Category: Coursework

Project 5 Sexualised images

As Joan Fontcuberta discusses in his essay ‘Ode to a King’s Legs’ (Fontcuberta, 2014, pp.113–25), the Photoshopped image crosses into political imagery and domestic photography

The title of this project is sexualised images but I am interested in the whole topic of image manipulation.

I believe that very few of us are duped by manipulation of images today. It is taken as said that almost every image is digitally altered. Hence we can no longer rely on a photograph to ‘tell the truth’ about some event or about somebody. Fontcuberta’s essay is about the whole topic of image manipulation and not jsut about manipulation of images to accentuate sexualisation. He discusses the Spanish royal family portrait. The image was badly Photoshopped by the queen herself. I found this hilarious and fail to understand the public outcry. So Granny ‘created’ a happy family image, so what. She could have painted the family portrait if she had been a painter, and no one would have raised an eyebrow if she had done so using photographs. I think we need to get over this idea of the ‘veracity’ of a photograph. Photographs are no long telling the truth, in this they resemble paintings. Artists always accentuated the positive points of their sitters.

Manipulation of information has existed for ever. My husband witnessed an accident in Dublin when he was a young man. He was home in Ireland on holidays and went to the police station and made a written statement and left his name and address as a witness. He confirmed that he would be available if required. On his return to Ireland he called by the police station to find out what had happened. Although the police officer had taken down his written statement on the first occasion, there was no record of this. Someone had ‘manipulated’ or disappeared his witness statement.

Was the Thrump phone call to the Farrage interview a hoax – I cannot even remember whether this turned out to be fact or fiction. Does it matter? For me it does not as I do not believe anything either of these two men say or do. Unlike the Spanish hoax phone call to the Bolivian President Morales the Thrump phone call barely raised eyebrows. We have got used to being ‘duped’ with the actions of those in power. But we do need to remain vigilant and try to decipher whether those standing for office are honest people. This is becoming increasingly difficult because of the manipulation of those standing for office, by their media handlers.

The Spanish Royal family’s christmas card ‘hoax’ seems so innocent compared to what has and is happening on social media every day. Compromising images of young men and women are been put up, photoshopped and distributed every moment of every day. Some of this online manipulation and distribution of images is causing young people to take their own lives. Within a ten week period in Ireland, in 2017, ten young people took their lives due to online bullying.

The increase of the apparent need of young people to expose themselves on social media in a sexualised manner is disquieting. I am not sure if parents can control this. I have grandchildren just reaching the age of puberty and I worry for them. But I have very tech savvy children and I trust them to give their children enough self assurance to be able to avoid exposing themselves in these types of images.

It is hard to say where this image manipulation is going. I do not believe ti will go away but I can only hope that people become less gullible and do not take it so seriously.

Desperately Seeking Difference by Jackie Stacey

I found this essay fascinating. It is a question that my husband and I have often discussed – “How do I react to films compared to how he reacts?” As a fairly strong feminist my reaction is often anger and frustration at how women are portrayed in film. The female is subjective subservient and fawning while the male is the power suited successful business man or warrior. So my opinion would be in general agreement with the research discussed in the essay.Desperately Seeking Difference by Jackie Stacey

The two films discussed in the paper All About Eve and Desperately Seeing Susan are films that treat the gaze of one female on another. The male roles are minor. The films are interesting in that they are not straightforward lesbian films or at least the lesbian theme is clouded in a sort of ambitious desire to be the other person rather than be with the other person.

All about Eve is directed and produced by two males while Desperately Seeking Susan has two females as director and producer.  I would have liked to see this aspect discussed in the paper. Would this have made a difference to how the films were presented? Many lesbian films are produced and directed by men. I find this astonishing and I believe this is done to interpret female to female relationships in the manner of how men see them – with a male gaze.

Male and females are different and how we see and interpret images and film sequences are different. I believe these differences should be celebrated and discussed not criticised. We attended the wedding of two great lesbian friends, a couple of years ago. We were among very few ‘straight’ guests. The atmosphere was different from heterosexual weddings. There seemed, to me, a softer more loving atmosphere. Another heterosexual wedding we attended, in NewYork, consisted of a majority homosexual guests. The bride was a photographer…. My husband ‘gave her away’. It was memorable and I usually hate weddings! We should strive to understand how each other ‘see’ the world around us. Inevitably it will be different and not necessarily based on sexual orientation. My sister sees our childhood totally differently to how I see and remember it.

