The Photocalypse
The Photocalypse
To understand what's happening in the world of photography, where it might be heading, and what functions it could serve in the future, we need a better understanding of what's happening in culture.
As the old steady-state norms of photography, art and culture become more chaotic we approach a bifurcation point, where the emergence of a new forms are possible. These will be forms of increased complexity which are capable of metabolizing the symbolic "food" which is flooding the collective culture.
As technology has marched on, the fundamentals of image creation have been made almost automatic and have become democratized. The next level up on the complexity ladder is the mastery of the fundamentals of aesthetics. This too is now becoming more common with the wealth of on-line information available, workshops, and the increased level of skill afforded by the lowered cost of practicing photography.
The next level up on the complexity ladder is the domain of meaning and the ability to elicit an emotional response. This stage requires a degree of sensitivity in the photographer-artist whereby he/she is capable of consciously or intuitively recognizing the affective "charge" that's present in any given photographic moment. For Bresson the "charge" was found in the decisive moment. An example from the book “Bystander: A History of Street Photography”:
“The decisive moment is the moment just before a decision is made, the moment of anticipation rather than conclusion [...] [the instant being described is the one] when you are just about to take off, the point at which the shortstop is ready to dash in any direction as he watches the batter step into the ball [...] Cartier Bresson’s photographs are of actions that are yet to be resolved. They are of events that are inchoate, stopped at just this point by the photograph, they remain forever irresolvable, equivocal, ambivalent.
That moment just prior to the taking of a definite direction towards resolution was a moment of maximum tension for Bresson - a moment in time, the image of which carried affective charge.
What carries an affective charge for people is what draws them to the subject and themes which they tend to photograph. The next level up in complexity is the ability to recognize the "charged" moment, the scene, the subject, the theme in real time, and to capture it in a way in which some some element of this charged image can be communicated.
Now the case can also be made, that in our supercharged high-tech visual mass-culture society we are all awash and overwhelmed with charged imagery in the form of sophisticated advertising and other forms of persuasion and "entertainment." And yet, these tools of visual persuasion are also becoming democratized. We are all becoming more sophisticated in recognizing the overt and covert forms of persuasion that we're all swimming and breathing in and in many cases we're mimicking some of this in our photographic endeavors as well as we copy one style, fad, and affectation after another.
So what's one result of the democratization of image capture, composition, persuasive forms, and stylistic affectations as we seek to express those charged images and visions which hold our attention?
A hint:
Excerpt from "The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance" by Joscelyn Goodwin
One of the most attractive inventions of the early Renaissance is the studiolo, a small, private, decorated study. [...] The studiolo is a place of retreat from the public world into a private universe. As we understand it here, it is not a study for writing, nor a library, a treasury, or a monastic cell, though all of these contributed to its ancestry.
What most distinguishes the studiolo from the cell of a monk or nun is its decoration. A cell might contain a devotional picture [...]; but the purpose behind a studiolo's decoration was quite different. It was not so much to take the owner out of this world, as to situate him within it. The decorations served as mirrors to qualities, aspirations, and knowledge already latent in the individual, but placed in a historical, moral, Hermetic, or cosmic context. The room was a model of the owner's mind and an exteriorization of his or her imagination.
It was Cicero who said that one should decorate one's study with images of the Muses, as well as of the morally inspiring divinities: Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Minerva, and Hercules.. [...] Mythologically, the Muses are the inspirers of men, not only of artists but also of rulers. The psychological truth, that behind every masculine achivement is the creative energy of what C.G. Jung called the anima, expresses itself in Belfiore by giving the nine Muses, for the first time in history, the lineaments of desire [eros = the love and desire for wisdom]
