...a non-biologically made product which none the less holds some manner of living energy properties, those of the image maker, those of the one photographed, and those of the viewer. It's this gumbo of context and events that determines what we see in a photo.
However, humans actually see things upside down, and it's our brain which makes the image "right side up" again. Early explorers found that photos they had given to Eskimos were displayed in the igloos upside down as well as right side up. The "untrained mind" had to be told how to look at a photo! This changes deeply held moral, ethical and religious beliefs on what reality actually is, and what exactly is conditioning from birth..
No, they where simply not familiar with the concept and conventions of a framed pictorial image. Much less a photo.So were these upside down pics those of subjects so unfamiliar to an Eskimo that there was no way he could be expected to know which was the correct way up? So presumably for instance a picture of a sledge, canoe, seal or Polar Bear would all have been hung the correct way up but a bicycle, car might not
Maybe it was never made clear exactly what the reason for this dual method of hanging pics was?
Thanks
pentaxuser
No, they where simply not familiar with the concept and conventions of a framed pictorial image. Much less a photo.
1. Paleolithic people in France and Spain who painted the caves (rarely lived in them) had a much more sophisticated pictorial culture than the Inuit. But even their images didn't have four sides around them, they weren't a slice of time from a perspective point of view, and they where often also sculpted and to a limited degree animated.So if I am familiar with an object but have never seen that object in a framed pictorial image, would I fail to recognise it as the same object that I am familiar with, simply because all I now see is a representation of that object? When ancient cave dwellers painted pictures of things they had seen in real life they seem to paint them the right way up so what is it about a photograph ( literally writing with light) that confuses the Eskimo and does the same confusion arise with say an Amazonian tribe that has seen real animals in the jungle if they are given photos of said animals?
Thanks
pentaxuser
So if I am familiar with an object but have never seen that object in a framed pictorial image, would I fail to recognise it as the same object that I am familiar with, simply because all I now see is a representation of that object? When ancient cave dwellers painted pictures of things they had seen in real life they seem to paint them the right way up so what is it about a photograph ( literally writing with light) that confuses the Eskimo and does the same confusion arise with say an Amazonian tribe that has seen real animals in the jungle if they are given photos of said animals?
Thanks
pentaxuser
Great post.There is no way we can "get inside the head" of an indigenous person who has little experience with the modern world. We see things north, south, east, & west or upside down or right side up. The art of indigenous people where I come from depict the face, both sides, and maybe even internal bits on a flat plane all at the same time. Without knowing the 'language' of form lines or the use of positive and negative space, lots of people I know cannot pick out the individual animals or spirit figures in a design let alone know what way is up. So, in this case, we are the ones who cannot see it properly.
One film I saw, Contact (Prime Video) interviews a woman in her 60's who was in a group of Australian Aborigines that had never seen white people before, when she was a teenager in the 1960's. What makes the film powerful is that the white people took motion and still photos of the encounters and the woman's recollections allow a wee glimmer of understanding how strange it all was for her and her group.
The only first person account of this type of encounter I know of.
There is no way we can "get inside the head" of an indigenous person who has little experience with the modern world. We see things north, south, east, & west or upside down or right side up. The art of indigenous people where I come from depict the face, both sides, and maybe even internal bits on a flat plane all at the same time. Without knowing the 'language' of form lines or the use of positive and negative space, lots of people I know cannot pick out the individual animals or spirit figures in a design let alone know what way is up. So, in this case, we are the ones who cannot see it properly.
One film I saw, Contact (Prime Video) interviews a woman in her 60's who was in a group of Australian Aborigines that had never seen white people before, when she was a teenager in the 1960's. What makes the film powerful is that the white people took motion and still photos of the encounters and the woman's recollections allow a wee glimmer of understanding how strange it all was for her and her group.
The only first person account of this type of encounter I know of.
Thank you for posting the video link. I never heard of this type of encounter in the first person from the encountered. Usually, it is from the encounter's point of view, like in the documentary The Tribe That Hides From Man(1970).
How do you determine who's encounterer and who's encountered? I'm not being facetious, but genuinely surprised that you see these different categories at work. When I'm taking the position of the ethnologist trying to understand your way of thinking about this, are you the encountered and I'm the encounterer or vice versa?Thank you for posting the video link. I never heard of this type of encounter in the first person from the encountered. Usually, it is from the encounter's point of view, like in the documentary The Tribe That Hides From Man(1970).
Isn't the question really whether they correlate a picture with the thing we think it portrays?What is the body of expertise that is able to conclude that "indigenous people" fail to correlate a picture of something familiar to them to it being the right or wrong way up
It might well be but I still genuinely cannot understand why a picture of a sledge, canoe, seal etc which the people in question, namely Eskimos, know and indeed for possibly survival have to know, fail to correlate an accurate representation of said object to the extent that they cannot work out which way up it should be. It might be my "modern western" brain and modern western life that enable me to do what the Eskimo cannot but I doubt that that alone is the full explanation. It may be that once you add the modifications and qualifications to that discovery of Eskimos inability to hand a picture the right way up then it becomes less mystical and those same modifications and qualifications would apply to all humans. There are times when "weird and wonderful" discoveries without detailed study can get close to "hot air"Isn't the question really whether they correlate a picture with the thing we think it portrays?
First, it is now considered by the Inuit to be offensive to refer to them as Eskimos (a label assigned to them by others). So tread carefully.It might well be but I still genuinely cannot understand why a picture of a sledge, canoe, seal etc which the people in question, namely Eskimos, know and indeed for possibly survival have to know, fail to correlate an accurate representation of said object to the extent that they cannot work out which way up it should be. It might be my "modern western" brain and modern western life that enable me to do what the Eskimo cannot but I doubt that that alone is the full explanation. It may be that once you add the modifications and qualifications to that discovery of Eskimos inability to hand a picture the right way up then it becomes less mystical and those same modifications and qualifications would apply to all humans. There are times when "weird and wonderful" discoveries without detailed study can get close to "hot air"
Is there any studies on why this is and what the reasons are?
pentaxuser
That is the usual naive, woke, iconoclastic reaction these days to McLuhan.McLuhan is the kind of writer who got a lot of people excited at the time, but he is mainly a period piece by now. Academically speaking, he's worthless as a theoretical framework.
His cherry-picked stories about Indigenous people are downright racist and reflect more his colonial way of thinking than they say anything at all about the populations concerned.
In his excitable attempts at making grand pronouncements, epochal divisions, he ends up putting everything in the same basket, including myths and tall tales.
So yeah, the guy matters for history, and is endlessly quotable (if not readable, for he's an aphoristic swamp), but you can't take him seriously now.
Matt, I picked up the word Eskimo from momus' post who first mentioned it as his example but yes I remained ignorant of the term Eskimo being offensive until you pointed it out. It is not now nor ever was not my intention to use an offensive termFirst, it is now considered by the Inuit to be offensive to refer to them as Eskimos (a label assigned to them by others). So tread carefully.
But more interestingly, why do you consider photographs to be accurate representations - they are two dimensional and they don't really look like the things you say they represent.
We are accustomed to think of photographs as being reasonable analogues of reality, but that comes from culture and training, not something innate.
It is the concept of a two dimensional picture as a representation of reality that is culturally unfamiliar.I cannot for the life of me work out what it is about culture and training that give's my brain the advantage in recognising a picture of a familiar object that seems not to be available to the Inuit in this case when he looks at an object familiar to him
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?