We are a complicated species but it is our differences that make us interesting.

Project 4.4: The selfie revisited: testimony or trophy?

    • Read Susan Sontag’s essay ‘Regarding the Torture of Others’ at Link 7 

    • Read Alise Tifentale’s essay ‘Making Sense of the “Masturbation of Self-Image” and the 
“Virtual Mini-Me” ’ at Link 8 This is published by a research group based in New York called Selfie City. See Link 9 


The title of this project is interesting. A ‘selfie’ can be both testimony and trophy. “I was here” being the usual testimony ‘selfie’ which appears on Instagram and trophy when one makes an image of oneself with the ‘victim’ of ones actions.

Susan Sontag’s article (1) discusses the Abu Ghraib images of the Iraqi prisoners being tortured by the young American soldiers. These images are not strictly ‘selfies’ according to the Oxford Dictionary definition. The images were made by a third party of the person being humiliated or tortured. But the images were made to be distributed so they do fulfil this part of the definition. It is not relevant to discuss here neither whether the American authorities were complicit in the actions photographed nor whether the actions contravened the Geneva Conventions against torture. We are only considering the ‘why’ this form of image making has become so prevalent and what was the soldiers’ reason for making and distributing them.

Sontag puts forward the thesis that the sexual content of these ‘trophy’ images could have been influenced by the amount of pornography the soldiers have at their disposal on the Internet. Does continual viewing of pornography increase the possibility of normalising it. Sonntag offers no proof that this is the case. I would tend to agree with her that continual viewing of pornography would desensitize a person, which leads to a need to perform similar acts in ones own life. Then the desire to share this performance with others on social media follows.

The percentage of self-images on Instagram is not as high as is sometimes assumed. In the study of five cities, Bangkok, Moscow, Berlin, Sao Paolo and New York the percentage was found to be between 3-5% of the overall number of images studied (3200) (2). Other statistics in this study were not surprising. Selfies are made mostly by people between the ages of 20 and 23. Women post more images of themselves than men. The study was carried out to try

to see beyond the individual agendas (such as the notorious celebrity selfies) and instead notice larger patterns, which sometimes can contradict popular assumptions (2)

Alise Tifentale explores a little further the ‘why’ of self-images. Is it to present an image of ourselves to the world which will encourage people to ‘like’ us or at least ‘like’ the image of ourselves we have circulated. Are we creating a brand #me? The brand #me, when shared, becomes part of brand#us. WE become part of a tribe. Financial and geographical limitations means that the Brand #us is limited to a predefined group of people with the means and the equipment to belong to this group brand #us. I find this scary a somewhat reminiscent of the novel 1984.

But the making and sharing of self images can also be driven by modern technological advances. We can make and post images of ourselves with ease. Everyone is now a photographer and even an artist.The camera is ever present in everyone’s lives. Not all vernacular images will be considered as art but some will. Or some will be made into art in a myriad of ways. I see no problem with that. Campbell’s Soup tins are not very aesthetic to look at but in the right hands…..

As frequently happens in society the practice is ahead of the research. New computerized tools will need to be invented to analyse what and why people continue to post images of themselves on social media. Researchers will continue to analyse and debate if self images are or coudl become art. One way or the other a percentage of smart phone users will continue to make and post images of themselves. it is our choice to look at them and to comment on whether we find them attractive.

  1. Susan Sontag. 2019. Regarding The Torture Of Others – The New York Times. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/regarding-the-torture-of-others.html. [Accessed 05 July 2019].
  2. selfiecity. 2019. selfiecity. [ONLINE] Available at: http://selfiecity.net. [Accessed 05 July 2019].

Exercise 4.2

Although written several decades ago, Michel Foucault’s theory of ‘panopticism’ still has relevance and currency within visual culture discourse. Go to the student website and read Foucault’s essay ‘Panopticism’ (reproduced in Evans & Hall (1999) Visual Culture: The Reader,London: Sage, pp.61–71. (PH5DIC_Visual Culture_ Panopticism) Write a short summary of Foucault’s arguments, and comment on the relevance of his theory to digital culture.

