User:Annalystad/secondyear/gratuateseminar/thesis

Thesis Outline

Thesis Chapers and Drafts

Draft 1

Introduction

After the invention of the photograph, the medium has throughout time been considered a more truthful than say a painting. Closer to reality. A representation of the real. A photograph is not just an image, it’s an interpretation or a trace of reality. Sontag explains how a photograph is about acquiring something, a form of taking control – that a photograph is a form of possession. Through this possession and control one can gain information as well as experience, the information one can get from a photograph is dependent on the experience or the subject photographed - the photograph itself is only a byproduct. Through being photographed one becomes a part of this collection of information, either as a chronological system or a family photo album. In this scheme of information photography becomes a ‘target for surveillance, and an item of exhibition’. (Sontag, 2008) Surveillance and spectacle in today’s society one can start to see patterns of lack of intimacy, an increase is narcissism - the photograph has become something to share, and only on rare occasions be made into physical form. This shift of the non-physical image has changed the way one looks and uses images - they become this indestructible weapon one shares with the world, loses control over it and blames society for the aftermath.

Today the distribution technology is so excessive, powerful and accessible, this thesis will look at the publicness of the photograph, it’s shift into a social commodity and why it is so important to keep some part of the photo a private medium. I will be discussing what shaped my critical approach to images and how I was informed by the culture I grew up in. My motivation for this question is based on a previous experience with the digital image and a serious breach of privacy. In 2006, I sent a nude image of myself to a boy and he sent one back to me – a shared experience. The image of me was sent out through MMS and uploaded online – this breach in privacy has shaped my approach in making photographs. Today’s society is a society of being looked at, where privacy and intimacy does not exist in this accessible public world. Photographs are no longer being looked at on special occasions or twenty years later for personal memorabilia, but to be instantly shared and forgotten.

In previous works, I have discussed this theme in different ways. ‘Bodyscapes’ was a project creating landscapes using the human body as my tool. Looking back at these photographs I see them more as a response to the shame I felt when losing control over my body by beautifying the human form and making it into an object with multiple layers of distortion. After this realization, I created a project based on the place it started, my old junior high school, the place of shame and growth. I photographed the space that once alienated me through public display. Being intrigued by the private/public, I dove into a forgotten archive of my late grandfather. This physical archive is placed at my parents’ house in Norway and to gain access to this private archive I had to use public applications to attain digital images of the analogue archive. This had me interested in the photograph as a private medium and how we use photographs today. Today the photograph is used as a means to share and to make public, to have an audience – can the photograph be brought back to the private sphere and if so, how?

Chapter 1 – Photocopy Experiment

For this experiment, my focus was to investigate how images are distributed and what happens when you lose control over an image. I took an image that has only been in my digital archive and never been used for anything. The photograph is depicting a young nude woman, standing with her back towards the photographer (me), in my bedroom, on a red carpet with red curtains. This image was once one I found to be quite displeasing, and has therefore not been used for anything. Over the process of being here at PZI, I’ve come to look at images in a new way, and with that evaluating my own work differently. This image that I chose is of my roommate at that time, standing in my bedroom, posing – I intended to use the figure of her body and not the environment – intended to cut her out of the image and place her in a different scene. I ended up finding the picture to be ugly and never used the image for anything. This is a digital image, which was intended as public, but ended up being private. Now, this image has an event, an experience with it, something to share.

By using this photograph, I wanted to make a point of how images are distributed. This has always been the purpose of images, either it is made for a gallery, commercial work or for families to look at and share with one another. Because of these different ways of distributing images I wanted specifically to look at images that was never used in public. Since the image was always in my possession, it has taken on a private meaning, an experience. I chose to use the photocopier as my way to distribute this image, I printed it out, as one would do for personal use. After that I decided to scan it, print the scan and repeat this until the image disappeared to almost nothing but a few traces of the photocopier itself. By doing so I found that the image became more private and significant in the way that this would eventually happen if you only had one copy, copied it, gave the previous one to someone else, and so forth. If the digital image of me as a teenager was analogue, this might be one of the ways it would reach a larger audience. Although, looking at a print the image takes on a different meaning. Once you have a physical image, the viewing experience becomes a private affair, to be looked at alone or in a group, it would be a slower process and the people looking at it would feel different about the image compared to a digital image that has larger opportunities to be manipulated and ridiculed. It also leaves the option of contacting the person depicted and sending messages of prejudice and name-calling - the interaction would be different. In this instance, the process became the product rather than one final image.

