Reading Discussions

In Defense of the Poor Image - Hito Steyerl

As I read this passage, I couldn’t tell if the author, Hito Steyerl, was actually defending the “poor image” or not. To me, the poor image is not something you can criticize or support; it just is. I found it interesting when the author was describing what a poor image is. There are so many things that can alter an image, and it is an ongoing, or “a copy in motion,” alteration. As a photo gets older, it goes through edits, remixes, compressions, crops, etc. etc. These poor images are becoming more common in today’s society. People are always using the stock images on Google for presentations or reference for something else. When they use the images, they resize them, they crop them, they compress them, and then someone else will maybe use that reformatted image. From there, the process goes on and on. The image begins to get blurry and pixelated. You begin to think of what it looked like when it was first taken or uploaded on Google. In a way, it can be compared to a human. That is what I thought of when I read this essay. A human gets resized because humans grow, and a human might get reshaped if they lose a body part, break a bone, or get plastic surgery. A human can be remixed through a change in a hair style, piercings, or getting tattoos. A human does not get blurry and pixelated, but a human ages with time. By the end of their life, scars, age spots, and wrinkles appear on humans. Although all of the events and changes a human has gone through may not be visible on the outside, they have still affected the human in some way. However, humans are not “poor humans.” They are just humans. You can not say these changes, remixes, and impressions are good or bad. They just are. 

Most of our society is used to these images, we accept them. Since we use technology every day, it is difficult not to accept the poor image as just a regular image. However, I do not appreciate them, and I would rather use high quality images for my presentations or for reference. I understand why poor images come about, but they make me cringe sometimes. I do not understand how someone can be okay using a blurry or pixelated image for anything, unless they are using it as an example of a poor image. I would much rather look at crisp, un-remixed photos. I think they have more definition and can be analyzed a lot more than a poor image. On the other hand, we cannot escape the poor image. It will always be around. 

Extracts from Camera Lucida - Roland Barthes

      Overall, I thought the excerpts from Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida were confusing and difficult to read, but some of his main points really stuck out to me. Primarily, he questioned why we labeled different types of photography. Personally, I think it is for descriptive purposes, and the person who describes the photograph they are thinking of prioritizes which label to give the photograph based on what they think is most important, how they look at the photo, or what sticks out to them when they first look at the image. This influences what the other person(s) they are explaining the photo to thinks of the image. Plus, it is human nature to label or categorize things to keep things organized in our brains. I was also intrigued by his quote: “What the photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.” It is strange to think that photographs are taken in the moment, but they only exist in the past; these moments can never be revisited, and we believe that they help us remember these moments when they actually might not provide a completely accurate representation of what happened, since photographs are an abstraction of reality. It is also interesting to think about Barthes’ point about how a photograph is invisible because we are just looking at what was captured in the photograph. 
Secondly, I thought it was interesting that Barthes brought up the fact that when a person poses for a picture, they transform; Barthes described this process as a social game. When we are getting ready to be in a picture or if we see someone pull out their camera, we immediately start acting a different way because we want to be remembered as ‘our best selves.’ This somewhat contradicts itself because ‘our best self’ might not be our ‘true self’ at all. Media subconsciously tells us how to pose, and we pose a certain way, but we never question it. We want to be portrayed a certain way, but we also do not want to lose out personality in the photograph.

Thirdly, Roland Barthes discusses the animation and advene of a photograph. He described animation as the initial interest someone has in a photograph or image and advene as the sustained interest. I have never thought about these aspects of a photograph, but it is nice to have vocabulary to explain why I do or do not enjoy a certain image. Barthes continues by explaining that a photograph has or creates ‘adventure’ when it captures your deepest interest and makes you think of certain memories or when it influences you to use your imagination. Lastly, Barths creates vocabulary for the different components of a photograph in another way. He states that the studium is the main message or point of the photograph, while the punctum is the part of the photograph that captures the viewer’s attention. I also liked that he explained this because I think it is important to define these types of things, so we can have discussions about them and analyze a photograph in a different way. Altogether, Barthes had a confusing way of conversational writing, but he made many interesting points about photography that made me think about the art in a new way

Vilém Flusser Reading

• Apparently pictures are supposed to help us understand something more by abstracting it. To me, that statement is contradicting itself. Just because a four-dimensional object is created into a two-dimensional surface, does not make it less confusion. Additionally, if you are abstracting something, can you even say you fully understand it? If something is abstracted, you might understand the abstracted image, but not understand what is in the actual image. Flusser goes on to explain that we must use our imagination to interpret images. This also contradicts the fact that images may make it easier for the viewer to understand something because all viewers have a different imagination, and they could all think something completely different. However, this is what makes photography so powerful; it can provoke different emotions within people, and its meaning can change based on who is looking at it. 
• Flusser says that interpreting a photograph is magical because of the spacial differences between objects and how the view scans the image. 
• Flusser explains that text has been used to explain images ever since it was created. However, text is an abstraction from reality just like a photograph because it was interpreted by the writer and will be interpreted differently by the reader. He continues to explain that writing contradicts the image it is explaining because it is hiding the reader from the world in which it is explaining. In a sense, I agree with this, but I also think that it is important for people to express themselves through writing; their feelings, perspective, and general way of thinking all affect how they write, but that is what makes writing another form of art. I do agree with Flusser when he says that scientific writing is not imaginative, and I do not think that particular type of writing is a form of art because it is not up for interpretation. 
• As Flusser discusses technical images, he brings up some interesting points. He believes that technical images eliminate the need to interpret things. To me, this means they are a true image of the real world because there is nothing for different viewers to argue about. On the other hand, Flusser does not think that technical images are a window into the real world because they are only making the viewer believe that the image is real and is not up for interpretation. 
• Flusser believes that a camera is a tool, which I agree with. And when he stated that tools are used to change things, I started to question what I currently believe. I do believe that cameras can be used to change what people think and how they see something, but I do not think that is their sole purpose. In a way, cameras do create an image that is an abstraction from reality, but if someone is trying to capture a technical image, they do not want the camera to serve that function. Flusser makes another good point that a camera is programmed and a photographer can change the settings in the camera to change the image. This makes me believe that all images are influenced by the camera and the photographer, and that no images are a reality.