Reading #8

Definitions: 

• Etymological : Relating to the origin and historical development of words and their meanings.

• “total reflection” : The optical phenomenon in which the surface of the water in a fish-tank, viewed from below the water level, reflects the underwater scene like a mirror, with no loss of brightness.

• Phosphorescence : Light emitted by a substance without combustion or perceptible heat.

• Techne : “Techne” is a term, etymologically derived from the Greek word τέχνη, that is often translated as “craftsmanship”, “craft”, or “art”.

3 Points

• Perception remains a “hallucination,” a kind of “mirage,” because it does not belong to the domain of knowledge. To perceive means to not perceive. 
• The instantaneity of photography, and the mechanical (shutter speed) is opposite to nature and the flow of water.
• photographs see and remember only when seeing and remembering are, strictly speaking, no longer possible.
• In Ricardo Cadava’s reading, he says that “the photograph tells us that when we see we are unconscious of what our seeing cannot see”. I only see this as half true since yes experimenting with a camera can produce some wildly abstract images that the artist might have thought to be impossible until the photograph is taken. Although in many cases for myself and my peers we envision what we want our photograph to look like and are consciously putting effort in to create said image. 

Questions:

• I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the last paragraph in the Jeff Wall reading. Does anyone understand what he states in his last sentence, “In photography the liquids study us, even from a great distance.”