CS A5: NB NB – some additional notes after sending the essay to tutor (my own feedback)

  • I have focused on two things in Barad’s interpretation – entanglement and phenomenology = reality, fixed photograph’s role within. Since submitting I have gone back and rewritten a couple of sentences in the intro and conclusion to underline this point. (Already adjusted)
  • I have re-written the first sentence – it was a bit sloppy and I have tightened it up and changed the word ‘evolving’ to ‘shifting’ to avoid the idea of a linear journey for civilisation from bad to good. (Adjusted on Matt’s copy in Gdrive)
  • I am concerned Appendix i – the second half of it – should really be in the essay but can’t see the space for it.
  • I miss Deleuze’s segmentarity, which I wrote about in the first draft (A3) recognisable in Talmor’s work – and as an example of difference to the fluidity seen in Klingemann’s images – again cannot see the space for it.
  • There is a comment in Superposition about it not being a mixture  – I feel like this is too flippant and needs explaining but can’t (it’s too complex for me! and there is no space) Should I take it out? I think so – maybe the whole bit about superposition. Perhaps I can just use it elsewhere and rely on the glossary?
  • Objects – I probably should have acknowledged something like OTT but don’t have space. It may be worth simply acknowledging that not everyone agrees with a purely phenomenological reality – although Bohr’s interpretation makes it hard to argue with. (Not to mention Hoffman’s theories about seeing and the brain)
  • I would have liked to discussed Diffractive Practice (an agential realist notion) but took it out after A3 – again, I am not clear enough about it in my own head and there is no space. I have tried to write diffractively and one of Rowan’s comment was that I was a bit inconsistent which feels accurate. (see feedback)
  • Another thing Rowan mentioned was how the AI was trained – “it is programmed through existing patterns (can you please explicate what the ai was, how it was trained etc – this is important).” I think I do need to find a way to include this – but it may be that the information is included in supporting text for my BOW and rather than expand on it in the essay, I link to it. If the writing were a longer piece it would definitely warrant a whole section. For the sake of the BOW – it’s really important the AI is a proprietary app that costs me £6 a month – an artificial friend I subscribe to. That relates to the anatomisation of relations – which I really wanted to cover in the essay – and Zuboff’s book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism where she discusses behavioural surplus.  This is something I really need to think about because I will need to do quite a big edit at this stage if include it and it will be a very different essay.
  • In a longer piece, there would be a good argument to include references to King Lear – it seems it is a play about shifting paradigms but instead of like our time – moving from Cartesian towards post – it was pre-Cartesian to Cartesian. There is also so much symbolism about seeing and nothing being something which ties in with a section I recently cut about the void not being empty space.
  • The work by Mikhael Subotzky I saw this morning is so relevant. I really feel I ought to mention it in Part II – maybe even use one of his images for the cover
  • It was interesting to note that the first UVC assignment I wrote came under the course heading of The Interaction of Media.
  • Although the concepts I look at come from quantum mechanics, they’re not brand new or novel – Julian Baggini’s recent book on cultures around the world seems motivated by the desire to show how western ‘common sense’ looks to those not influenced by a Cartesian history – I removed a quotation and might need to underline this point again in intro and conclusion.
  • I may find a way to add one of two possible examples to Part 2 – both counter the documentary tradition by using the style or equipment of those ‘hero’ photographers – but if I do this I need to give space and word count over which is going to be very challenging

Or

  • And what a terrible shame not to have found space for this guy! (His book isn’t out in time in the U.K. – but there are interviews aplenty and I might even have a sneaky way of getting an early copy)

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1115381/entangled-life/9781847925190

Overall – The essay feels a bit slim in parts right now. I have been through it, removed bits where I was a bit apologetic or seemed to be excusing things I’d included. I will wait until I have spoken with Matt before making any of the above adjustments and then upload another draft for assessment.

CS & BOW A4: Notes re. connecting Bow to CS A5

Some notes made on my phone last night:

Structuralism = entanglement and intra-action of

  1. Language materials + architecture (code, print, architecture, web, tv, film, etc…)
  2. Mythology (which includes consumerism, politics, and religion)
  3. Media (institutions and organisations that use no.1)

 

  • Bow explores ‘the cut’ – essay’s main aim is to explore suggestions that Cartesian world view has become unhelpful. We’ve outgrown it. Barad’s work introduces concepts from quantum understanding that challenge Cartesian lens including the concept of the cut. It is arguable that photography often inadvertently propagates Cartesian view even when it claims to be addressing salient issues, for a variety of probable reasons – then look at ways this can be addressed.
  • Semantic analysis – page 83 Zuboff – ‘squeeze meaning’ out of users movements
  • ‘Brew’
  • Include in – Indeterminism section
    Page 85 Zuboff – surveillance capitalism “not an inherent result of tech or expression of information capitalism”
  • Have lost the word ad (advert) from a comment made by Ai and need to reintroduce it – important to include
  • Must include Barad’s explanation of how micro (quantum) and macro describe the same world – through a different lens – not two sperate worlds

A useful and extremely relevant article worth referring to:

https://witness.worldpressphoto.org/photojournalisms-first-century-79645873e363