I am not sure that I would agree that this is Foucault’s theory of ‘panopticism.’ The idea was Benthams. He was the one that defined the building in which people who were not considered ‘normal’ or who stepped outside the law or who were unfortunate enough to be orphaned could be ‘incarcerated’. Foucault considered this a more sophisticated version of what had happened in plagues. He described how, in times of plague, there was a person who surveyed the people and made sure they were locked up in their houses at night. The surveyor kept the keys. I had never heard of this version when I studied La Mur de la Paste (the wall of the plague) for an earlier assignment. North of where I live in France the plague was arrested by building walls and using the terrain to keep people inside boundaries. Here in Ireland the next island to mine was used as a leper colony. This idea of isolation of disease or wrongdoers goes back forever. My house here on the island was built so that the grandmother could be isolated from the rest of the family because she had TB.

Benthams building with it’s interior tower is deeply disturbing. Those in the cells are continually surveyed without being able to see the surveyor. This is a form of torture but is it any worse that the CCTV survailance cameras which are present everywhere in our daily lives. We are free to move about but should we do something wrong the forces of the law will be able to replay our movements from these surveillance cameras. Just recently here in Ireland a terrible case of two young teenagers were accused of murdering another teen. Both boys lied continually in their interrogations but the police were able to trace their movements on CCTV in the park. They were convicted on this and other circumstantial evidence.

Where the panopticon was taken to extremes was the suggestions that it could be used to give medicines to inmates and observe the results. Or the staff right up to the Director could be ‘spied on’ by the occupant of the tower. All of this is horrific because it could be seen. Today all the surveillance is carried out surreptitiously both with hidden cameras and online trackers. Artificial Intelligence is continually being improved so that we will probably have our thoughts tracked before long.

Project 4.1 The ‘digital self ’

Avatars and alter egos: Second Life

Set up in 2003 this is a whole virtual world. The link we were asked to read (1) was written in 2007 and therefore is very out of date. It does not explain how this virtual world works. Researching this I came across an explanation reference (2). Originally most people, using Second Life, seemed to have been ‘creatives’.  This would appear to be changing. They pay a fee to be members, called Residents. This entitles them to put virtual work on the site which has to remain virtual. Virtual work can  be bought and sold on this virtual site. Although the copyright remains with the author Linden Lab, the owners of Second Life, seem to own the Residents work. I am not sure how this can work nor if there have been any challenges to it. The purchases are made with Lindon dollars which have to be purchased from Linden and have a rate versus the American dollar.

There were between six hundred and eight hundred thousand Residents in 2017, according to which article you read. Residents can also ‘build’ properties or acquire land, all virtually.  Linden Lab’s server is situated somewhere in Arizona. There seems to have been many problems with the social media site including work being removed or lost. The owners will move to the cloud in 2019.

“Game” is used loosely here, as one can’t “win” “Second Life” in any real sense, and there are no objectives. It provides a digital escapist fantasy, supposedly allowing users to be and do whatever they want, unbound by the restrictions of the “real” world (3)

Who is still on Second Life (4). Interesting interview, with a journalist who was imbedded in Linden labs when it started, about the people still using Second Life. Seems like there are many people with ‘issues’ like transgenders who have not yet transited, people who have perverted sexual orientation and other oddities. At the same time there seems to be many creative people there still.

Read some blogs on the digital self at Link 3

Psychology Today. 2019. The Digital Self | Psychology Today. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-digital-self. [Accessed 16 October 2019].

The first blog I read was the following:

Psychology Today. 2019. KONY 2012 | Psychology Today. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-digital-self/201203/kony-2012. [Accessed 16 October 2019].

This is a blog about a 29 minute video which went viral in 2012 about child soldiers. Basically the psychologist is saying the video has faults but if it makes some people, no matter how few, learn and understand a littel more about the plight of child soldiers then the whole thing was worth it.

I have not seen the video and had no desire to view it but I tend to agree with the conclusion. This conclusion would be at odds with my normal feeling about sensationalising the plight of peoples in the developing world by charities, which I am totally against. I think this video may have been somewhat different. it’s purpose was not commercial as such but to highlight a wrong doing.

