DIGITAL ETHOS: TRANSFORMATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY AESTHETICS SUBSEQUENT TO COMPUTATIONAL ART

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1 ART GALLERY EVENT GALLERY SPE CIAL CALLS FIND DIGITAL ETHOS: TRANSFORMATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY AESTHETICS SUBSEQUENT TO COMPUTATIONAL ART AT TEN DEES' TICKET PRE SEN TERS' IN FOR MA TION PRE SEN TERS ARTISTS KEYNOTES EX HI BI TIONS AND EVENTS PAN ELS PAPER SES SIONS WORK SHOPS PRE-SYM PO SIUM EVENTS LO CA TIONS Paper Digital Ethos: Transformations in Contemporary Photography Aesthetics subsequent to Computational Art has been created. VIEW EDIT Dig i tal pho tog ra phy al lows artists to think in a more dar ing and free way. This free dom in flu ences the con tent, vi sual aes thet ics of art works in con tem po rary pho tog ra phy, which is in flu enced ex ten sively by dig i tal cre ativ ity. This paper will focus on the sig nif i cance of dig i tal tech nolo gies in chang ing aes thet ics, plan ning, vi sion, fic tion, re al iza tion of pho tog ra phy and avant-garde pho tog ra phy forms nour ished by dig i tal cul ture. PUB LI CA TIONS OR GA NI ZA TION PRESS PART NER SHIPS CON TACT ABOUT ISEA search MURATGERMEN@SABANCIUNIV.EDU MY PA PERS Dig i tal Ethos: Trans for ma tions in Con tem po rary Pho tog ra phy Aes thet ics sub se quent to Com pu ta tional Art AU THOR(S) Mr. Murat Ger men MY AC COUNT CRE ATE PAPER CRE ATE CON TENT LOG OUT IN TRO DUC TION Pho tog ra phy is one of the cre ative fields at which tech no log i cal ad vances in flu ence artis tic ex pres sion the most. The ease of ma nip u la tion brought by soft ware and extra fea -

2 tures avail able in cam eras made artists using pho tog ra phy re con sider their vi sions, themes, nar ra tion, syn tax and ways of shar ing their art work. Shar ing sites like Flickr, which ex pe dite en coun ters of var i ous in di vid u als from dif fer ent cul tures, help in chang ing the per cep tion of the much vital no tion of time and en able artists to get faster feed back, rev e la tion, ex po sure and lay er ing of in for ma tion to be con veyed. While some pho tog ra phers, who are deeply ob sessed with ana log processes, deny dig i tal tech nol ogy; it is quite ob vi ous that artists, who are aware of the com plex ity and par tic u lar ad van tages that this tech nol ogy brings, in deed end up with a novel aes thet ics of pho tog ra phy. In ad di tion to the reg u lar mon tage and col lage meth ods re main ing from the old ana log days, dig i tal imag ing tech niques allow artists to work with no tions like aug mented per cep tion, chronopho tog ra phy, sur re al ism, pic to ri al ism, su per im po si tion, sim pli fi ca tion, cre ation of new worlds, ap pro pri a tion... AUG MENTED PER CEP TION With out per cep tion there is no art. A work of art is an or ga nized array of sen sory stim uli if, there fore, the senses are not stim u lated, then the true work of art does not exist for the ob server. (Wise 19) Though there are stud ies on ex ceed ing human sen sory ca pa bil i ties, our vi sual per cep tion still takes what the eyes see as the basis of ap pre hen sion. In this case, artists who in tend to go be yond what one can see with the naked eye, take ad van tage of soft ware. These dig i tal means en able artists to as sem ble and con vey in for ma tion in a holis tic man ner that is oth er wise not pos si ble to record in a sin gle pho to graph i cal doc u men ta tion act. The re sult ing to tal ity leads to a par tic u lar aes thetic form which turns out to be the syn the sis of in di vid ual forms, in other words a sui generis sit u a tion. One can in ter pret this as a cu bist ap proach. If we con sider the pre sent dig i tal plat forms we use, var i ous tools of so cial media on the other hand; lit er acy, TV, com puter games, the In ter net all play a role