holschbach, susanne - continuities and differences between photographic and post-photographic...

16/5/2014 Media Art Net | Photo/Byte | Photographic/Post-Photographic

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Photo/ByteContinuities and differences between photographic and post-photographic medialitySusanne Holschbach

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/photo_byte/photographic_post-photographic/

At the end of the 1980s through the beginning of the 1990s, photo curators, art and mediatheorists began to examine the significance of electronic image technology for the status and thepractice of photography. [1] The rapid permeation of digitally processed photographs in thecommercial and journalistic areas, the introduction of relatively high-performance and reasonablypriced PCs, software, scanners, printers, etc., which made electronic image processing accessibleto artists and amateurs as well, gave cause to speak of an epoch-making turning point: «From themoment of its sesquincentennial in 1989 photography was dead—or, more precisely, radically andpermanently displaced—as was painting 150 years before.» [2]

However, the focus on the difference between analog and digital media, which in the second halfof the twentieth century advanced to become the dominant difference in media history and theory,[3] conceals their common starting point in the nineteenth century and the radical turning pointassociated with the invention of photography: As the first technical imaging method, it ushered intheradical change between ‹old› and ‹new› media. In this sense, the media theorists MarshallMcLuhan and Vilém Flusser, both of whom think in terms of generously measured eras, placephotography at the beginning of the information age and the telematic society. In his anthology«Understanding Media,» [4] which was first published in 1964, McLuhan writes: «Photographywas … decisive in making the break between mere mechanical industrialization and the graphic ageof electronic man.» In his work «Ins Universum der technischen Bilder» (Into the universe oftechnical images), which was published 20 years after McLuhan's, Flusser establishes that«technical images are a completely new type of media, even though in many respects they may bereminiscent of traditional images, and that they have a completely different ‹meaning› than traditionalimages. In short: they are indeed about a cultural revolution.» [5] Both of them see the age of thecomputer as a consequence or a continuation of this ‹photographic revolution.› Following McLuhanand Flusser in this respect, this contribution begins with a return to the fundamental qualities ofphotographic mediality and their manifestation in the various ways photography is used and thediscourse surrounding it. It is only from this media-historical perspective that one can comprehendwhat transformations the photographic dispositive undergoes in the course of technological changeand how these transformations affect the media function of photography.

Automatic RecordingDaguerre and Talbot regarded their inventions as a chemical and physical process by which, inTalbot's words, «natural objects may be made to delineate themselves without the aid of the artist'spencil.» [6] What is being stressed is the immediacy of the image, the absence of an artisticrendering. The omission of this rendering, which is ‹prone to errors,› guaranteed truth to reality andobjectivity. In writings on photography in the nineteenth century, this objectivity was time and againconnected with the indifference and neutrality of photography towards its object, i.e. its referent.The automatic photo is not selective—it depicts all objects with the same care; it does notdistinguish between important and unimportant, worthy or unworthy of being taken.There was aslogan used by contemporaries to move the equalizing quality of photography onto a politicallyprogressive horizon: ‹All things are equal under the sun.› The qualities of automatic recordingjudged as positive became decisive for the use of photography for documentary purposes: in thepreservation of historical monuments; in the sciences, criminology, and medicine—to name thecentral areas of the nineteenth century. However, they stood in the way of the recognition of



photography as art. This is the reason that until far into the twentieth century, reference was stillmade to the creative means of photographers in order to justify their work as art. The intentionalinartistic implementation of photography in the Concept Art of the 1960s and 1970s signified atransition in this regard: In order to deconstruct established art values, precisely those ways of usingphotography were taken up that could not be brought into line with their artistic ennoblement. Withbooks of photographs such as «Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations» or «Every Building n the SunsetStrip » by Ed Ruscha and «Alle Kleider einer Frau» (All of a woman's clothes) by Hans PeterFeldmann, for example, these artists return to the photographic recording in the sense of a simplelist or bureaucratic registration. Concept artists ‹mime,› so to speak, different ways of usingphotography—such as e.g. scientific documentation, chronophotography, crime scenephotography, illustration, the photo report, shutter photography— and in this way present—oftenironically—critical analyses of these usages.

