----- Forwarded message -----
From: "Damian Sutton" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, Oct 26, 2010 16:38
Subject: photography and ontology
To: "John Matturri" <[log in to unmask]>
Hello John,
Thanks for your response. Funnily enough, I have just been Rereading Walton's article, though for slightly different reasons.
On the whole I am not totally satisfied with his argument, and of course Walton himself enjoys the inherent contradictions within the photographic image regarding its ontological relation to the thing photographed. I think that's why he alights upon the description 'a mixture of fictions', and he is no different in this enjoyment than Bazin or Barthes.
The difficulty with the principle of transparency as I see it is that it leans towards a cognitive understanding of the photograph in which likeness does indeed supersede any materiality. However cropping, framing, selecting, and then interpreting, disseminating and articulating the image are all a part of the image, and I don't think we can have phenomenology of the photographic image without considering these as part of the phenomenon. They do not distract, alter or distort the reality we see, they constitute that reality. This is particularly the case with contemporary photography at home and professionally, with which we undoubtedly have a considerable material relationship, even if we forget it and only talk about photographs as if they were transparent.
This is probably made more clear with the use of CGI in cinema: in many ways the image is still transparent, since cognitively it is likely to be accepted as such (I am thinking more of digital cleanup, compositing and colour timing than the wholesale creation of fictional worlds in this example). With the redaction, as it were, of unsightly elements of the image, we are left with only a material relationship with it. In the case of the wholesale creation of fictional worlds and bodies this is indeed case, but I think we would need a few more movies than Avatar, Final Fantasy to really explore it without the attendant media discussion.
Best
Damian
Sent from my HTC
----- Reply message -----
From: "John Matturri" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, Oct 26, 2010 12:23
Subject: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 24 Oct 2010 (#2010-283)
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
The argument about the ontology of photography that has most defined the
issue in recent decades hasn't come up in this discussion: Kendall
Walton's notion of the transparency of photography, the notion that
because of its direct causal relationship with the depicted object the
photograph is more akin to, say, a mirror image than to a handmade
painting. He thus claims that it is appropriate to say that when we see
a picture of a dead grandparent we are actually seeing that picture, in
an analogous way that we say that say that we are seeing a long-gone
galaxy through a telescope. (My hunch is that the paradoxical nature of
the claim derives in part from pushing ordinary language into unordinary
territory, though I suggest that it does help explain the at times
uncanny power of photographs which from the start have been taken to be
relic-like and were almost 'predicted' by the notion of miraculous
non-handmade-icons.) But on the whole Walton seems about right.
There is a sense in which photographs are non-intention informational
carriers, perhaps a bit like fossils. Of course in making photographs
photographers do make decisions about framing, exposure, film/sensor,
etc. and these get expanded for cinematographers, but the
counterfactuals keep these factors under control: if an unmanned camera
with the same settings were tripped by a cosmic ray it would still in
some sense be a representation of the object, though with the
photographer-made version we could make interpretations based on
assumptions about why the decisions were made. In the background here is
the previously raised distinction between Grice's natural signs and the
intention-based signs he associates with semantic meaning. (I once asked
Walton about the influence of Grice on the claim and he said that he had
Grice's article in mind but didn't reread it when writing the
transparency article and seemed surprised when I told him that Grice had
used photography as a prime example of a natural sign.)
I think a lot of the complexities of photographs have to do with their
hybrid nature: at once Gricean signs because of their causal
connections, but also something of intentional objects, along with
having a lot in common with demonstratives (with photography seen as a
particular form of pointing). If this is right, sorting out the
interplay of these factor would be a complicated job.
j
On 10/26/10 6:03 AM, Damian Sutton wrote:
> Mike and everyone,
>
> I am interested in this discussion of photography, and a lot of it suggests=
> that we struggle to advance beyond a quais-Bazinian reading of photography=
> . I think there is still great sense in acknowledging that photographs stil=
> l provide a sense of the object that was there (passe Sontag and Bazin) and=
> several scholars have taken pains to say that we can never really contest =
> this (Batchen, Green et al). However, there is a growing critical debate on=
> the ontology of the photographic image which refuses to assign a phenomeno=
> logical innocence, or independence, to the photograph. What this means is t=
> hat it should not be axiomatic to say that the =91photo shows nothing more =
> than it shows=92, since the image is invested culturally, no matter how thi=
> n, fleeting or evanescent that cultural imprint. I think the smuggling in o=
> f cultural codes within the science of photography is akin to the Latourian=
> view of science, but I=92d have to go back and look.
>
> (Also I am not sure I have used =91phenomenological=92 correctly. It is a c=
> oncept (like =91transcendental empiricism=92) that I simply can=92t get rig=
> ht.
> Best
> Damian
>
>
>
> On 25/10/2010 14:30, "Frank, Michael"<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> photographs lie only when you assume that they are SAYING something as oppo=
> sed to SHOWING something . . . a photograph understood as simply showing so=
> mething cannot lie, it only shows what it shows . . . the idea that what it=
> shows corresponds to something else not in the photograph is an idea [mayb=
> e a linguistic idea] and cannot be blamed on the photograph itself -- for t=
> he poor photo does nothing more than show what it shows . . . which is axi=
> omatic
>
> mike
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Film-Philosophy [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of =
> Don Handelman
> Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 9:12 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 24 Oct 2010 (#2010-283)
>
>> Regarding truth claims of the visual, a line from the 1990 noir
>> thriller, Blindside:
> "Photographs lie; diagrams tell the truth."
>
> DH
>
>
>
>> Topics of the week:
>>
>> 1. Yet Another New Thread)
>>
>> *
>> *
>> Film-Philosophy
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>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:59:27 +1100
>> From: Ross Macleay<[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Yet Another New Thread)
>>
>> John& Mike both raise points that are important. We are not far
>> apart.
>> I am not sure though that my contention that a shot is used to make a
>> truth claim is only terminological. It follows from the fact that
>> shots
>> have a truth value that we can have a logic of film: true or false
>> propositions, entailment relations, valid arguments etc. Without such
>> logical means film could make narrative arguments.
>>
>> My reply to John is that a shot is used as an intentional (or
>> non-natural) sign with, if you like, all the nesting of intentions
>> that
>> Grice identifies in his theory of meaning. A shot is used with the
>> intention of making a truth claim. (I also a agree that a shot is a
>> bit
>> of non-intentional stuff that has a causal relation to whatever it's
>> actual footage of.)
>>
>> To Mike: Not only evidence or illustration but truth claim. I agree
>> that
>> a shot is embedded in discourse - historically all shots are embedded
>> in a world of linguistic (and other) propositions - but this is
>> precisely how truth is defined in its sense as 'coherence with other
>> truths'.
>>
>> As for 'specific referential relationship' actual footage is the
>> epitome
>> of truth defined as 'correspondence between proposition and the
>> world'.
>>
>> Maybe none of these things is inherent in the shot itself, but what
>> is
>> inherent in a sentence?
>>
>> Ross
>>
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> --
> Dr Damian Sutton
> Reader in Photography
>
> Department of Art and Design
> School of Arts and Education
> Middlesex University
> Cat Hill Campus
> Chase Side
> Barnet, Herts.
> EN4 8HT
>
> Tel. (0)208 411 6827
> Homepage: http://damiansutton.wordpress.com
>
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