Umberto Eco "An epidemic of electronic eye"

[ped]

...they're often the sort of people who refuse to believe that there are people who don't enjoy dancing. "You must have lost yourself in the rhythm sometimes," they say. NO I BLOODY HAVEN'T.

This. I thought I was the only person, but now we can form a support group.

 

[Paul T.]

He's not being snobby. His point, that people record rather than look, is true.

 

[Highway 61]

He's not being snobby. His point, that people record rather than look, is true.

Mona Lisa is either a bad example or a good counter-example, because the painting is so small and so hidden behind several glass layers (for some good reason) that you can hardly look at it nowadays.

I recently attended a very large Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) exhibition and I could notice that people were actually carefully looking at the paintings. There were all kind of people there, young, old, children, people had been queuing for long to see the paintings, people were talking to each other while in front of the paintings, and the situation kept repeating itself day after day.

Feeling really tired with those "People aren't behaving like well-educated ones any longer and things were better before" rants.

It bothers the great Mr Eco to face people photographying him and recording him with cellphones, or to meet people doing so when he's on vacation somewhere ? Oh well. What a case... 🙄

 

[summaron]

The difference is that it's much more scattershot than in the old days when you were limited to 36 exposures of relatively expensive slide film. The iPhone photo event looks like a polite version of the paparazzi scenes in a Fellini film, but with a mildly comic aspect to it.

I think it's great that everyone does want to share their photos immediately – rather than subject their friends to long, somewhat tedious slide shows afterwards.

The bigger issue maybe is all the distraction of everyday life and break up of experience so it doesn't have much bite or residue, that it's postponed but never redeemed – or something like that.

 

[Paul T.]

If you're sharing, that's a good thing. Even a mundane sunset has an immediacy when your friends on the other side of the world see it.

But a crappy video to prove "you were there"? It often proves the opposite.

 

[Highway 61]

Paul, funny to read what you write while noticing that your avatar represents Erich Salomon, the one who begins it all with getting into some famous people work and privacy to shoot them at his own convenience with his Ermanox. 😉

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

What would have happened if I had had a cellphone equipped with a video camera, just as every kid has today?

In the 25th century BC, what would have happened if he had had a flint to make fire, just as every kid did then?

In the 5th century BC, what would have happened if he had a piece of papyrus, just as every kid did then?

In the 1st century BC, what would have happened if he had marbles to play with, just as every kid did then?

During the 3rd century AC, what would have happened if he spoke Latin or Greek, just as every other kid did then?

During the Middle Ages, what would have happened if he owned a sword, just as every other kid did then?

During the 17th century, what would have happened if he knew how to play a musical instrument and compose, just as every other kid did then?

During the 19th century, what would have happened if he was able to buy fireworks, just as every other kid did then?

During the 20th century, what would have happened if he used a typewriter, just as every other kid did then?

Geographical, economical and social bias in posing the rhetorical questions notwithstanding, it's more of the old not understanding the new. What would happen if he had access to the Internet, like every kid does nowadays?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

His point is that people use their cameras instead of their brains to record events.

And what about using a keyboard instead of their brains to record events?

It is evident that Mr. Eco doesn't understand the bias in his observations. Writers of the mid-20th century (never mind anyone from earlier days) would equally bemoan the fact that "everyone" now has a blog or Twitter account and can become famous and yet contribute nothing of value to society's patrimony as an individual.

Technology changes patterns, behaviour, and eras. While it is true that "everyone" "has a camera" and there's an incredible amount of "photographic noise", crying over one aspect of technology while not acknowledging that another has personally benefited you (i.e. movable type, printed press, industrial paper-making and e-books) makes a pretty hollow, myopic point.

The proliferation of stoves (gas, microwave and otherwise) did not improve the quality of food, and everyone who uses one of those proliferated machines doesn't bestow one the garlands of a good cook (no matter how expensive the stove is). But it has made cooking easier. "Oh, sure, everyone's a cook! Back in my day people hired a cook and let them do their business!" That statement not only shows old age, it hides intelligence.


Disclaimer for intertoobes-quick-fuses: I'm not "attacking" Dominik. I agree with his observation. It is indeed this observation that supports my point.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

So you believe that all technology is benevolent?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

So you believe that all technology is benevolent?

