Is APUG actually about physicality?

[Tom Duffy]

Is photography dead?
Of course it is.
Why else would I be burying my photographs?

 

[copake_ham]

Is photography dead?
Of course it is.
Why else would I be burying my photographs?

Wait a minute Tom, not so fast! You didn't read the whole ritual.

First you have to nail them to a cross. Then stick a spear in them. At that point you get to bury them!

But you have to bury them in a cave, in front of which you roll a big rock.

Because three days later, they will be resurrected!

And it is then, and only then, that you can now venerate your photos - for they will have achieved a true state of grace!

 

[jd callow]

At the top of this is the debate about the image trumping process. A debate that is geared toward idea's -- the image as an idea, something that does not need to be physical. I agree that a great image, be it made with a brush, pixels, silver or cow dung is still a great image. Is an image an object or more to the point an object of art is slightly different. The obvious involvement of the human hand or a work whose appearance relies upon the appearance of the human hand or relies upon the physical aspects of the medium, especially when the human activity and medium are integrated are where the image as an abstract begins to lose the argument.

Is burying photos in dirt a contrivance backed by convoluted intellectualization or is it another take on physicality? Is the effort to climb the mountain or hanging out of the airplane or braving the cold an aspect of physicality that is important to the image? Does it matter that the photographer went through the effort to precisely measure and analyze the scene, film/sensor/monitor and printer/paper so that the final print was as perfect as is scientifically possible?

In the end if it makes the photographer happy doing, it will show in the work. To the viewer it may matter that they can see the effort or the workers impact. I can guarantee that most would rather own the print that was 'built by hand' than the one that is 'perfect' but compiled from a machine. This tends to negate the image as being paramount, as a machine print is often bereft of defect and therefore arguably better.

I believe that apugers are happy building their own. Most apugers enjoy or love the process, the tools and the materials.

 

[David H. Bebbington]

Apugers do appreciate the physicality, as do most artists I know, but I don't confuse the two.

Good for you, jd! On reflection I would like to ask whether anyone would care to compare and contrast the following:
1) Gum bichromate print-maker - very laborious, time-consuming and difficult process, highly tactile and unique result, which I presume makes it an example of maximum physicality
2) Motion picture cameraman, who does not even touch his material (film) and has no involvement with it whatsoever after the exposed magazine comes off the camera and goes to the lab, which I presume makes it an example of zero physicality

Or another example: I am a photographer but also a musician and (in the past more than now) an actor too. Photography involves making a tactile physical object (high physicality?), music and acting involve no physical end product at all (but more physical effort). Which is more physical and which is more worthy? I never in my life felt that any of these media was more worthy of veneration than any other, merely different and thus useful for expressing different things

 

[jd callow]

Darn! I edited that out as to not offend, but it appears I was too slow.

To answer your question.
All else being equal I would think there is no difference unless you prefer one over the other -- and I do think you sell the Motion picture cameraman short.

 

[David H. Bebbington]

Darn! I edited that out as to not offend, but it appears I was too slow.

To answer your question.
All else being equal I would think there is no difference unless you prefer one over the other -- and I do think you sell the Motion picture cameraman short.

Interesting that you equate physicality with value - I don't, as I was trying to demonstrate with the examples of actors and musicians - not a milligram of physical object produced, but a potentially very high level of artistry.

Regards,

David

 

[jd callow]

I may not have been succinct.

I don’t equate physical effort to value. I don’t see the extra effort needed to get the shot as being necessarily a value add. The effort needed to make a print one way over another is not inherently better if it took more work. I also don’t think that affectations such as elaborate brush strokes on PT/PD’s or burying pictures are in and of them selves of value.

I do think that if the actions of the worker, as in the work, reflect well on the image or more to the point are integral to the work's success than I do, of course, think it adds value. I also believe that this interaction is often what makes many works special.

The materials and or the object it self can and should add value.

There are no absolutes.

A great image as an idea is a great image. As a producer of photographic images I do know my physical input has almost as much input as my ideas. As a painter or sculptor my physical input is the equal to my ideas. As a producer it is the act that gives me greater satisfaction than the product. As a viewer, the act is less valuable unless it increases the quality of the image and then I might not even notice. As a buyer of work I would generally place higher value on the hand made piece over the machine built work, but this may be sentimental.

