Category: Project 3:The found image in photomontage

• Read ‘Intention and Artifice’ in Mitchell, W.J.T. (1994) The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-photographic Era, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (pp.22–57). You’ll find this on the student website (PH5DIC_The Reconfigured Eye_ Intention and Artifice).

It is difficult to believe this paper was written in 1994. It reads fresh and very pertinent to todays world.

The opening scenario concerning the Libyan planes shot down by the US military sets the scene perfectly. The image displayed by the US military does not prove anything. We are in the territory of ‘fake news’ to quote a present day president. The discussion moves smoothly on to the discussion of how ‘true’ is any image. Is the photograph a ‘trace‘ of something that was or happened as Sontag would claim or according to Berger  is it a record of things seen?. Mitchell describes the camera as a perceptual prosthesis. An image is bonded to its referent with superglue. The photographer has little influence on the outcome and in this, according to Scruton, he differs from a painter. The statement that: ‘a photograph of a horse must be of some specific horse while a painting of a horse is not a particular horse’ neatly explains, for me, the difference between photography and painting. With all the intellectual words written about the difference of these two genres this is by far the simplest. Mitchell also quotes Berger’s claim that photographs are ‘records of things seen … no closer to works of art than cardiograms‘. The discussion moves on to describe photography as being more akin to art where the artist follows either a stencil or copies an image. But photographs could always be retouched and one of the ways to confirm the truthfulness of an image is to produce the negative to show the printed images has not been tampered with.

But digital imaging completely changes all these ‘rules’ of authenticity. Portions of images can be seamlessly added together so that the referent has become unstuck. Mitchell continues by using the opposite interpretation of an image, for this he uses images of cubes, to investigate how plausible is the image. Working through the various images he ends with the image that is impossible like Eschers sketches. But there are parameters we can use like shadows or clocks or inserted objects, to establish if an image is ‘possible’ or not. A number of famous photographs or videos like those the group of astronauts on the moon, Capa’s falling soldier or the Chernobyl aftermath are discussed for their authenticity.  Fake provenance is also discussed citing the Ronald Reagan’s false claim that he was one of the photographers who filmed the Nazi death camps

The problem of defining an original image with digital media is even more difficult. The image is held electronically so it is impossible to say what the original is or was. Dates can be altered on these forms of images. Goodman differentiates between one stage or two stage art. Photography and music composition are two stage processes while painting is a one stage procedure. The former are harder to authenticate. Copyright becomes a minefield if images can be easily transformed. Old black and white films can be made into colour. Is this adding value to the original. What is fair use of digital work by someone else? What about the ethics of digital manipulation by photojournalists. Twenty years on from this paper we are still asking these questions and we still have not found definitive solutions.

•  Read a review of Hannah Höch’s 2014 exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London at Link 5

Luckily for us women Hannah Hoch’s obituary could not be written today as it was in1978. Such blatant sexism and patronisation of a brilliant artist. And brilliant she was. The image below  is packed with vignettes. One could live with and look at it for an entire lifetime and find something new almost every glance.

Because she was bisexual and jewish she was fair game for the male obituary writers. But her works tells her story better than weak and insulting words.

Her mixing of male and female bodies is so delicately done. I feel this reflects her bisexual orientation. In The Father the male holds the baby gently but the boxer violently hits the baby on the head. She is satirical but never cruel except perhaps in that piece The Painter which she wrote. Really hard to imagine someone with that insight in 1920 and a woman prepared to express it. Her eye for colour and mixing images gives the impression of calmness while depicting some fairly hard hitting commentary. I have downloaded the following PdF for further reading (1)

• Read Sabine Kreibel’s essay ‘Manufacturing Discontent: John Heartfield’s Mass Medium’ at Link 6

This is a very short article on John Heartfield’s work. I had to remind myself of his photomontage images. (2). Kreibel talks of ‘suture’ which is defined as:

a stitch or row of stitches holding together the edges of a wound or surgical incision.

as the basis of Heartfield’s work. For me this is too simplified an interpretation of the work. Mearly binding together terrible injustices I would feel is less than what Heartfield was hoping to demonstrate but Kreibel did write a whole book on Heartfield’s work so this may well be an unjust criticism.

I think the Turkish art critic Meral Bostanci (2) described more vividly what was involved in this work.

Heartfield’s real purpose is to ridicule the opposition and its manipulation of reality

What one wears, for example, or what one reads marks us out as to who we are and what we believe. Heartfield used his montages to ridicule these beliefs and practices. The author distinguishes todays political art from Heartfield’s in that we know from todays artist’ work what their beliefs are. But there is no attempt to change the beliefs of those who look at the work.

Heartfield was not interested in personal fame he was preaching a message against the Nazis. What a pity the people did not heed him.