in shap ing how we think. Tech nol ogy is never in no cent we de velop it and use it, and in turn it shapes us. [ ] Tech nol ogy al lows one to have ex pe ri ences far be yond what are sup ported by the nor mal human phys i ol ogy. Stern berg and Preiss ex am ine the im pli ca tions of tech nol ogy on cog ni tion. When tech nol ogy is broadly con cep tu al ized as 'the build ing of ar ti facts or pro ce dures-tools-to help peo ple ac com plish their goals, then the in flu ence of tech nol ogy on human de vel op ment is as old as hu man ity. [ ] At the very least, it is be com ing in creas ingly ob vi ous that tech nol ogy is al ter ing men tal func tions (Stern berg & Preiss, 2005). (Gack en bach 346) This al ter ation takes us to the no tion of cy ber cep tion which is, after Roy As cott, the emer gent human fac ulty of tech no log i cally aug mented cog ni tion and per cep tion. Cy ber cep tion car ries the po ten tial of lay ing a firm basis for the de vel op ment of higher states of con scious ness, i.e. aug mented per cep tion. This is why the con gru ence be tween com pu ta tional and human be hav ior ap peals to the artist and helps in aug ment ing his/her in tu itive gift to gen er ate aes thetic form. An dreas Gursky, one of the lead ing pho tog ra phers of the much re spected Düssel dorf pho tog ra phy school of Bernd & Hilla Becher, Chris Jor dan of USA and French pho tog ra pher Jean-François Rauzier take ad van tage of dig i tal imag ing and post-pro cess ing in order to take his work to a level that can not be re al ized oth er wise. PIC TO RI AL IST TEN DEN CIES There is a never-end ing re la tion ship be tween pho tog ra phy and paint ing. When pho tog ra phy was in vented, it took paint ing s func tion of record ing his tory and was more trusted as a doc u men tary tool since it wit nessed ex pe ri ences more re al is ti cally than paint ings, which are ac tu ally con structs from scratch. Later pho tog ra phy proved its in de pen dence and stopped being seen as pure ev i dence. This is when it found the op por tu nity to act like paint ing and be taken as an ap pa ra tus of fic tion. This new re la tion ship gave birth to pic to r ial pho tos that em u lated op ti cal qual i ties of paint ings, which in turn paved the path to hy per-re al is tic paint ings that are eas ily mis taken for pho tos. If we look at the early stages of this re la tion ship; by the last quar ter of the 19th cen tury, pho tog ra phers around the world had sup plied ample proof of the cam era's unique abil ity to record peo ple and places. At the same time, there were oth ers who were tak ing pic tures for a dif fer ent pur pose. Con vinced that the cam era could be used to go be yond sim ply record ing what was in front of the lens, these pho tog ra phers, both am a teur and pro fes sional, were de ter mined to pro duce im ages of artis tic merit. [...] Their aim was to con vince art crit ics, other pho tog ra phers, and the gen eral pub lic that pho tog ra phy should be re garded as a le git i mate form of art. [...] At the time, peo ple re garded the world's great paint ings as the high est form of vi sual art. It was only nat ural that artis tic pho tog ra phers began by try ing to pro duce the same kinds of im ages as those cre ated by the great est artists. They chose the same types of themes, set tings, and com po si tions. Like painters, they em pha sized the con trasts be tween dark and light tones (called