We need to take it upon ourselves to keep some photographs intimate, what I’m trying to say is not about sex or nudity – more in the sense that you keep the images, look at them, learn from them, dig them up from time to time for thought and pleasure without having it being judged by any other than you. By doing so, one starts to notice the experience of looking, touching and being a part of something. You learn from it, study it, and look at it in context. With regards to the incredible, but dangerous distribution technology and the availability to share, one has forgotten the importance of the physical image and how to look at images. The personal encounter is missing, the relation to other people as well as the exchange of stories and feelings the images give you. Of course, images are subjective and if you look at family albums, one will have different memories, and these stories are the essence of intimacy. It is sharing in on a personal level rather than sharing online to prove something, to be judged by others who do not have a relation to the place and maybe not even to you as a person. People argue that the words written to accompany the image tells you everything you need to know, are you are free to ask questions in a public way – but people will not share everything online. I’m not arguing that we should not share images online, but rather to print out a few images that have a meaning to you, for keepsake and to have experiences with these images with others that creates new memories.

Bibliography

Mirzoeff, N. 2009. Visual Culture. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

Bathes, R. 1993. Camera Lucida: reflections on photography. London: Vintage.

Sontag, S. 2008. On Photography. London: Penguin Books.

• • • Nice to use process as a way of exploring an idea rather than thinking of the image itself as a final product.

• • • ‘In the society of the spectacle, individuals are dazzled by the spectacle into a passive existence within mass consumer culture’ (Mirzoeff, 2009) meaning that in the high distribution of photographs are making us more passive with regards to the way one react to them. Photographs only get a few short seconds and possibly a ‘like’ before the viewer goes on to the next image. It This is due to the lack of a personal connection to the subject and the photographer which also leaves a greater opportunity to leave disrespectful comments and not being responsible for them.

• • • Mention family albums – look at thesis Sigrun gave you.

Thesis on family photographs Sigrun gave you, find page number and authors name

• The digital family album is no longer a physical object to be passed down through generations and looked at repeatedly or on special occasions. The virtual family album is always at a tactile distance, seen on screens. Could this distance point to a shit or change in the emotional value of the traditional family photo?

*Gone are the little personal idiosyncrasies and quirks found in family albums and gone is tits reassuring material physicality.

• Being active in social networks engender an increasingly diminished commitment to our traditional roles in the family, neighborhood and wider community. Our historical definition as citizens has been transformed into notions od ‘subjects with agency, dynamic actors called users…. The social is no longer a reference to society.’.7 Individual, virtual social profiles are defined by an intricate network of visual and textual data, areas of interest, political views, relationship status, favorite music, films, books, where we live, studied, worked, travelled, or visited.

• In her introduction to family spas? The Meaning of Domestic Photography (1988), Patricia Holland writes: ‘Recording an event has become part of that event – and perhaps the most important part…’9 Likewise, it seems, the sharing of photographs in the virtual public sphere has become essential in contemporary photography. Even back in the era of the family album, photographs were idealized as if created for the eyes of someone outside the family unit, as if craving a larger audience. 10 Currently, the ways access and availability of instant-media allow for an exposure or self-absorption that would formerly have been private. Joanne Finkelstein speaks of an increased self-consciousness, defined by the ways in which other see us. In this era of a heightened eve of attention, 11 fleeting impressions and self-representation are key. If selecting and editing our finest moments was an issue in the age of the family album, it has become a major aspect of the social network, where in a matter of seconds, photos can be uploaded and shared – waiting for comments and ‘likes’. And yet, the editing process in the family album is generally enacted by the album owner, who creates a narrative from the images. While the Facebook platform ostensibly offers endless storage for images, it also ultimately sets the frame for the type of images that can be uploaded by users. Hence, self-consciousness is limited to a generic Facebook profile (Figure 0), or the individual user’s each and every move, within the limits of Facebooks ethical and commercial guidelines.

• • • Assumptions about people in an online world, friends as virtual characters, visual identity, social identity

(Christina ta ett bilde av se sjøl der ho hold over brysta, fotocopier det)

*** This photographs are seen as carriers of true evidence of what was there when they were taken, truer even than the human witness to those scenes. (page 11) JOURNAL ARTICLE Family Photographs and Domestic Spacings: A Case Study Gillian Rose Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Vol. 28, No. 1 (Mar., 2003), pp. 5-18 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3804564 Page Count: 14

Thesis Drafts

Thesis Outline 8 Nov 17

Thesis Structure:

The thesis will take the form of a family album, divided into the chapters explained below. This album will of course contain photographs, some intended for a private audience, although the physicality/location of the album is not yet decided.

Thesis Question:

I will be investigating photography and the (mis)representation in within private and public space, by conducting physical experiments on how a photograph gets reappropriated in public based on context and intent - then alienated from the subject and/or photographer.

Relation to previous research?

• School Project – In this project I was exploring the concept of digital privacy and body. I was basing this project of off an experience of losing control over a private image to a public spectacle. I went back to the school where the nude image of me was distributed, to photograph the space that once alienated me through public display.

• Bodyscapes – Since I started photographing, I have always been drawn to the human body. I have photographed in a non-human way. I created beautiful landscapes that looked like they were from a different planet. With these photographs, I unintentionally made them into pretty objects one can stare at, putting on many layers of distortion to beautify it instead of depicting the body in a truthful way.

