User:Annalystad/secondyear/gratuateseminar/thesis

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.

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