3 tions. Like painters, they em pha sized the con trasts be tween dark and light tones (called chiaroscuro). [...] Per haps the most dis tin guish ing char ac ter is tic of this early artis tic move ment was the way in which many pho tog ra phers ma nip u lated their im ages. (San dler 57) Henry Peach Robin son s book Pic to r ial Ef fect in Pho tog ra phy, pub lished in 1869; re ferred to this move ment, in flu enced by the pho tog ra phy-as-art ap proach, as pic to ri al ism. The in ti mate con nec tion be tween paint ing and pho tog ra phy is still so strong that many con tem po rary pho tog ra phers like He lena Blomqvist (Swedish), Désirée Dol ron, Jasper de Bei jer (Dutch), Chris t ian Noir falise (Bel gian), Yao Lu, Lu Jun (Chi nese), Nazif Topçuoğlu (Turk ish), Alessan dro Bavari (Ital ian) are tak ing ad van tage of the dig i tal imag ing tech nolo gies in order to cre ate pho tos that re sem ble paint ings. Peter Bun nell, in his work ti tled A Pho to graphic Vi sion: Pic to r ial Pho tog ra phy (1980), as so ci ates the an tipho to graphic art pho tog ra phy known as pic to ri al ism with a re ac tion against the de hu man iz ing ef fects of sci ence and ap plied tech nol ogy. Pic to ri al ism, he adds, placed its great est em pha sis on the in di vid u al ity of the artist as wit nessed in the work of art and idio syn crasies of its pro duc tion. (Stern berger 37) PALIMPSEST-LIKE SU PER IM PO SI TION: LAY ER ING TRANS PAREN CIES A palimpsest (Greek palin, again; psëstos, scraped) is a re-used pa pyrus or parch ment man u script in which the orig i nal text has been washed or scraped off and a new one sub sti tuted. The mod ern ver sion of this ar chaic sur face of knowl edge which al lows ac cu mu la tion of in for ma tion is the Pho to shop can vas, where you can com pletely cover a layer be hind yet still make some de tails emerge from be neath. This pos si bil ity of lay er ing var i ous data from dif fer ent sources one on plane is a more com plex form of the good old ana log col lag ing & mon tag ing meth ods and en ables artists to reach a richer ex pres sion through su per im posed plu ral i ties. Ger man artists Elger Esser, Kay Kaul and Michael Na j jar, Turk ish artists Murat Du ru soy and Zeynep Kayan are among nu mer ous pho tog ra phers who ben e fit from su per im po si tion, in which var i ous im ages be come in ter wo ven into a re assem bled com plex fic tive en tity as a col lage that brings mem o ries and places to gether in one plane. IN CLU SION OF TIME AS A NAR RA TIVE TOOL Pe riod(s) in cluded in sin gle pho tographs are usu ally and nat u rally much shorter than pe ri ods doc u mented in video works. Yet, when it comes to com bin ing pho tos taken at dif fer ent times on one pho to graph i cal sur face, it be comes pos si ble to see rem nants of longer pe ri ods of time. Per form ing time lapse pho tog ra phy and com posit ing im ages as a du ra tional pat tern of many traces left by dif fer ent mo ments, lead to the pos i tive no tion of time less ness (lack of time de pen dence) due to the plural pres ences of time at once. Sub stance be comes multi-lay ered and hi er ar chy dis ap pears: All el e ments are rel a tively equal parts to the whole. An ac cu mu lated pho to graph i cal ren der ing of one place with var i ous lights, move ments, fig ures, facets, ob jects and sub jects com ing from dis crete slices of time, al lows a richer vi sual de f i n i tion of the par tic u lar mi lieu that can be a more faith ful de scrip tion of the ob server s per sonal ex pe ri ences. The re sult ing im ages after such ac cu mu la tions are usu ally vi sual ex pe ri ences im pos si ble to the naked eye. Ahmet Elhan of Turkey, Pablo Zuleta Zahr of Chile and Thomas Wein berger of Ger many are some artists who ma nip u late the per cep tion of time by in cor po rat ing dis tinct phases of mo ments pur pose fully se lected from the chrono log i cal con tin uum. SIM PLI FI CA TION AS AN ELU CI DA TION TOOL Even though the pres ence of the traces from dif fer ent times can help artists to im prove their ex pres sion, it is also pos si ble to take a com pletely op po site di rec tion and take in for ma tion out from a sin gle layer of time. This sub trac tive ap proach lim its du ra tion to an even smaller frac tion of time, to the