Janis Klimanovs - Annotation: What you get is what you see, Frank Kessler

In the essay Digital images and the claim on the real F. Kessler has collected different opinions that argues about how digitalization has destroyed the fact that photographic images serve no more as documentary evidence of reality but is just a process of digitalization. The physicality of represented material in an digital image can no longer be seen as truth. The possibilities of manipulations are unlimited which puts an ending point for documentary photography and film as an ontological claim on the real referred to A. Bazin essay. The claim was based on analog technology facts that "photographed reality can be regarded as a result of a trace of light reflected from an object that has caused a chemical reaction in the photosensitive emulsion of a filmstrip." He also describes C. Sanders Peirce's remark on the complex semiotic nature of photographs being both icon and index combined concept of the indexical signs of photographic images. The mechanical process and indexicality has come to be considered an essential quality of conventional photo and film that guarantee authenticity. Overall, he discusses about three main issues: technology, indexicality and practices to answer the question wether digital technology destroys the privileged (ontological, indexical) link between analogical photographic or cinematic images and the real?

In the technological part his discourse introduces with D. Schwartz views within professional photojournalism. There are set certain bans of manipulations to save the objectivity of the documental material however it can't be tacitly set because there are too many various reasons that influence the outcome. However, all issued problems with manipulability are not just connected with the beginning of digital era, core of the problems can be linked with photography all along way before. These are the differences of human perception, how subjects and scenes are presented through lenses "camera vision". Also, it can be said that photography has always been possible to manipulate and digitalization just refreshed the possibilities and gain on to a higher level.

Within the chapter of indexicality he raises the question wether the content what you see digitally can not be indexed anymore and is reduced with the rise of the digital. The information is captured in a different way, the light is not collected on a sensitive material but saved in numbers that can be stored, transferred and manipulated. Still it does not mean that digital image lost all its realness because "a photo is always the trace of something that has been in front of the camera" declares R. Barthes.

The records within films can be divided in two groups of profilmic (reality that refers to time and space or event) and afilmic which are more fictional records. The indexical "claim on the real" can never go beyond the profilmic. However, there are countless examples of documentaries and other facts of reality that has been set up and constructed for the spectators as documentation of "reality" because the index can be there but it does not guarantee anything thus reality can be constructed.

In the third part about practices the author describes how the development of medium has increased the usage of photographical images and digital media who is providing different new channels to easily represent the records. Even more, digital images have become more social than personal, recorded materials provoke a discussion of images as notional information not records of present as documental evidence that can be seen as a record of reality. It is clear that media change and looking at technology development and possibilities the trust of photographic images in general can get lost. The spectator can get confused and the communication outcome can make an irreversible switch into another state. The solution to avoid it would be proper updated literacy that would enable spectator to think more critically about what is seen and claims to be true.

References

Kessler F. What you get is what you see. Digital images and the claim on the real. 187-197.