photography: film: modern vision

Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904)

Evidently a different nature opens itself to the camera than opens to the naked

eye—if only because an unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a

space consciously explored by man. Even if one has a general knowledge of

the way people walk, one knows nothing of a person‘s posture during the

fractional second of a stride…the camera introduces us to unconscious

optics…

[Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 1935]

x-ray photograph, ca.1895

―New vision‖, x-ray speculation, 1890s

In all the arts there is a physical component which can no

longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which

cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and

power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor

time has been what it was from time immemorial.

[Paul Valéry, Pièces sur l’Art, 1931]

aura, photography and

modernity

[modern vision and subjectivity]

For the first time in the process of pictorial reproduction,

photography freed the hand of the most important

artistic functions which henceforth devolved only upon

the eye looking in to a lens.

[Walter Benjamin, ―The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical

Reproduction,‖ 1935]

Donatello‘s David, c.1440

unique in time, space, history

authenticity

aura

That which withers in the age of

mechanical reproduction is the aura

of the work of art.

[Walter Benjamin, ―The Work of Art in the Age

of Mechanical Reproduction,‖ 1935]

The desire of contemporary masses to bring

things ‗closer‘ spatially and humanly…to pry

an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is

the mark of a perception whose ‗sense of the

universal equality of things‘ has increased to

such a degree that it extracts it even from a

unique object by means of reproduction.

[Walter Benjamin, ―The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction,‖ 1935]

Eugène Atget, Paris, c.1920s

The adjustment of reality to the masses and

of the masses to reality is a process of

unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for

perception.

[Walter Benjamin, ―The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction,‖ 1935]

Eugène Atget, Paris, c.1920s

For the first time in world history,

mechanical reproduction emancipates the

work of art from its parasitical dependence

on ritual. To an ever greater degree the

work of art reproduced becomes the work of

art designed for reproducibility. From a

photographic negative, for example, one

can make any number of prints; to ask for

the ―authentic‖ print makes no sense.

[Walter Benjamin, ―The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction,‖ 1935]

Eugène Atget, Paris, c.1920s

But the instant the criterion of authenticity

ceases to be applicable to artistic

production, the total function of art is

reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it

begins to be based on another practice—

politics.

[Walter Benjamin, ―The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction,‖ 1935]

John Heartfield, photomontage, 1933

―All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.‖

―Security in Iraq,‖ U.S. Dept. of Defense

We have lost our capacity to grasp the reality of

war. The horror of war is consumed as though it

were a horror movie.”

[Neil Leach, The Anaesthetics of Architecture, 1999]

politics of the image

[cinema and modern vision]

Dziga Vertov: from agit-prop to kino-pravda [film truth]

cinema of the everyday

or

―life unawares‖

I am an eye.

I am a mechanical eye.

I, a machine, I am showing you a world,

the likes of which only I can see.

[Dziga Vertov ]

Vertov argued psychological film-dramas:

―prevent man from being as precise as a stop watch

and hamper his desire for kinship with the machine.‖

Our eyes see very little and very badly – so people dreamed up the

microscope to let them see invisible phenomena; they invented the

telescope...now they have perfected the cine-camera to penetrate more

deeply into the visible world, to explore and record visual phenomena so that

what is happening now, which will have to be taken account of in the future, is

not forgotten.

[Dziga Vertov ]

To the extent that the metropolis creates

these psychological conditions—with

every crossing of the street, with the

tempo and multiplicity of economic,

occupational and social life—it creates

the sensory foundations of mental life.

[Georg Simmel, ―The Metropolis and Mental life,‖

1903]

Our taverns and our metropolitan streets, our offices and furnished

rooms, our railroad stations and our factories appeared to us locked up

hopelessly. Then came the film and burst this prison world asunder by

the dynamite of the tenth of a second…with close-ups space expands;

with slow motion, movement is extended…An unconsciously

penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by

man.

[Walter Benjamin, ―The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,‖ 1935]

―By close-ups of the things around us,

by focusing on hidden details of

familiar objects, by exploring

commonplace milieus under the

ingenious guidance of the camera, the

film, on the one hand, extends our

comprehension of the necessities

which rule our lives; on the other hand,

it manages to assure us of an

immense and unexpected field of

action.‖

[Walter Benjamin, ―The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction,‖ 1935]

test one: review[what you need to know]

test one: review

go to your tutorials this week…

test one: review

10 multiple choice (.5 pt each) = 10 mins

5 short answer (1 pt each) = 15 mins

2 essay (5 pts each) = 30 mins

** plus 5 mins to review you answers

Total of 60 mins + 20% of final grade

test one: review• trust your instincts when responding [ your first answer is usually correct]

• be specific in your responses [!] – don‘t just tell us what you think, tell us why you are

taking a given position and how it relates to readings, lectures, and/or tutorial

discussions

• refer to specific authors, concepts, objects, critics, etc. to provide evidence in your

responses

• take a few moments before answering each essay question to determine your position

(thesis statement) and how you intend to support it (evidence)