de gree it does not exist. The lack of de tail is not meant to hide in for ma tion from the au di ence, but rather to en lighten artis tic ex pres sion and make view ers focus on a par tic u lar con tent more eas ily. Fol low ing Mies van Der Rohe s fa mous quote; [some times] less is more... Above men tioned sim pli fi ca tion can be ob tained by eras ing the signs of speci ficity and turn ing it into anonymity, po ten tially point ing to the ba nal ity of our ho mog e nized en vi ron ments. An al ter na tive way is to re move the traces of typ i cal pres ence in order to cre ate a dis turb ing sense of ab sence where ex is tence and at ten dance are nor mally ex pected. These ex clu sions of na tive de tails from recorded re al ity that may lead to float ing com po nents that are iso lated from their con texts, chal lenges our view of the re li a bil ity of

4 po nents that are iso lated from their con texts, chal lenges our view of the re li a bil ity of pho tog ra phy and our con cept of the space rep re sented by it. Jes per Ras mussen (Dan ish), Josef Schulz (Ger man), Matt Siber (Amer i can) are artists who use sim pli fi ca tion in order to clar ify what they want to con vey through their pho tographs. THE ANTI-REAL: SUR RE AL ISM IN PHO TOG RA PHY Pho tog ra phy for some, is re flec tion of re al ity. Yet, the il lu sion of a sin gle re al ity, is crit i cized by W. Flusser: The [ob server] trusts [tech ni cal im ages] as he trusts his own eyes. If he crit i cizes them at all, he does so not as a cri tique of image, but as a cri tique of vi sion; his cri tique is not con cerned with their pro duc tion, but with the world as seen through them. Such a lack of crit i cal at ti tude to wards tech ni cal im ages is dan ger ous in a sit u a tion where these im ages are about to dis place texts. [It] is dan ger ous be cause the ob jec tiv ity of the tech ni cal image is a delu sion. They are, in truth, im ages, and as such, they are sym bol i cal... (Flusser 2000) Some artists take this crit i cal at ti tude to an ex treme to defy Re al ity and cre ate a new syn thetic re al ity. Quot ing the Wikipedia de f i n i tion, sur re al ist works fea ture the el e ment of sur prise, un ex pected jux ta po si tions. [...] Sur re al ism would ad vo cate the idea that or di nary and de pic tive ex pres sions are vital and im por tant, but that the sense of their arrange ment must be open to the full range of imag i na tion. [...] Freud's work with free as so ci a tion, dream analy sis and the hid den un con scious was of the ut most im por tance to the Sur re al ists in de vel op ing meth ods to lib er ate imag i na tion. Artists using dig i tal tech niques to take pho tog ra phy from re al ism to sur re al ism, aim to free peo ple from false ra tio nal ity, re stric tive cus toms / struc tures and prej u dice. Ryuta Amae (Japan ese), Michael Na j jar, Loretta Lux (Ger man), AES+F (Russ ian), An thony Goicolea (Amer i can), Ruud van Empel (Dutch) are among artists who pro duce star tling, oth er worldly sur real im ages which in volve com pos ite el e ments culled from dif fer ent set tings, fig ures, cul tures, in di vid u als and com bine them into new topogra phies, char ac ters and sce nar ios. AP PRO PRI A TION The com plex no tion of ap pro pri a tion is straight for wardly de fined by Mikhail Bakhtin: The word in lan guage is half some one else's. It be comes one's own only when the speaker pop u lates it with his own in ten tion, his own ac cent, when he ap pro pri ates the word, adapt ing it to his own se man tic and ex pres sive in ten tion. Prior to this mo ment of ap pro pri a tion, the word does not exist in a neu tral and im per sonal lan guage, but rather ex ists in other peo ple's mouths, in other peo ple's con texts, serv ing other peo ple's in ten tions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one's own. (Bakhtin 