No, just like I don't believe that all technology is malevolent.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

So, which is which?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Writing is a piece of technology. It has brought about the worst and the best of humanity. But most of it is pretty mediocre.

Technology is borne out of necessity and nursed by boredom; it is human. Are all humans benevolent or malevolent?

 

[nightfly]

I think it's rude to take photos of strippers, you really should be fully present in the experience, much more so than when watching an academic speak.

 

[Harry Lime]

I get his point about the photographic overload we are experiencing and people's obsession with documenting events to show them to their friends, instead of actually participating in them. But I also think that giving up photography all together is a ridiculous solution to his vacation problem of shooting like a tourist.

As far as being apart from life as a photographer, because you are a permanent observer,... well, that's what serious photographers do. You're always alone in a crowd.

 

[Highway 61]

I get his point about the photographic overload we are experiencing and people's obsession with documenting events to show them to their friends, instead of actually participating in them. But I also think that giving up photography all together is a ridiculous solution to his vacation problem of shooting like a tourist.

As far as being apart from life as a photographer, because you are a permanent observer,... well, that's what serious photographers do. You're always alone in a crowd.

Brilliant. Thanks. 🙂

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

I'm afraid that Eco has no positive effect on me.

This short piece, which perhaps suffers in translation, seems rather pathetic. He wants the money and the adulation, I assume, of "his public" but expects them to meet his demands, where he should be seeking to meet theirs. After all, they're paying his wages and the customer, as the saying goes, is always right. He then goes on to describe an incident which, while it may be true, sounds rather too like one of the lurid passages from his novels for me to place much stock in it.

I agree he has something to say and that something is "I'm more important than you". Alas, I cannot agree with him, no matter to whom he says it.

 

[jultou]

I did stop having interest in Eco the day he said that only people with University diploma should be allowed to go to museum...

 

[zauhar]

I think there's a crucial distinction here. Great photography is about getting the viewer to notice fleeting moments we might otherwise have missed -- for instance, Eggleston's light bulb. It trains us to pay attention to the world around us. At its best, taking photographs is an extension of that discipline. It teaches us to be present.

What Eco is pointing out is that, increasingly, picture-taking today is contrary to that discipline. Many people are taking photographs simply out of an addiction to the technology itself. Taking a photograph is just one more opportunity to interact with your beloved phone -- it's more akin to texting or checking your email. It's a means to disappear further into the world of our gadgets instead of being present.

I suspect the vast majority of photographs made today are not made to be viewed in the future, by the photographer or anyone else. They are just the electronic residue of our need to interact with machines over the world around us. This is as true of many photos taken on $6000 german cameras as it is of those taken with cellphones.

Keep in mind that Instagram, flickr, et al have brought the first kind of photography to millions of people who never would have had a relationship with it before. So it's a double-edged sword, as these things often are.

But it's interesting, even for people who think of themselves as serious about photography, to think about whether you are using a camera to interact with the world or simply to interact with the camera itself.

Very keen observations. There certainly is an automatic, mechanical character to our interactions with modern machinery. Almost like we become machines ourselves, through a sort of contagion.

Randy

 

[Tom A]

This is a case in point here. Minor fender bender below our balcony. The Honda driver jumped out of the car and started taking pictures of the incident with her Iphone before she checked on the driver of the black Audi!!!!!! After a couple of minutes the woman in the Audi got out and started taking pictures with her phone. OK, nobody was hurt and the damage was limited.
You get the feeling that unless the pictures were taken - there was no accident!!!!!!!

 

[semi-ambivalent]

...think about whether you are using a camera to interact with the world or simply to interact with the camera itself.

There is nothing in that remark that proves one, by necessity, refutes the other. Other than walking upright, Man is above all else a tool-maker. Interacting with a tool is interacting with the world, because the former is engendered by the latter and the latter changed by the former.

A photographer should find it easy to slide back and forth between your two distinctions, or to inhabit both simultaneously. Perhaps that's one reason we can use to think of ourselves as 'better' than the phone-waving hoards that 'steal' our images. Is it necessary or important to have $6000 German technology if your future is, not decades, but seconds away?

As for Mr. Eco, perhaps he just likes to say crazy things to remain in people's thoughts, as did (I think) Camille Paglia. It's a common ploy; one could just as easily burn a guitar.