While Concept artists refer to the superficial banality of photography, conceptional photography,which appeared at about the same time as Concept Art, relies on its documentary quality, i.e. onthe reproductive output and objectivity of the photographic medium. Within this context, the returnto automatic recording means the greatest possible technical quality combined with the withdrawalof the photographer in favor of the object (this was formulated in the introduction of the exhibitioncatalogue «New Topographics. Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape » in a way that pointsthe way ahead; [7] because it exemplifies this photographic attitude, the book by Bernd and HillaBecher is particularly worth mentioning).

The photograph as an indexIn the twentieth century, automatic recording was given an emphasis that went beyond theobjectivity of photographic depiction. In the photographic theory of the time, the characterization ofphotography as a ‹copy of nature› was restated using the sign theoretical term of ‹indexicality.› [8]Indexical signs such as the smoke of a fire, footprints in the sand and the like have a physical—onecould also say causal (cause and effect)—connection to their referent. In this understanding, thephotographic image is a ‹trace› or the ‹effect› of the object that was photographed: a print of therays of light thrown back from an object onto a carrier material that has been made sensitive to lightwith silver salt crystals. Thus the photographic depiction of an object is at the same time verificationof its existence, even if this applies to a past moment. Roland Barthes' formula for the certificationof a past present, which for him constitutes the nature—the ‹noema›—of photography, is: «That'sthe way it was.» [9] Of course this quality especially predestines photography for its use ininvestigative surveillance and the securing of criminal evidence—uses that have been adopted byartistic photography in many ways (for instance «On this site» (Crime scenes) by Joel Sternfeld, or«The Shadow» and «l Hôtel» by Sophie Calle). [10]

Photography's promise of reality, [11] which goes beyond realistic depiction, is based on thisphysico-chemically based indexicality: because it claims to be capable of verifying reality. In doingso, indexicality relates only to the «photographic act,» [12] the moment of releasing the image; all ofthe other factors that lend meaning to the photographic image—choice and choreography of thesubject, processing the print, material and discursive contextualization—are blended out in theprocess.

Mechanical ReproductionIn early proto-photographic experiments, the search for a simplified process for duplicating existingmasters was equally as important as the goal of fixing the camera obscura's images. As early as the1820s, Niépce dealt with the transfer of engravings onto lightsensitive carrier material, which wasthen meant to serve as a printing plate. Talbot, whose positive/negative processprovided theprerequisite for what was in principle the infinite duplicability of photographs, also had in mind theproduction of «multiplying at small expense copies of rare or unique engravings.» [13] Indeed, thereproduction of works of art and historical monuments from throughout the world advanced to oneof the most successful branches of photography in the nineteenth century. In his canonic essay «TheWork of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction ,» Walter Benjamin described the resultingconsequences for the function of art as the loss of its aura: Outside of their context—released fromthe here and now—works of art lose their uniqueness as originals and thus their cultural value.



Assembled in an «imaginary museum» [14] and disregarding their original function and integrationinto a cultural context, works of different origins and of different epochs can be compared as purelyvisual data (surfaces). This kind of comparison was first made possible by form analysis, thusestablishing an aesthetics based on the history of style at the end of the nineteenth century. At thesame time, however, the photographic ‹parity› of artifacts goes beyond the boundaries ofdisciplinary aesthetics: Aby Warburg, who arranged photographic reproductions according tosubject in the plates of his «Mnemosyne Atlas» [15] , made no distinction between antique reliefand contemporary advertisement, and thus already pointed in the direction of visual studies.