1981:294) Art is such a field that one can eas ily bor row an idea, art work, ap proach and use it/them in his/her work, with the con di tion of quot ing the ref er ence in ideal con di tions. Very fa mous works like Las Meni nas by Diego Velázquez have been rein ter preted in the form of hom mage à by very fa mous artists like Pablo Pi casso and Joel Peter Witkin. In pho tog ra phy, peo ple like Thomas Ruff buy the copy rights of old pho tos taken by an other pho tog ra pher and re touch them in Pho to shop, color them par tially and fi nally trans form them into their own art works. In a re cent se ries called JPEGs (2004-9) Ruff uses ready made JPEGs by ex ploit ing the lossy com pres sion of vi sual data into spoiled ar ti facts. Ruff blows low qual ity low-res files up in order to re veal how much in for ma tion is lost al ready be fore im ages are served to peo ple and be come iconic in world his tory. These im ages, blurred due to ex treme up-scal ing, are some where be tween leg i bil ity - il leg i bil ity and point to the skep ti cism that peo ple should adopt against im ages that are sup posed to con vey ac tu al i ties of world news. CON CLU SION: CRE ATION OF A NEW WORLD Mark King well as serts that pho tographs are not mul ti ple de pic tions of some sin gle re al ity, wait ing out there to be cor nered and cropped, and some how reg u lat ing, even in the cor ner ing and crop ping, how / what the image means. Rather, pho tographs offer mul ti ple mean ings. The pre sented image is not a re flec tion, or even an in ter pre ta tion, of sin gu lar re al ity. It is, in stead, the cre ation of a world. (King well 2006) Truth with the cap i tal T is not taken as the de par ture point in this paper; on the con trary, per sonal de lin eations of tem po rary yet ex pe ri enced smaller re al i ties is sug gested. Dig i tal tools avail able for pho tog ra phy allow the artists in the field to think in a more dar ing and free way. This free dom in flu ences the con tent and also the vi sual aes thet ics of the re cently cre ated art works in the uni ver sal prac tice of con tem po rary pho tog ra phy. Pho tog ra phy is prob a bly one of the vi sual art plat forms that is in flu enced the most by dig i tal pro duc tion and cre ativ ity. For tu nately, it seems it will con tinue to be so in the fu -

5 dig i tal pro duc tion and cre ativ ity. For tu nately, it seems it will con tinue to be so in the fu ture and dig i tal means will strengthen pho tog ra phy s po si tion in the art world as one of the most pro gres sive ex pres sion plat forms. Ref er ences and Notes: Stern berg, R. J., & Preiss, D. D. (Eds.) (2005). In tel li gence and tech nol ogy: The im pact of tools on the na ture and lev els of human abil ity. Mah wah, NJ: Lawrence Erl baum As so ci ates. King well, M., The Truth in Pho tographs: Ed ward Bur tyn sky's Rev e la tions of Ex cess. Steidl, Ger many Flusser, V., To wards A Phi los o phy of Pho tog ra phy. Reak tion Books. Jayne Gack en bach, ed., Psy chol ogy and the In ter net: In trap er sonal, In ter per sonal, and Transper sonal Im pli ca tions, (Boston: El se vier/aca d e mic Press, 2007) 346. James F. Wise. Per cep tion and the Vi sual Arts. Art Ed u ca tion, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Feb., 1970), p. 19. Na tional Art Ed u ca tion As so ci a tion. Mar tin W. San dler, Pho tog ra phy: An Il lus trated His tory (New York: Ox ford Uni ver sity Press, 2002) 57. Paul Spencer Stern berger, The Le git imiza tion of Pho tog ra phy as Art in Amer ica, The Le git imiza tion of Pho tog ra phy as Art in Amer ica, (Al bu querque, NM: Univ. of New Mex ico Press, 2001) xiv. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1981): The Di a logic Imag i na tion: Four Es says, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emer son & Michael Holquist. Austin: Uni ver sity of Texas Press.