Finally, having been on apug for as long as I have, it is my opinion that apugers value the physical aspects of the art form. I think they like the gallery, but prefer the exchanges, meetings, traveling portfolio and the discussions of the mechanical and physical aspects.

In this they are like most artists I know – and I know that many here are artists.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Ah, the good old problem of photography as the "unskilled art."

So we have people working hard to create art. Some people spend a lot of energy cutting stone, laying coats of gum bichromate or rehearsing the violin. Others apparently just press a shutter and pickup the prints at the drugstore.

I say apparently, because we sometimes have an uneasy relationship with the impact of effort on the value of things. Sure, the hand-carved jewel is a bit more valuable than the machine-made one, but why? And is that value the end of it all?

The medium is not the physical layer of an artwork. At least, it's not JUST that. There are two media: the vehicular medium and the artistic medium. The first is rather material: wood for engravers, air for musicians, silver for some photographers, platinum for others, etc. The second one is conventional: it's poetry, not words; painting, not paint; dance, not movement; pictures, not pixels or grains.

A work of art is a process, not a product. The work of an artist is not the photograph you hold in your hand: the work is what she did to create it. It's not about intent. It's not about the phoney "artistic process" people write in their grant application. It's about the real thinking that went into specifying a particular design on paper, the physical manipulations to do so, and the relationship to the context in which this work exists.

In other words, a work of art is a performance*, a sequence of decisions and actions, that specify a focus of appreciation: book, painting, musical piece, etc. When you appreciate the drawing of someone, you're not just saying "that's a purty piece of stained paper." You're also saying "that artist sure did a good job, she worked well through the constraints of the material she uses and the conventions within which she operates (and sometimes subverts)"

So when it comes to photography, sure, you can take the easy road and just set everything on auto, then have the drugstore figure it out: your medium is not exhausted by the set of physical manipulations you perform or not on your print. I don't want to end with the banality "it's all about the image", because it's a bit more subtle than that. We appreciate any work of art both at the conventional level of its medium (Gerard Manley Hopkins going wild with poetics) and at the level of its vehicle (those platinum prints!). Some vehicular manipulations have direct bearing on the artistic value of an artwork: the blur Leonardo got out of oil paint (sfumato), is a great technical advance but also are important to set the mood of his paintings.

Physicality won't make you a better artist, nor will better ideas alone will demonstrate a greater talent if there isn't the vehicle to carry them.

* My source for this reasoning is "Art as Performance" by David Davies.

 

[jstraw]

A work of art is a process, not a product. The work of an artist is not the photograph you hold in your hand: the work is what she did to create it. It's not about intent. It's not about the phoney "artistic process" people write in their grant application. It's about the real thinking that went into specifying a particular design on paper, the physical manipulations to do so, and the relationship to the context in which this work exists.

In other words, a work of art is a performance*, a sequence of decisions and actions, that specify a focus of appreciation: book, painting, musical piece, etc. When you appreciate the drawing of someone, you're not just saying "that's a purty piece of stained paper." You're also saying "that artist sure did a good job, she worked well through the constraints of the material she uses and the conventions within which she operates (and sometimes subverts)"

I was with you till you dismissed intent but then you went on to performance. Sometimes part of the act 'performed' is intellectual or conceptual. Something can be art just by changing it's context and/or intending it to be art. Examples would be taking something utilitarian and changing its context...saying "here, look at this..think about this...now here's a curveball...what do you make of that?" For examples I'd offer Warhol showing you a product package or Duchamp showing you a urinal.

The artist gives you an aesthetic opportunity. What's the distinction between an aesthetic opportunity and sensory stimulation?

There is not value in physicality but physicality can provide value...but only if it does.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I was with you till you dismissed intent but then you went on to performance. Sometimes part of the act 'performed' is intellectual or conceptual. Something can be art just by changing it's context and/or intending it to be art. Examples would be taking something utilitarian and changing its context...saying "here, look at this..think about this...now here's a curveball...what do you make of that?" For examples I'd offer Warhol showing you a product package or Duchamp showing you a urinal.