• Archive Project – For this project I dove into a forgotten archive of my late grandfather. This archive is a physical one, stored in the attic at my parents’ house in Norway. For me to get access to such a private family archive I had to use a public application to attain the digital images of the analogue archive.

Why do you want to write this:

Throughout my previous practice and experiences with photography I want to explore this topic. One of the main reasons is because of my first encounter with a serious breach in digital privacy, causing a loss of bodily ownership, and how it has continued to affect my life for over a decade. At the age of 13, anno 2006 - I sent a nude picture of myself to boy, and he sent one to me. I am not blaming my age, being “confused”, young and stupid. I knew what I was doing, and so did the boy. This nude picture of me spread like “wildfire” through MMS and was uploaded online. If this image was analogue – this would be a completely different story. During this period, around 2006/2007, I was a part of the generation that went from looking at images to being looked at – when cameras became a part of a communication device. You could clearly see the shift in camera advertising – how it went from pointing the lens at the world to point the lens at yourself. Not something to keep, just something to share.

Introduction…

Chapters:

1. From looking to being looked at

How photography changed from a private to public medium. (History, Old photographs, screenshot of archive, communication advertising, made photography into a public medium, if the reason is because of digitalization or the camera becoming a part of a communication device).

2. The Private and Public

Personal backstory and relation I have with photography in the public and private. Do private images exists today? Look at my experience as an experiment and how the medium was the biggest contributor to violation of the subject involved. I will also be looking into how the communication of the private and intimate is no longer a private affair, it needs a public application to be communicated to the desired party.

3. Intent and Control

Discussion about intent and control with photography – there are a lot of photographs that are private that go public but not the other way around. I will conduct an experiment based on…

4. Mis(representation)

(Personal encounters and experiences with photography and the (mis)representation that happens when they reach a public audience. I am interested to see how the photographs intention changes after publication). What happens when a photograph goes public, what is the shift that happens? What does it mean and how are people thinking about it? There are certain images people should not share, although that do not make them private images you put in a family album.

How is it relevant today?

Todays society is a society of being looked at, its about privacy and liberty in an accessible public world. We live in an online world, a world where the camera was turned into a communication device. Where images are no longer looked at 20 years later for personal memorabilia, but to be instantly shared and forgotten.

Conclusion…

Bibliography

On Photography – Susan Sontag

Visual Culture – Nicholas Mirzoeff (Chapter 6,10)

John Berger – Ways of Seeing

Artist to research

Nan Goldin

Sophie Calle

Duane Michaels

Maya Deren

Allan Sekula

Thesis Outline 25 Oct 17

What is the thesis going to be about?

My thesis will consist of personal stories, encounters and experiences with photography and the (miss)representation that happens when they reach a public audience. I am interested to see how the photographs intention changes after publication and how the truth it carries will be misinterpreted. Can this truth be supported if the photograph was not singular? If people had more contextual information of how/why the photograph was made and what its intentions were – one might start to see truth in a medium that is still considered to be the one that represents the truth even though photographer/spectators alike know how one can never trust a photograph? I believe that this disconnection can be diminished if one find evidence of its truth, one photograph supported by another. One memory giving life to another.

One such story will be about my first experience with the photographic medium and what that single image represented publicly and privately. Another story will be about photography and the creation of memory, what they represent and how they are misrepresented. These stories will determine how a photograph can represent truth and how it changes from a private to a public audience. If the photograph can stand alone or if it need support by other photographs or texts to find out what was happening outside of the frame.

I want to research this topic based on a personal experience with the naked body in a private photograph and how it was misrepresented once it went public.

Relation to previous research?

This has been a part of my research from the last semester at PZI, after writing, photographing, collecting images from archives – I have come to want to understand on a deeper level how the image is seen in a private and/or public eye. To determine if the personal stories/memories behind serve any purpose, what goes on outside of the frame.

Bibliography

On Photography – Susan Sontag

Visual Culture – Nicholas Mirzoeff (Chapter 6,10)

John Berger – Ways of Seeing

Thesis Outline 4 Oct 17

What is the thesis going to be about?

My thesis will consist of personal stories and experiences with photography and the misrepresentation that happens when they reach a wider audience. I believe that this disconnection can be reversed if one find evidence of its story, one photograph supported by another. One memory giving life to another. One such story will be about my first experience with the human body and the photograph and what it represented publicly and privately. Another story will be about photography and the creation of memory, what they represent and how they are misrepresented. These stories will determine how a photograph can represent truth and how it changes from a private to a public audience. If the photograph can stand alone or if it need support by other photographs or texts to find out what was happening outside of the frame.

Relation to previous research?

This has been a part of my research from the last semester at PZI, after writing, photographing, collecting images from archives – I have come to want to understand on a deeper level how the image is seen in a private and/or public eye. To determine if the personal stories/memories behind serve any purpose, what goes on outside of the frame.

Bibliography

Visual Culture – Nicholas Mirzoeff (Chapter 6,10) John Berger – Ways of Seeing

Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols by Nelson Goodman

Shannon–Weaver Model