Reading #1

Tendentious : expressing or intending to promote a particular cause or point of view, especially a controversial one
Hermetic : (of a seal or closure) complete and airtight.
Utterance : the action of saying or expressing something aloud.
Obstinate : stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so.

I thought this quote was special “Quite regularly we are informed that the photograph, “has its own language,” is beyond speech,” is a message of “universal significance” – In short, that photography is a universal and independent language or sign system.” I thought it spoke volumes about how photography can be interpreted by anyone in the same way music and other forms of art can. It’s one of the reasons I find photography and art so fascinating.

“Only by its embeddedness in a concrete discourse situation can the photograph yield a clear semantic outcome. Any given photograph is conceivably open to appropriation by a range of “texts” each new discourse situation generating its own set of messages.” This quote was a lot to wrap my head around, but is entirely true. Especially in an era of social media where news stories are fabricated. a picture without a caption doesn’t have one definitive meaning.

The photograph on the other hand is characterized by a reproducibility, an “exhibition value,” that widens the field of potential readers that permits a penetration into the “unprivileged” spaces of the everyday world.

Only if the reader has been informed that “this is symbolist art” or “this photograph is a metaphor” can he/she invests the photograph with meaning appropriate.

One question I have is based around this quote “Put simply, the Photograph is seen as a re-representation of nature itself, as an unmediated copy of the real world…the propositions carried through the medium are unbiased and true” Is this true today? Because now appropriation and reproduction is potent in art today’s and there seems to be no escaping it. At the back of my head when I look at a photo there’s always a suspicion that it could be fake or altered in some way.