Full document: Sarah-Jane Field CS A3 Feedback Form
Key points
- What do I mean by photography? A perennial problem and one which I spent many words trying to address in DI&C drafts before abandoning. Will discuss below.
- I am asked; without being patronising, will there be a type of glossary for some of the more unfamiliar words/phrases/concepts? (I have wondered about including a glossary for the tricky concepts in the indices as well as inc. Chapter 1 as planned – would this be acceptable?)
- Choose the right examples, this is imperative – I agree.
Summary of written feedback:
You are beginning to bring together these complicated ideas into a coherent piece of writing that asks questions about the way that we perceive photography. Your sample text section is well written and is an indicator of a highly polished, informative and interesting piece of critical writing. Good, I’m pleased to read that.
- Need to be clearer about what I am critiquing – formal traditional photography (inc. moving image)/ or am I including or omitting practice that moves beyond the frame? My big challenge is our language system – I am critiquing the habit of a Cartesian mind which seeks to separate these things in a world still dominated by it – which I think is particularly *exemplified in photography – the recording and fixing of photons (there is much more to say about this but not here). How I overcome the challenge in the essay is yet to be seen and I may not succeed. It may not even be possible because the language we use today, and how, may not allow for it. A friend studying at a much higher level than me recently said, we desperately need consciousness to evolve away from the Cartesian urge to isolate and separate. But it’s not going to happen overnight or even this century – however, lots of people seem to think it is taking place, beneath the surface all the time without our awareness, due to digital culture for good and bad – and having an impact on how we perceive everything, from photography to far beyond. (*See John Tagg’s Filing Cabinet talk 2011, Vimeo, which though hard to follow has useful references)
- I agree with Matt’s point, the artist examples should clarify things. I was glad to be pointed towards Christian Boltanski and Alfredo Jarr. I have identified that Edgar Martins is exploring the relationship between photography and perception, and his work is heavily influenced by quantum-informed concepts. Lewis Bush’s Ways Of Seeing project may also be an excellent source.
- Since submitting A2 I have identified further written work which will help to support the discussion – essays in Martins’ book on death and suicide and by Daniel Palmer, Associate Dean of Research and Innovation in the School of Art at RMIT University, Melbourne. I have also continued to read Barad’s work making sure I understand the ideas as best I can and can apply them to photographic theory.
- ‘Is the quantum world view that you suggest closer to certain modes of photographic expression than others?’ I suspect traditional photography can and does express the emerging view I’m exploring but it presents challenges. I think our understanding of how meaning comes about through intra-action, relation, and context – between all elements including the presence of a conscious mind is what matters most. As Palmer writes and I agree, ‘Cartier-Bresson’s style of photography is still possible, still practised and celebrated, but its importance is marginal. [Because it represents the mechanistic world in which it came to the fore.] With the digital universe, other types of photography have become more culturally significant, ones which often involve a shift from the single moment of capture to the expanded moments of post-production.’ (2015) Expanded moments of post-production make us think of a continued, phenomenological process. A Cartier-Bresson ‘capture’ aims to kill the moment and stick it up on the wall. He did tell us he was a hunter. For Barad, and Bohr, reality is all phenomena. Others don’t buy this, I’m aware. But from a structural point of view – in a world underpinned by continuously lively data – the notion of phenomena is critically important. Algorithms, code, intra-active materials express today’s process of making meaning. It’s important to state I do not think all things digital are the Holy Grail – far from it.
(Ref: Palmer, D. et al.(2014) ‘‘Lights, Camera, Algorithm: Digital Photography’s Algorithmic Conditions’ in Sean Cubitt, Daniel Palmer &; Nate Tkacz (eds.),’ In: Digital Light. Fibreculture Books. pp.144–62. At: https://www.academia.edu/30168558/_Lights_Camera_Algorithm_Digital_Photography_s_Algorithmic_Conditions_in_Sean_Cubitt_Daniel_Palmer_and_Nate_Tkacz_eds._Digital_Light_London_Fibreculture_Book_Series_Open_Humanities_Press_2015_144_62(Accessed 08/01/2020).) - I am very interested in Matt’s inclusion of Jaar’s The Sound of Silence, not least of all because I lived in SA until I was 16, my mother was a journalist there in the 80s, her late husband knew Carter and his group of fellow photojournalists and the Bang Bang Club(2000) made me homesick and heartbroken for the people and country I knew – I read it a good while before studying with the OCA. In my own practice, text and its relationship to the image, our response to both forms, has been crucial since S&O when I exhibited a series of images and writings on the wall – giving both the same value. Since then, text has always played a role and at the moment my BOW includes just a single image and about ten pieces of writing – although I do currently plan to add more pictures. But the relationship between both forms is absolutely key. I will need to look at the work in more detail and think about your question – but it could be an excellent example. (This bullet point is sheer entanglement – but we might also call it serendipity or even an inevitable happy culmination of events/things/people/information.) https://sjflevel3.photo.blog/2020/01/07/bow-a3-texts-rewritten-and-placed-in-a-suggested-format/
- ‘I am not that familiar with Muholi’s work but can you be specific about how she manages to move away from the Cartesian view beyond questions around Colonialism (how important is colonialism to your argument?)’ Colonialism is crucial. Barad never stops mentioning it. Azoulay’s thesis in Unlearning the Origins of Photography (2019) is clearly influenced by similar ideas to Barad’s – the entangled activities of taking, extracting and destroying – in which photography’s history and practice are firmly ensconced (See my DI&C essay). In an article about her earlier book, The Civil Contract of Photography (2014) she discusses how the meaning of a colonial image of an African man, originally intended to show how ‘savage’ the man was, today expresses the savagery of the photographer and the dignity of the subject – context and relation are key to quantum concepts/philosophy as well as photography. (‘relata-within-phenomena emerge through specific intra-actions’ (Barad, 2017: 334)) I will need to make this clear in the introduction, and I suspect quotes from Azoulay will help. Muholi’s work might provide evidence of a non-Cartesian, transformative, lively, relational view of the world – at the very least her work rips apart the Colonial habit of white European men cataloguing black skin (and women).
Finally, after submitting A3, I came across a useful paragraph in Barad’s book which settled something for me, where she discusses how the quantum world is not a different world to the Newtonian one (of course). Newtonian physics describes the parochial space we inhabit. Quantum ideas go beyond that and describe the world we have not evolved to ‘see’. But our growing knowledge of it affects our understanding. The maths (according to every documentary you watch) is the most accurate description of reality we have today and that there has ever been. I will need to include this, I think. Plus, why I think this is all so very important for photographers/artists.
(See original tutor text at end of document)
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