The artist gives you an aesthetic opportunity. What's the distinction between an aesthetic opportunity and sensory stimulation?

There is not value in physicality but physicality can provide value...but only if it does.

I shouldn't dismiss entirely intent, but I'm just putting it aside for a moment because we tend to be TOO passionate about it. Whenever someone brings up the role of artist's intent in appreciation, someone else with a New Critical approach will dismiss it as biographical balderdash we should not bother ourselves with for the work is supposedly self-contained.

Conceptual art: exactly. Performance theories* of art are one approach to bridging the gap between seemingly "physical" and "non-physical" art forms. The medium of Duchamp's urinal is not porcelain, it would rather be the process of exhibition. In a way, it's analogous to pragmatics in linguistics (but not identical!). Depending on context, the words you say take a different meaning, i.e. you are performing an action in a different medium of conventions, so to speak.


* To be exact in terminology, this is an ontology, i.e. a description of what kind of thing an artwork is. It does not mean that all performances are artwork, but it maintains that all artworks are a performance in a medium. A definition of art based on that ontology will specify which performances count as art, and which do not. A definition might not be categorical: the boundary between art and non-art is obviously fuzzy, and it is not a sin to have a probabilistic definition!

However, having a solid, more categorical ontology is useful because it gives you necessary conditions to find an artwork. Based on this reasoning, a motif in the cloud is not art, whereas a painting of it could be. There are alternate ways of looking at it, and some lines of thinking do no discriminate between intentional and non-intentional artifacts--there's a guy I know who draws from the Sikh tradition to have a more encompassing view of art: a river, a sunset, the wind, or a dance, all form part of the same universe of beauty. There's something interesting in it, and it presupposes a different metaphysics that could actually be eye-opening.

 

[jstraw]

I get where you're coming from but when I was talking about intent, it was not in terms of evaluating work based on the artist's intent and by extension judging the merit of the intent. I was speaking less specifically...more broadly...intent in terms of the intention that an aesthetic opportunity be presented. Not intent in terms of the intended conceptual meaning but intent in terms of it not being 'here's a chair, have a seat' but rather 'consider this chair, as presented.'

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I get where you're coming from but when I was talking about intent, it was not in terms of evaluating work based on the artist's intent and by extension judging the merit of the intent. I was speaking less specifically...more broadly...intent in terms of the intention that an aesthetic opportunity be presented. Not intent in terms of the intended conceptual meaning but intent in terms of it not being 'here's a chair, have a seat' but rather 'consider this chair, as presented.'

Right, that is the pragmatics aspect, where a work of art is a kind of exhortation to being considered. I've seen theories of literature use that approach, it's a standard reading of pragmatics-inspired theories. Instead of looking for a particular type of "language of literature" like the formalists, these people look instead for the presentational features of the work, those that inscribe it into a practice of appreciation. I mostly agree with that approach, because literature exists not as a kind of text, but rather as a way to deal with texts.

 

[jstraw]

"...literature exists not as a kind of text, but rather as a way to deal with texts."

Hmmm....

"Art exists not as a kind of sensory stimulus, but rather as a way to deal with sensory stimulae."

I think I like it.

 

[Katharine Thayer]

Katherine,

While I admit that mhv's approach was a bit heavy-handed, I see considerable merit in being a subscriber here.

First off, all idealism aside, the reality is that Sean has to pay the bills to keep this place running. This isn't a mid-1990's BBS. It is a very complex website with a huge database, growing forum activity etc. requiring substantial server space.

Yes, The Gallery is a small "perk" for those of us who subscribe. But I doubt if many have done so just to be able to post to it. Rather, I believe that the vast majority of subscribers recognize an obligation to help support this place that we so enjoy hanging out at.

So while your idealism might be somewhat admirable - perhaps you would consider the real world situation we all share?

This last sentence reminds me of a scene from the movie "Contact," where one scientist has stabbed another scientist in the back (figuratively and politically, not literally) yet one more time, and then says to her something like (this probably isn't an exact quote, because I'm recalling it from memory) "I wish this were a world where the kind of idealism you have displayed is rewarded, but it's not." She answers, "Funny, I've always thought the world is what we make it."

Katharine