>Hey, look at this picture I took
>There is nothing of you in that picture beyond the coincidence of technology with itself
>>2834758
>no he doesn't
he clearly does. he says photo has entered a problematic state because X and Y practices raised. but such practices where available and a core of its production from day 1.
so all his shit argument is flawed, you cock sucker.
>>2834760
>>There is nothing of you in that picture beyond the coincidence of technology with itself
hes clearly a buzzkiller, but tell me that it isnt the most accurate definition of "snapshit" weve ever seen here. id use it on my crits.
>>2834755
I don't think he is making any sense in that bit. The fact that algorithms can predict things (which is already a very vague way to put) it doesn't mean there is "nothing of herself in that". She picked up the camera, she looked out of the window, she decided to point the camera at the sun. Those are all her decisions. Just as it is his decision to flip 0 and 1 to make the image of a sweater appear (or rather use some abstract software, the absolute powerless schizophrenic) or a painter might chose to apply wet particles to canvas in a particular way or a writer might choose to assemble words he did not invent in a specific way.
And the quote doesn't actually address the anon's question.
>>2834755
So she took a photo of something that was happening in front of her, rather than having made a scene from scratch with her creativity and then taking a photo. Also not a new or novel concept, and one of the long-standing issues with photography in general is that you aren't creating anything, and are merely pointing a camera at something that is already happening.
What does that have to do with someone looking at a photo of a building, and mistaking the image for themselves?
I think that's grossly mischaracterizing the reason that people take photos, and then building a goddamned book of flowery bullshit language on top of that broken premise.
And what does that have to do with new technology? Just to state that you can teach a computer to look for pretty colors and nice shapes, and send a drone out to look for stuff that fits the math? So what?
Why can't any of these people get out of their own asses enough to just say shit?
>>2834760
>There is nothing of you in that picture beyond the coincidence of technology with itself
see this I don't get: who cares?
>>2834767
If your idea of photography is never having taken a photo that anybody else on the planet could think of or take, then it matters to you, but that's not possible from the start, so it's a bullshit thing to even be talking about.
And chances are good, the girl with the sunset wasn't taking a photo to be a creative amazing ground breaking artist, she was probably taking the photo to have a nice photo of a pretty thing she saw, and then this pretentious asshole came up and gave her a whole thesis about why she sucks, and now she's never going to call him back, because who needs pretentious condescending faggots like that in their life?
>>2834767
>who cares?
Yes that's it exactly, who cares? Who even cares???
im gonna go browse instagram watch anime and inject heroin into my veins, brb
>>2834770
have fun bby :3
>>2834770
Implying that anyone who dismisses this crap article as being a crap article is shallow and should go back to their mainstream media?
If you don't like people disagreeing with something, then don't post it for discussion in the first place.
Nobody likes pretentious assholes who write that way, and it's especially true when at the end of the article, it turns out they haven't said anything meaningful or useful. It's a waste of everyone's time.
That entire article can be summarized by the sentence:
If you aren't creating a scene, you're just taking snapshots, and soon, you'll be replaced by a computer that can do the same thing.
Why would that have any effect on our sense of "self"? Does watching The Avengers affect my sense of self? A lot of that stuff is made in a computer, does that confuse me? It doesn't feel like it does...
>>2834777
chill let's de escalate there's nothing wrong wiht mainsream media like anime for example, it's great
actually the point you made reminds me of this article about thes tick up the collective critical modernist ass: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/recognizing-complicity
also
>If you aren't creating a scene, you're just taking snapshots, and soon, you'll be replaced by a computer that can do the same thing.
idk i mean this sentence sounds scary as fuck
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>>2834779
>idk i mean this sentence sounds scary as fuck
Why? Is your creation of generic snapshots somehow vital to your livelihood? Do you take photos of the sunset, and the eifel tower, and a pile of garbage, because you actually have something important to say, and you're afraid that you'll be drowned out by a couple of drones who can take a boring photo (that nobody else cares about) better than you?
Or, like most people, do you take photos because you like to take photos, and because you like to capture beauty you personally saw, and to show people things you've seen?
Do you think the guy making hamburgers for his kids for dinner at home is terrified that there's a mcdonalds opening up a few blocks away? THEY MAKE HAMBURGERS TOO OH NO! MY KIDS WILL STARVE-oh wait, no, they won't.
>>2834781
NICE analogy dude
weeb got roasted along his crappy article and now retreads into a clown persona. yawn.
>>2834786
i just feel really good right now what can i say. i'll come back and school u later when the high wears off and i need the ego boost from intellectually dumpstering reactionaries
>Vilém Flusser explains that those moments in history when the balance between representation and linear thinking gets disturbed are moments of great danger.
Anybody care to elaborate on this point?
>post-modernist pseudo intellectual bullshit
not even once
Technological determinists like this need to be killed.
I don't think that he is providing any real arguement, but rather just his strict viewpoint on how the tech we use influences how we use it.
Fucker might as well be spewing about religion.
>>2834838
He's not a technological determinist if you read his first few paragraphs. He's clearly an economic determinist.
>>2834727
He's talking about NASA
itt: anti-intellectual scrubs