The photograph as a multipleThe combination of mechanical reproduction with a mode of production based on the division oflabor made the photograph into a mass-produced article in the nineteenth century. At the sametime, however, the trouble-free duplicatability of the photograph as a product became a problem:The legal dispute over the copyright of photographs starts out from commercial photography, whichneeded to protect itself from the exploitation of its products—e.g. portraits of prominent figures orstereoscopic cards. [16]

However, the quality of the photograph as a copy implies more than just the mechanicalreproduction of existing images—be it in the form of prints from a negative or rephotographingimage masters. In connection with Walter Benjamin's essay on the work of art, the art theoristRosalind Krauss sets out thatphotography «is a medium that directly produces copies, i.e. amedium in which the copies exist without an original.» [17] According to this understanding ofphotography, even the negative of a nature scene is already a copy: a reproduction of the depictedsubject. [18] For Krauss, the explosive force of this photographic quality for art of the modern age(and of art reproduction in the twentieth century in general) lies in the fact that it undermines theconcept of originality itself. [19] It was above all the «photographic activity of postmodernism »[20] that consciously took up this quality in order to deconstruct notions of (creative) authorshipand the autonomy of works of art. In this way, the artist Sherrie Levine ‹appropriated› [21] iconsfrom artistic photography simply by taking her own photographs of them (e.g. in the series AfterWalker Evans ), and in doing so attacked the auralization of photography, which had accompaniedits musealization in the 1970s and 1980s. [22]

Mass Medium Avant la LettreMechanical reproduction created the condition for the development of photography into a massmedium, whose hegemony was not forced open until the 1950s and 1960s with the advent oftelevision. [23] It began in the 1850s with the distribution of portraits of prominent figures andstereographs, and experienced a further thrust in the 1880s through the beginnings of shutterphotography and the illustrated press.

Facial societyIn 1854 the photographer Alphonse-Eugene Disdéri patented a process that allowed taking severalportraits in succession on one plate. He rationalized and reduced the cost of portrait photography inthis way, which consequently experienced a tremendous boom. [24] The small-format carte devisite, the term for the cut-to-size portrait cards, were used less as a personal keepsake than forcommunicative exchange. Portraits of prominent figures, whose spectrum ranged from rulingfamilies, writers, musicians, scientists and actors to demimondes, were especially popular.Collecting and looking at the cards became a parlor game that leveled off social hierarchies byjuxtapositioning images that had been choreographed in a similar way. The portrait of prominentfiguresanticipated the modern portrait of stars and was thus incipient of a «facial society,» in which«the faces of politicians, generals, managers, athletes, artists or products advanced to portraits ofstars and brand names, to logos with public appeal.» [25]

Modern observerIn 1851, Sir David Brewster introduced a transportable viewing device at the London World's Fairthat allowed merging together slightly displaced paired photographs to create one image, whichappeared to be three-dimensional. [26] Brewster's stereoscope became a huge success, and «soonthereafter thousands of greedy pairs of eyes bent over the stereoscope's openings like over the



skylight to infinity.» [27] The stereograms [28] mass produced in the period following thestereoscope's introduction for the most part showed historical monuments, landscapes and urbanscenes—tourist views from countries near and far that could be quasi ‹virtually› traveled via thestereoscope. In addition, they allowed the middle class a visual appropriation of foreign countriesand cultures, which was already taking place through colonization. Contemporary descriptions [29]verify that the ‹visual desire› that arises when viewing stereoscopic photographs lay in the feeling ofimmersion: [30] The outside world disappears in favor of the space of an image, which isexperienced as a real space. In its linking of apparatus and the physiology of sight, stereoscopy ispart of a «modernization of vision» [31] that according to the art historian Jonathan Crary isassociated with a new concept of the observer. The exploration of the physiology of human visiondriven forward in the nineteenth century came to the conclusion that the observer is in no waymerely a passive recipient of images of the outside world, rather the images are created in the visualprocess. Optical toys such as the phenacistiscope, the zootrope, [32] and of course thestereoscope represent the new insight that was being gained into vision (such as the after-imageeffect or binocularity). Besides their being a form of entertainment, at the same time they trainedperception, which was being subjected to new demands in the age of industrialization.

