Week 9 Readings
The readings this week focused on the idea of connectivity and consumer culture within our readings. This provided me with another outlook on the functions of photography. Although these readings may not particularly relate to my theme of my final project, I can still take some ideas and interpret them into my critical introduction
Hito Steyerl: In Defense of the Poor Image
This reading describes what makes an image a 'poor' image, connecting these ideas to a Neo-Marxist outlook that explains the hierarchy of photos and the consumers of different types of photos. However, it also explains that poor images are popular images, viewed and shared by everyone. This reading could be related to my final project. As I am exploring nightlife, I have to consider my own hierarchal status as a customer in a club or a bar. I do not have the same privileges as a worker or a photographer hired for that night in the sense that I can not going around taking photos of people with a bright flash and a big camera as this is not my job, not what I am paid to do. However, does this make my photos more interesting, due to the fact that it is not a norm for photos paying attention to abstract details in nightclubs and bars to be captured?
Jose van Dijck - Culture of Connectivity
As this reading focuses on photo-sharing website Flickr, it explores how although many similar photos are uploaded, the experiences and interpretations that come with the photo.
With Flickr comes many assumptions that there is a universal experience across cultures and different people. "First of all, the assumption that ‘cross-model experiences’ are the sum total of individual takes is fallacious: the sum of individual camera shoots has nothing to do with the ‘experiences’ of people taking these pictures. Second, the idea of Photosynth enabling a ‘cross-user experience’ is equally overstated, because there is no such thing as a shared social activity arising out of the mechanical stitching of millions of photographs." This suggests that although we are in an era of connectedness, in reality we are no where near connected due to the diversity of us all. Photography just gives an illusion of similarity.
Hito Steyerl: In Defense of the Poor Image
This reading describes what makes an image a 'poor' image, connecting these ideas to a Neo-Marxist outlook that explains the hierarchy of photos and the consumers of different types of photos. However, it also explains that poor images are popular images, viewed and shared by everyone. This reading could be related to my final project. As I am exploring nightlife, I have to consider my own hierarchal status as a customer in a club or a bar. I do not have the same privileges as a worker or a photographer hired for that night in the sense that I can not going around taking photos of people with a bright flash and a big camera as this is not my job, not what I am paid to do. However, does this make my photos more interesting, due to the fact that it is not a norm for photos paying attention to abstract details in nightclubs and bars to be captured?
Jose van Dijck - Culture of Connectivity
As this reading focuses on photo-sharing website Flickr, it explores how although many similar photos are uploaded, the experiences and interpretations that come with the photo.
With Flickr comes many assumptions that there is a universal experience across cultures and different people. "First of all, the assumption that ‘cross-model experiences’ are the sum total of individual takes is fallacious: the sum of individual camera shoots has nothing to do with the ‘experiences’ of people taking these pictures. Second, the idea of Photosynth enabling a ‘cross-user experience’ is equally overstated, because there is no such thing as a shared social activity arising out of the mechanical stitching of millions of photographs." This suggests that although we are in an era of connectedness, in reality we are no where near connected due to the diversity of us all. Photography just gives an illusion of similarity.
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