Reproduce the appearance of objects, people,
events
A copy of an original work
Marxist theory
The ways that cultural practices and their
forms of expression reproduce the ideologies and interests of the ruling class
Technology and social constructions
Visual Technologies
Intro of the camera
Changes the way we see and how we use images
Technology does not determine
social change
US military government using
technology in 1971 internet would eventually be used around the world
Technologies interacting with
people and social contexts resulting in changes in technologies
Visual technologies emerge out of
particular social and epistemic context – possibility precedes their
development
Origin of photography raises the
question not who invented it, but “at what moment did photography become an
occasional, isolated fantasy, to a social imperative?”
Photography emerged as a popular
medium because of particular social demands of 19th century
Modern ideas about technical
progress, time, contain nature and landscape in reproducible form,
Motion and Sequence
1880’s visualize movement – cant
be grasped by unaided eye
The horse and the hove experiment
Muybridge scientific studies of
the movement of the human body
Development of cinema came from these studies
Projection machines –
Zoetropes - designed off of the
camera obscura
Stereoscope – instrument from 19th
century offered 2 separate views from the same scene to give the illusion of
depth and space
Kinescope – 1891 from Edison,
stand in front of a peep hold and watch a private projection
The public space theater grew from this model
Cinema – temporality, movement and sound to
photography to make a narrative for story telling
Griffth and Porter
Silent period
30’s and 40’s shots were eventually linked
together through accuracy
Cinematic meaning derived not
from the individual film but through the linking together of images –
representing passage of time
20th century –
representation shift again with development of electronic media – television
builds on previous technologies
Image Reproduction
The copy isn’t new – Egyptians
The value of the original
Unique original object with meaning and value
tied to the place it lived
Value is key for status of reproductions
Understood as a system of limited
value
Print series – a limited number
William Ivins – social impact of
the printing press and discovery of how to print pictures has a greater
potential affect on modern life
Invention of photography with
cult of originality
Daguerreotype – the negative and
the positive of a photo
1800’s
The original material for
reproduction in photography comes from the negative – holds great value.
Works with too strong of a
reference to technology can be devalued
Roland Barthes – unique affinity
with the real or “noeme”
Philosophy of sensory experience
– root of being and knowledge
Conventional photo – the space
the image is taken in
The light that hits the objects
is what’s original
The photo is the empirical
evidence of being
Photography was not originally a
form of art
Cameron – photography with a
painterly look
Cunningham, Adams, and Weston –
photographs looked like paintings
Walter Benjamin and
Mechanical Reproduction
Benjamin – German critic in the
20th century associated with Frankfurt school
1936 – cultural shift of
reproducible forms of art
photography and film – no
original work to speak of but rather as series of copies that stand in place of
an original work
change from centuries of emphasis
on uniqueness and authenticity
could be democratizing force
engaged in fluid politics
value of ownership and the
artifact based on the states of the work as a commodity
became a large part of art making
practices
The aura- its value is from the
uniqueness and role in ritual – the reproduction lacks its presence in time and
space
The authenticity of the aura cannot be
reproduced
Authenticity – quality that clings to the
idea of classic type of category of people or icons
Second nature in culture to alter
Meaning of the original work is
changed after it is reproduced
The value of work now lies in the
aesthetic, cultural and social worth
Digital images have no original
Benjamin
Reproduction of a single
image has affect on mean and value
Mechanical reproducibility
changes relationship to rituals, meaning use, and value
Politics of
Reproducibility
1930s – reproducibility was used for
propaganda for the Nazi Party
can circulate with political
meaning
photo-collage to make political
statement in new way
can heighten the message
Ex socialism in Cuba and the mass
reproduction of Che
Symbolizes occurs through reuse
of the same imagery
Raises issues of copy right and ownership
Challenges uniqueness
the addition of text to image
Copies, Ownership,
and Copyright
Ownership rights
Legal management of intellectual
property
Flow of copies shape ideas that
constitute legit use
Copy right means “the right to
copy” – the rights to distribute, produce, copy, display, perform, create and
control
Grants legale protection to the
expression of an idea – not the idea itself
Ownership of the painting belongs
to the creator itself unless its done for hire
The ownership its transferred when its sold,
but the right to reproduce is not
The rights to the expression of the idea as
well extras still remain with the artist
In photo it can be negotiated but are not
normally transferred with a painting
Presence of forgeries grew
Otto Wacker – was able to mimic everything
accept for the true style of Van Gogh’s work
The life of a copy is not
necessarily extending the life of a work
The possibility of stealing or
changing a persons identity based on the recreation of a work
Copy right laws regulate but do
not rule out reproduction entirely
Does not include the ability to exploit the
persona of people or group depicted by an image
What constitutes transformation
versus appropriation of another images production
Changing the value of a work
92 Case of rogers v Koons – koons
took an image photo by another artist and recontextualized it for his own work,
a kitsch sculpture
a parody – reflection of a broader style
A trademark – a symbol, word, or phrase used
to identify a manufactures product
Ex. Nike “swoosh” logo
Reproduction and
the Digital Image
Digital camera has no negative –
no original only the immediate date that gets put into code and viewed quickly
on the camera
The use of Photoshop and creation
of photo shoot to have the ability to artificially construct realism
“What changed the digital photograph is not
the ability to manipulate the image but, the wide availability and accessibility
of these techniques to the middle class consumer, making not just image
production but also image reproduction and alteration an everyday action of
consumer experience”
Everything moving towards digital
space for storage so imagery won’t be lost – but can be used by multiple
sources due to wide internet access
The image could be created
entirely on the computer without any photograph at all
What constitutes a visual record
of something, and what counts as from
Digital images create a new kind
of value – “input value”
Painting changed in response based off of the
digital use of the camera and incorporates what is seen from the cameral into work
Ex. chuck close and his grid paintings based
off of the camera and pixilation
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