Consumer as producer—Producer as consumerPhotography, however, not only produces the modern consumers of images, but also empowersthem to produce their own images. In the beginning, photography as a private pastime was reservedfor a small class as it required money and above all time to learn the skills necessary for taking anddeveloping photos. At the end of the 1880s, the creation of the hand camera and roll film createdthe conditions for shutter photography, which no longer required knowledge of the photographicprocess. The famous slogan ‹You press the button, we do the rest,› with which the Kodakcompany advertised its first cameras, is an accurate indication of the dependence of the layphotographer on the photographic industry: S/he had become a producer of photographs only inthe sense of being a consumer of its products and services.

An essential part of the practices of private photography is the photograph's quality as an index(refer to the section on «The photograph as an index,» above): Biographical occurrences arerecorded and authenticated at the same (‹It actually happened›). Shutter photography, as analyzedby the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in the 1960s, became primarily an agent of the cohesion of thefamily, for which it both produced verification and at the same time created. [33] For this reason,the new practices of shutter photography that arose in the course of digitalization are to be viewedin connection with the dissolution of traditional family structures and the forms of relationships andcommunication that take their place. [34]

The photograph in the media environmentThe history of photographic intermediality—the connection of photo/book, text/image—began withthe publication of Talbot's book «The Pencil of Nature.» [35] However, prior to the 1880s thisconnection was associated with a small number of copies, as photographs were either glued intobooks or produced using printing processes that required a high degree of craftsmanship. For themass circulation of illustrated magazines and newspapers, photographs first had to be transferredonto wood engravings— with the arrival inthe 1880s of the screening process of autotypy, theycould then be transferred mechanically to a printing plate and printed together with the copy. In thecourse of the illustrated magazine boom in the first half of the twentieth century, the photo reportand the documentary photo essay emerged as specific forms of the combination of photo serieswith text contributions. The success of the mass press in the 1920s was also accompanied bycriticism thereof: Siegfried Kracauer, for instance, implored the danger of substituting theexperience of reality with the world of media. In his words: «The public sees the world inmagazines, and magazines prevent perception of the world.» [36] This criticism would later beformulated in a whole range of variations. [37] In the media environment of the illustrated press,photographs are assigned meaning through captions and text contributions; text contributions areverified through photos: This intermedial configuration is decisive for the reception of photographicimages. The switchover from offset printing to computer-based desktop publishing required theconversion of the photographic image into digital data—digitalization thus represents a logical



further development for photography in the media environment. If one looks back at the history ofhow it was used in the mass media, which was only briefly touched on here, the most recenttechnological change in photography, i.e. its connection to electronic media, represents nothingmore than an extension of precisely these media functions and their being made more effective. Itwas not until the advent of the Internet that the options aired by the early phototexts of a non-site-specific availability and an unrestricted circulation of images could actually be redeemed. In doingso, this continuation of objectives and applications, which from the beginning were associated withphotography, oscillates between democratization and commercialization, between the ideal of ageneral accessibility of media technology and the problem of its dependence on the mechanisms ofthe economy and industrial production.

DigitalizationThe technological transformation of photography isa natural consequence of its intermediality. In thesame way the screening process constituted the condition for its integration into the medium of massprinting, its digitalization is the condition for its implementation into the universal medium of thecomputer. The substitution of the analog through the digital—or more precisely: analogo- numeric—process took plate in several stages and on different technological levels: that of the recording,the processing, and the transmission of data.

