Andreas methods 06-03-19

First Reading: Vilém Flusser – Towards a philosophy of photography

In the chapter The Photograph Flusser works out two intentions of the photographs:
First, photographers are ‘encoding their images to give others information, as to produce models for them and thereby to become immortal in the memory of others’ (Flusser, 2000,, p. 48)
Second, ‘The camera encodes the concepts programmed into it as images in order to program society to act as a feedback mechanism (…)’ (Flusser, 2000,, p. 48)
The author is stating that social systems are based on abstractions to distinguish good from bad and connects this to the abstraction of black-and-white photographs. ‘They translate a theory of optics into an image and thereby put a magic spell on this theory and re-encode theoretical concepts like ‘black’ and ‘white’ into states of things.’ (Flusser, 2000,, p. 43). He is saying that colour photographs are on a higher level of abstraction than black-and-white photographs since black-and-white photographs are more concrete and in this sense more true. The more ‘genuine’ the colours of the photograph become, the more untruthful they are, the more they conceal their theoretical origin. (Flusser, 2000,, p. 44) He underlines this with his assumption that the colour in a photograph is always just based on the idea of the world. There might be a indirect connection to the real world, but it will always stay an image of the concept of the colour, (…) ‘as it occurs in chemical theory, and the camera (or rather the film inserted to it) is programmed to translate this concept to the image.’ (Flusser, 2000, p. 43) Flusser also argues, that the camera is making use of the photographer – ‘except in borderline cases of total automation (for example, in the case of satellite photographs) (Flusser, 2000,, p. 48) – as a feedback mechanism for its progressive improvement.

In the chapter The Distribution of Photographs the author points out that photography fulfils the urge of massification and that it can be distributed by means of reproduction (contrary to original cave paintings or tomb frescoes, also being attached to the surface). ‘As long as the photograph is not yet electromagnetic, it remains the first of all post-industrial objects’ (Flusser, 2000, p. 51). He states that ‘It is not the person who owns a photograph who has power but the person who created the information it conveys.’ (Flusser, 2000, p. 52) and calls this Neo-imperialism. Here I disagree with his perception, since a photograph sold i.e. at an art market inherits a big value that is being transferred to the highest bidder.

The chapter The Reception of Photographs deals with the fact that everybody can nowadays take photos or so-called snapshots and thereby are received as objects without value. However, the author states that we are being manipulated to act in favour of cameras. Flusser comes up with a magic circle that ‘is being formed by photographs around us in the shape of the photographic universe.’ (Flusser, 2000, p. 52)

Important for the further reading: ‘The intention behind apparatuses is to liberate the human being from work; apparatuses take over human labour … for example, the camera liberates the human being from the necessity of using a paintbrush. Instead of having to work, the human being is able to play. But apparatuses have come under the control of a number of individual human beings (e.g. capitalists), who have reversed this original intention. Now apparatuses serve the interests of these people; consequently what needs to be done is to unmask the interests behind the apparatuses. According to such an analysis, apparatuses are nothing but peculiar machines, the invention of which has nothing revolutionary about it; there is no point therefore in talking of a “second Industrial Revolution.” Thus photographs also have to be decoded as an expression of the concealed interests of those in power: the interests of Kodak shareholders, of the proprietors of advertising agencies, those pulling the strings behind the US industrial complex, the interests of the entire US ideological, military and industrial complex. If one exposed these interests, every single photograph and the whole photographic universe could be considered as having been decoded.’ (Flusser, 2000, p. 72)

Bibliography:
Flusser, V. (2000). Towards a philosophy of photography. 1st ed. London: Reaktion Books