Lens-based art

[Maris]

Much of realist picture-making has been "lens based" for thousands of years.

Think about it: the lens of a camera or an eye forms a real optical image of things in the field of view. The real optical image is cast upon a sensor.

The sensor may be a megapixel transducer or retina that serves to convert the image into a stream of electrical pulses that travel up a cable and are stored in a memory located in a brain. The brain may be organic or electronic. What is stored in the memory is not an image but a coded description of one. Later the coded description can be edited, altered, or augmented according to whim. The final code is downloaded to create a visible picture. This is achieved by using the code to control the activities of a mark-making device.

If the mark-making system is a human mind+hand+brush or pencil then the end result is a painting or drawing. Lens based? Definitely yes.

If the mark-making system is a printer or display monitor then we have digital picture-making. Lens based? Definitely yes.

Alternatively to the above scenarios the sensor might be a light-sensitive substance that is changed in situ by the impact of the real optical image. The sensor itself becomes the picture. Even though here there is no megapixel transducer, no data stream, no memory, no brain, no re-processing, and no mark-making system, the final picture is still lens based. This sequence described in this paragraph is unique to photography and separates it from painting, drawing, and digital picture-making.

There are some other realist image making techniques. For example death masks, life casts, wax impressions, graphite rubbings, papier mache moulds, cliche verre, and contact exposures on light sensitive substrates. Lens based? Definitely not.

Opinion: the concept "lens based art" is flawed in that it lumps together things that are different: painting/drawing/digi-pix compared to photography. Differences include the relationship of pictures to subject matter, indirect and optional versus direct and obligatory. And the relationship between artist and medium is different too. In painting/drawing/digi-pix the artist fabricates. In photography, a physical process constrained by the laws of chemistry and physics, the artist facilitates.

 

[Jose A Martinez]

Opinion: the concept "lens based art" is flawed in that it lumps together things that are different: painting/drawing/digi-pix compared to photography. Differences include the relationship of pictures to subject matter, indirect and optional versus direct and obligatory. And the relationship between artist and medium is different too. In painting/drawing/digi-pix the artist fabricates. In photography, a physical process constrained by the laws of chemistry and physics, the artist facilitates.

Thank you Maris, I like your approach. "indirect and optional vs direct and obligatory", this is also an argument that helps to the discussion that, if photography is an art, it is linear to the graphic representation history, like painting, watercolor, etching, gravure, etc. or belong to a new category.

 

[TheRook]

Much of realist picture-making has been "lens based" for thousands of years.

Think about it: the lens of a camera or an eye forms a real optical image of things in the field of view. The real optical image is cast upon a sensor.

The sensor may be a megapixel transducer or retina that serves to convert the image into a stream of electrical pulses that travel up a cable and are stored in a memory located in a brain. The brain may be organic or electronic. What is stored in the memory is not an image but a coded description of one. Later the coded description can be edited, altered, or augmented according to whim. The final code is downloaded to create a visible picture. This is achieved by using the code to control the activities of a mark-making device.

If the mark-making system is a human mind+hand+brush or pencil then the end result is a painting or drawing. Lens based? Definitely yes.

If the mark-making system is a printer or display monitor then we have digital picture-making. Lens based? Definitely yes.

Alternatively to the above scenarios the sensor might be a light-sensitive substance that is changed in situ by the impact of the real optical image. The sensor itself becomes the picture. Even though here there is no megapixel transducer, no data stream, no memory, no brain, no re-processing, and no mark-making system, the final picture is still lens based. This sequence described in this paragraph is unique to photography and separates it from painting, drawing, and digital picture-making.

There are some other realist image making techniques. For example death masks, life casts, wax impressions, graphite rubbings, papier mache moulds, cliche verre, and contact exposures on light sensitive substrates. Lens based? Definitely not.

Opinion: the concept "lens based art" is flawed in that it lumps together things that are different: painting/drawing/digi-pix compared to photography. Differences include the relationship of pictures to subject matter, indirect and optional versus direct and obligatory. And the relationship between artist and medium is different too. In painting/drawing/digi-pix the artist fabricates. In photography, a physical process constrained by the laws of chemistry and physics, the artist facilitates.

I think you are taking the term, "lens-based art" a little too literal. Perhaps that particular art field should have been coined differently. However, it does have a precise academic definition, and is also offered by some universities as a program of study.

 

[DREW WILEY]

All visual arts are lens-based arts. That's why eyes have lenses.

 

[removed account4]

its a light based art, not a lens based art. photo ( light ) graph ( drawing )

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

its a light based art, not a lens based art. photo ( light ) graph ( drawing )

Hence my earlier assertion that all images created by photons is photography.

 

[eddie]

I often make photographs without lenses or cameras.

 

[blockend]

The difference is only important to galleries hoping to sell a product. In that context there is a difference between a black and white silver gelatin print of Marilyn Monroe and a Warhol screen print of her. Similarly the market placement of a multi-media artist who happens to produce a photograph between sculpture and installation works, and the photographs of a life-long war photographer, require differentiation even though they may be hung in the same gallery.

It's commonly said that art is anything artists produce. If so it's axiomatic that photography consists of any photographs photographers take, at least in a gallery context.

 

[removed account4]

If so it's axiomatic that photography consists of any photographs photographers take, at least in a gallery context

and/ or MAKE

 

[AgX]

Good point.
Though I do not see that differenciation covered by the term "lens-based". (Well, a lot of designations are not selfdescriptive.)

 

[benjiboy]

I think you are taking the term, "lens-based art" a little too literal. Perhaps that particular art field should have been coined differently. However, it does have a precise academic definition, and is also offered by some universities as a program of study.

I think " lens based art " is a title that was probably thought up by an advertising agency.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

I think some people think too much and have an 'epiphany' that they believe is a flash of genius when it's really just a brain fart. I think the term 'lens based art' is a brain fart but I'm sure the originator is basking in his/her own glory. Maybe they think their own farts smell like roses. Breathe deeply, genius. Filter the air for the rest of us.

 

[Vaughn]

I see this "you can't call yourself an artist" crap as just another version of the anti-intellectualism that abounds in this country.

Edit: Okay, perhaps a bit of a stretch comparing the two -- I guess I just find both views as equally disturbing. And I have heard the phrase "lens-based art" a couple of decades or more back. A decent general term. No one term will be a perfect fit.

 

[Vaughn]

...Opinion: the concept "lens based art" is flawed in that it lumps together things that are different: painting/drawing/digi-pix compared to photography. Differences include the relationship of pictures to subject matter, indirect and optional versus direct and obligatory. And the relationship between artist and medium is different too. In painting/drawing/digi-pix the artist fabricates. In photography, a physical process constrained by the laws of chemistry and physics, the artist facilitates.

Opinion: I use the the laws of chemistry and physics to fabricate my images and prints. "Facilitate" is what catalysts do -- like platiunum in a your exahust system...facilitates the chemical reaction, but is not in the final product. There is a lot of me in my work. Others may fabricate -- there are many valid ways to live and do things. I suppose some sculpters use a chisle to facilitate the removal of unwanted stone. Words -- ya gotta love them!

Silly aside: I believe non-lens based artists have to deal with (be constrained by) the laws of physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, etc. I know Alexander Calders work was definitely constrained by the laws of gravity -- that is why they fly.

 

[Nodda Duma]

Lens design is sometimes an art form. I think the phrase was stolen from the lens design community and should be returned