From a media-archeological perspective, the screening of photographic masters for the purposeof their automatic transfer onto printing plates can already be described as a form of digitalization:The continuous tonal values of a photochemical master are broken down into discreet units, i.e.black dots and white blanks. [38] This breaking down is at the same time the condition for couplingphotography with electric telegraphy. [39] , on the media historical connection betweenphotography and telegraphy. In order to be able to transmit photographic images per telegraph, theimage to be sent is screened into fields, which are then assigned discreet signs according to theirvarious brightness attributes. These signs then travel through the channel, and on the receiving endthey are again assigned the corresponding dots, which allows recombination of the image. In theirtechnical arrangement, screening and image-telegraphic scanning anticipate the modern scanningprocess: however they differ on an essential point: During the modern scanning process, values arestored and can be further processed. By scanning them, analog photos are carried over into thecomputer and thus made accessible to mathematical operations: The condition for image processingwas created. Electronic image recording was not made possible for another 20 years: through theCCD (charged coupled device) chip, which was patented in 1974 and consists of a lattice-likearrangement of light-sensitive elements via which light can be converted into an electrical charge.This, on the other hand, can be measured and subsequently digitalized, i.e. converted into bitpatterns. [40] Although photographs are in this way made directly (without going through ascanner) available to processing or transmission by the computer, their creation remains bound tothe analog transfer of lightquantities: The actual digitalization occurs only through the measuring outof these light values and their code conversion into numerical values (bits). This distinguishesanalogo-numerical photography (mentioned above) from images that have completely generated bya computer and whose ‹look› is only adapted to photographic (or cinematic) aesthetics. [41]

In view of the use of the photograph by the mass media, the advantages of its digitalization areperfectly apparent: It can be delivered immediately (e.g. as a press photo) and made available forprompt processing (e.g. for the layout of a magazine); in addition, it can be directly distributedthroughout the world via the Internet.

Digital MontageApart from their use in military and scientific contexts, [42] the possibilities of digital imageprocessing and analog-digital image recording (beginning with the so-called ‹video still camera›introduced in 1981) were first used in the areas of magazines and the press. Until way into the1980s, digital image processing remained a high-tech option only large agencies could afford—thepyramids, for example, were moved closer together by means of Scitex rendering for the February1982 cover of ‹National Geographic,› who plays an exemplary role in the debate overdigitalization. The introduction of the personal computer and the opening of the Internet, however,also shaped the participatory and (inter)active potential of the configuration of photography, the



video, and computer processing: Multi-media ‹desktop publishing› is now no longer only availableto the mass media, but also political groups, citizens' groups, artists—i.e. anyone who has anythingto communicate. It is in this spirit that in the exhibition catalogue «Digital Photography: CapturedImages, Volatile Memory, New Montage,» Jim Pomeroy takes up a slogan of the leftwing mediaavant-garde of the 1930s: Every receiver can become a transmitter. [43] The exhibition, which in1988 was presumably the first to take up the subject of ‹digital photography› within the context ofart, also makes reference to the avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s in another respect. Theimage/text works by the artists, which were presented primarily in the simple form of computerprintouts, are compared in their method with themontage concepts of Dadaism, Surrealism andConstructivism: [44] In the same way the ‹analog› collages consist of fragmentary photos and textsof different origins, the computer works also disclose their construction principles—the contrastivesuperimposition of heterogeneous material. In doing so, the low-tech optics of coarse, mosaic-likepixel resolution, visible video lines, of saw-tooth distortions and transmission errors (cf. e.g. «TheNoise Factor» (1988) by George Legrady) are set against the ‹smooth,› high-tech imagemanipulation by the large photo agencies. The ‹noise› of the data not only prevents illusionisticeffects—it shows, so to speak, the medium ‹computer› at work.

With the introduction of the image processing software ‹Photoshop,› a further form of digitalmontage appeared. Like the large magazines, artists can now process photographs without theirintervention being directly visible in the result. Works such as «Faces #1–12» (1998) by VibekeTandberg, «Affaires infinies» by Bettina Hoffmann (1997), or «Le jeu de la règle» (1992ff.) byAlain Fleischer are based on the—still assumed—reception of photographic images asrepresentations of a real (or a staged) occurrence. The irritation begins at second glance or in thecourse of the series of images; it lifts the ‹naive› perception of the scene and thus opens up a furtherhorizon of meaning. [45]