  1. Minsky R. 2007, The Art World of Second Life, 1st Ed., [ONLINE] Chicago, <http://minskyreport.com/artworld_market.pdf>Strickland J.
  2. Warner, M., 2010. Photography: A Cultural History. Laurence King.
  3. Digg. 2019. Exploring The Digital Ruins Of ‘Second Life’ – Digg. [ONLINE] Available at: http://digg.com/2018/second-life-in-2018. [Accessed 27 April 2019].
  4. The Globe and Mail. 2019. Who still hangs out on Second Life? More than half a million people – The Globe and Mail. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/who-still-hangs-out-on-second-life-more-than-half-a-million-people/article35019213/. [Accessed 27 April 2019]

Exercise 4.1

Write an entry in your learning log (up to 500 words) about the creation of false or alternative identities online. You can touch upon any of the points discussed above, or perhaps review one of the photographic projects mentioned.

The term alter ego originated in the 1730s by Anton Mesmer who was studying behaviour under hypnosis. The term ‘alter ego’ came into more general use in the 19th century.

Wikipedia’s definition is as follows:

An alter ego (Latin for “other I”) means alternative self , which is believed to be distinct from a person’s normal or true original personality.

A number of photographers have devoted most of their work to creating alter egos. Claude Cahun (1894 – 1954), a French photographer created self-images in both genders. She described the only valid gender as ‘neuter’ gender. Gillian Waring imitated much of Cahun’s work, creating many alter egos for herself. Nikki S. Lee reinvented herself in numerous character rolls. She dedicated a lot of time to get to know different groups, ‘the others’, and integrated herself into these groups. She dressed and made herself up in whatever was the ‘style’ of the particular group. She then asked a friend or passer by to take snaps of her with members of these groups. The various groups included schoolgirls, elderly people, punks and erotic dancers. Her images are totally convincing. Cindy Shearman continues to re-invent herself, in images, almost weekly with her Instagram posts. Trish Morrissey, the Irish photographer, made a series of images where she replaced the mother in seaside groups and had the ‘real’ mother take a picture of her with the family.

Although there appear to be more female artists that create alter egos there are also male artists that created their, or their friends, alter egos. Man Ray’s photos of Rose Selvay created the female alter ego of Duchamp. Andy Warhol’s self portrait, Self-portrait in Drag 1981,is another example.

Creating an alter ego in real life requires quite a bit of research and time investment. On the other hand there are so many opportunities on the Internet to create a digital image of oneself in the virtual world. The practice is a lot less complicated than having to infiltrate different groups or even having to source and don different costumes to alter ones ego.

Second Life, is a classic online gaming or interaction site, where it is expected that members create an alter ego in the form of an avatar. These avatars can either be selected from a database of templates, on the site, or they can be created by the member offline, and uploaded. This is the first step in the member’s definition of their alter ego. The member can be who or what they want in this virtual world. The features or bodily features chosen can be realistic or fantasised.  Members with issues, mental or physical, can create an idealised image of themselves. Those with strange or perverted personality traits can also create weird alter egos. Julian Dribble created an interesting book(1) containing photographs by Robbie Cooper. He photographed Second Life gamers in the real world and these were placed alongside their virtual images. Dribble filled in the background information about these people. (1)

People looking for partners on online dating sites often create digital images of themselves that have very little resemblance to their real selves. This can lead to complications if face to face meetings are arranged. For some these forays into online dating are a search for variety in life while for others they are genuine searches for contact and friendship.

Psychologists seem to agree that having an alter ego is not harmful so long as one keeps the real self strongly in focus (2). Many famous people, Beyonce for example, have alter egos. They feel it necessary to have another personality away from the public persona.

  1. Dibbell;, J., 2007. Alter Ego: Avatars And Their Creators. Chris Boot
  2. Life Persona. 2019. What does it mean to have an Alter Ego? (Psychology) | Life Persona. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.lifepersona.com/what-does-it-mean-to-have-an-alter-ego-psychology. [Accessed 01 May 2019]

 

 

Project 4.3 Similar but different: memes, cloning and replication

Read Limor Shifman’s essay ‘The Cultural Logic of Photo-Based Meme Genres’ in Journal of Visual Culture, December 2014, Vol.13(3), pp.340–58, at Link 4 (1)

Shifman believes that meme genres might help us to understand digital culture better. I agree with this belief but am not sure that his paper helps to support this theory. As with many of these papers it makes a simple idea unnecessarily complicated.

The author sets out to discuss Photo-based memes on the Internet. He first defines an Internet meme as a group of digital items that have a similar content are created with an awareness of each other, and that are circulated, imitated and transformed via the Internet. A meme genre he describes as a collection of collections. These genre collections are continually growing and expanding. They grow in a top down and in a, mundane, bottom up fashion. Memes seem to follow a fairly limited set of formulations.