Digital TroubleThe welcoming of the creative potential and the multi-media ‹connectability› of a digitalizedphotograph is eclipsed by a critical discourse, which above all points out the potential formanipulation and forgery of all kinds in electronic image processing. For this reason, it is notcoincidental that the debate over the loss of the credibility of photographic images ignites in the areaof photojournalism. The authority of the classical photo report is particularly bound to photographicindexicality, in which the ‹That's how it was› of the object being shown is substantiated by thephotographer's ‹I was there,› and vice versa. Digitalization severs the indexical connection betweenthe photograph and the object of the photograph, and at the same time it expropriates thephotographer in that the photo is now accessible to any form ofprocessing. Photographerassociations fear that the simplification of the ‹creative› editing of photographic masters willgradually disable the difference between ‹authentic› and ‹manipulated› photos and thus in the endcompletely undermine the belief in the documentary value of photography. [46] The theoreticalcontributions that look into this aspect of digitalization necessarily return to the long history offorging images for the specific purpose of deception and to the ‹classical› processes of image/textlayout that confer meaning. [47] Above and beyond that, authors such as Martha Rosler, who as anartist examined the conditions of a critical practice of documentary photography, emphasize thefundamental dependence of photography and its documentary function on social, political anddiscursive contexts. [48] These aspects allow relativizing the meaning of the technologicaltransformation from analog to digital photography and shifting to the more fundamental question ofthe changes in the use of media by society.

However, the apprehension that the loss of photographic indexicality triggers off goes beyond thesuspicion of deception: It is linked to the idea of the fading away of any reference to external realityand, as a result, the individual's power of judgement. [49] This is where the debate over the ‹deathof photography› converges with that over the virtualization of human experience, which wasconducted in the 1990s in connection with computer games and increasing use of the Internet, butalso in conjunction with the media adaptation of the first Gulf War in 1990/1991. The Gulf Wargained exemplary meaning in two respects: It stands for a new dimension in the‹visiontechnological› distancing of the fighter pilot from his or her target and for a particularly



restrictive image policy on the part of American warfare. «In this war,» writes Mitchell in «TheReconfigured Eye,» which was published a year after the first Gulf War ended, «satellite imagingsystems did much of the spying and scouting. Laser-guided bombs had nose-cone video cameras;pilots and tank commanders became cyborgs inseparable from elaborate visual prostheses thatenabled them to see ghostly-green, digitally enhanced images of darkened battlefields. There wasno Mathew Brady to show us the bodies on the ground, no RobertCapa to confront us with thehuman reality of a bullet through the head. Instead, the folks back home were fed carefully selected,electronically captured, sometimes digitally processed images of distant and impersonal destruction.Slaughter became a video game: death imitated art.» [50] This quote is typical for the moral chargethat the discussion over the photographic and post-photographic ‹truth› gains through this context:Electronic image technology stands for the view from above—the general's view, who only has hisor her sights set on anonymous targets—while ‹classical› photography stands for the view frombelow—for the suffering and death of the individual as the ‹human› reality of war. In contrast, thephotographic work «Martha Rosler,» which Sophie Ristelhuber began after the end of the first GulfWar, relies on a third perspective. The condition of her fragmentary tracking is the conviction thatthe ‹truth› of a war cannot in principle be mediated through images: neither through photographs ofits victims, nor through cockpit displays.

In the exhibition «Photography after Photography» the focus is on a further context of ‹digitaltrouble.› A number of the works it included tested the new tools (Photoshop, Paintbox and the like)on the human body, on the human face: Bodies were deformed and hybridized (Inez vanLamsweerde), constructed (Keith Cottingham's «Fictitious Portraits» from 1992); faces were‹folded› (Valie Export's «o.T.» from 1989), robbed of their countenance (Anthony Aziz andSammy Cucher's «Dystopia» from 1994), their individuality (Nancy Burson's series «Chimären»since 1982). [51] It is at the interface of the human body that the post-photographic discourseeclipses that on the ‹posthuman,› [52] in which digital processing stands so to speak metaphoricallyfor the ubiquitous variability of the human body through cosmetic surgery and the genetictechnology of the future. However, whereas talk of the ‹posthuman› drives forward the imagining ofa new design, a new model of the human in more of an affirmative gesture, [53] the artistic workscited above visualize the apprehension triggered off by the feeling of uncertainty with respect to ourtraditional ideas about the similarity and identity of the subject55 (confirmed by the traditionalphotographic portrait in its reference to an individual physiognomy, a distinctbody), i.e. they make‹dystopic› reference to what is possibly a changing ‹human› form.