The paper focuses on three types of genre: reaction Photoshops, stock character macros and photo fads. The three types of genre share three basic qualities: one aspect, the signifier, is magnified (hypersignification), the photo is there to be reused and further distributed (prospective orientation) and it can be worked on (operability). In all cases the photo can be de-constructed and re-constructed. The image can be staged. This removes all notion of truthfulness in photos. One example given is of the constructed image of a Hungarian man (Tourist Guy), at the Twin Towers, just as the plane is about to crash into the building. He then appears in dozens of other images. What is the point of these images I wonder? In most of these memes the main ‘character’ is easy to cut and paste from the original photo. I do understand the politically ‘posed’ situations that go viral as memes. I remember being struck by all the television crowd images of Tony Blair, during his electioneering that had at least one person of colour included. I imagine if such a person was not available then one would have been ‘photoshoped’ in.

In the stock photo macros the hypersignification comes in the form of stereotyping. These seem, to me, to be the most unpleasant as they perpetuate bias against certain groups. The images used are either taken from or imitate agency stock photos of what advertising agencies use: a black business man, a housewife, a happy family etc. They normally have added text.

Of the three genres mentioned above the latter, photo fads, is the most idiotic. The example given is of people photographing themselves with their head stuck in a freezer. I looked at a number of others (2). The titles of the photos seem to carry the message. How would anyone find this even vaguely amusing? The author offers the explanation that maybe those involved just want to be part of a group, the herd mentality. He goes on to suggest that in some of the cases political criticism or covering up of racism might be the point of the meme.

I like the idea of the fluidity of photos online today. They are not frozen in aspic but can be part of an ever developing sequence of different versions. He describes it as a prospective orientation.

All of this ‘movement’ and ‘manipulation’ is only possible by the availability of digital manipulation tools and the willingness of Internet users to participate and work together.

The global Occupy movement made extensive use of images. In ‘Occupy the Image’ Liam Devlin discusses the image of US police officer John Pike, who was originally photographed pepper-spraying a group of protestors at the University of California in 2011. Pike has become an internet meme; cut out of the original photograph, he has found his way into various famous images of conflict and struggle and other celebrated artworks. Link 5

The image of the US police officer spraying pepper in the eyes of peacefully protesting student is used to investigate and or demonstrate whether photography can contribute to a more balanced debate on democracy. Can we finally liberate ourselves from the long debated view about the authenticity and truthfulness of photographs and use images to expand and enhance the political debate? Nothing has ever been gained by holding on to outmoded beliefs.

The Occupy movement, and more recent I would add the Gilets Jaunes movement, are using citizen photography to make their point and to point to heavy handed treatment by authorities. The ubiquity of smart phones, computers and social media sites have facilitated distribution of images. There is no rigid hierarchical structure rather the interchange is based on equality. Everyone can have their say. But with the recent work of Astra Taylor the moment seems to be refining itself somewhat. She does not believe that such a movement can progress without some sort of structure and defined goals. (3)

When Pike, the US officer who sprayed he pepper in the eyes of the students, was recorded photographically by citizen photographers these Images could be distributed freely. Professional photographer would have had to have their images passed editorially. Editors are restricted by all manner of constraints so the images might never have seen the light of day. But the site distributing the citizen images of the event are under no such constraints and have published additional information about the event.

Pike has been cut out, with varying degrees of technical skill, of the original image and inserted into all sorts of other events where he is sent to spray an array of characters. The point is to open the debate about the   behaviour of the authorities.

 

  1. Liam Devlin: Occupy The Image | Use/Re-Use | Either / And. 2019. Liam Devlin: Occupy The Image | Use/Re-Use | Either / And. [ONLINE] Available at: http://eitherand.org/usere-use/occupy-image/. [Accessed 12 May 2019].
  2. Lifewire. 2019. What Are Internet Memes and Where Did They Come From?. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.lifewire.com/what-are-internet-memes-3486448. [Accessed 13 May 2019].
  3. The Guardian. 2019. ‘People are finally talking about class’: Astra Taylor on US democracy, socialism and revolution | Film | The Guardian. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/17/people-are-finally-talking-about-class-astra-taylor-on-us-democracy-socialism-and-revolution. [Accessed 14 May 2019].