Unstable Images«The digital image technologies have literally eliminated a photographic model of representation, thespatial-temporal bond of a light-sensitive carrier material to a spatial-temporalconstellation/figuration in front of the camera, and put it up for debate. The very foundation of theontology of the photographic image as conceived by the likes of Kracauer and Benjamin, and laterby Bazin and Barthes, has been shaken. In view of the binary coding of the photographiccontingency, even the index theory, which follows Charles S. Pierce, now appears to be obsolete.»[54] As explained above, the indexicality of photography substantiated its credibility as evidence ofsomething that had actually been there in front of the camera. Even the knowledge that a photodoes not gain meaning until it has been contextualized has not led us to fundamentally doubt thiscredibitility. Today, the reception of photographs is beginning to change: We now start off bydoubting its promise of reality. The digital/ized photograph is a ‹dubitative› image: [55] ). Itsauthenticity as a direct photo and the associated evidential value can now only be establishedthrough external authorization. [56] For this reason, a society whose communication rests primarilyon digital (image) media requires a «well-founded, strictly arranged media policy»59— those whoanalyze the technological change from analog to digital photography are united in this conclusion.

From a technological point of view, the ‹That's how it was› of analog photography is based onthe «irreversibility of the exposed material»; [57] the digital photo, in contrast, is characterized by its«immanent variability»: [58] The digital photograph is fundamentally reversible (it can immediatelybe deleted); its output as an image is only one of the possible manifestations of the data stored inbinary form. [59]



A further factor in the ‹instability› of digital photographs is their dependence on hardware andsoftware. Their visual appearance changes along with the file format, the screen configuration,through compression, conversion, etc. The greatest problem, however, is caused by the continuousfurtherdevelopment of computer systems: The change from one system to the next but one canmake image data unreadable and thus inaccessible. And so there is a rift between potential ‹digitalendurance› and ‹mechanical impermanence,› [60] which can only be bridged through continuousactivity: Data stocks have to be adapted to each of the new formats in time with the newdevelopments by the computer industry; they have to be put onto each of the new storage mediabefore they only become interesting to media archeologists. [61]

According to an expert on image databases, «[d]igitalization projects necessitate constantreacting and acting, because what is digital does not rest, just as overall technological developmentdoes not rest.» [62] The professional condition for operators of image databases also affects bothartists who work with digital media as well as each and every lay photographer: While the best wayto slow down the physico-chemical process of the decay of photographs is to protect them frombeing accessed (by allowing them to be exposed to as little light as possible and storing negatives inunderground freezer depots), digital photos are only preserved through their use—if one ignoresthem, the information stored on them will also be lost for future generations. [63]

It is quite possible that the apprehension about the instability of digital photographs and theefforts to secure their longevity is nothing more than the reflex of a «traditional (Old European) self-conception of culture…. [t]ransatlantic media cultures have long since accentuated the technologiesof multi-media and space-seizing transmission—the dataflows in the Internet.» [64] In the sense ofan information society, ‹instability› can be regarded as a positive value: It stands for dynamictransmission, unobstructed circulation, and for communication that is not bound to real space; itstands for virtuality as the ability to experience what is possible. In contrast, analog photographyhangs on to what is past; its gesture is a clinging—to a state of visible reality, to public and privateoccurrences, to fleeting moments in everyday life. Its great subjects, the topography of urban andsuburban life and the visualization of biography and identity are (or were) being sustained by aconcept of remembrance that binds historical tradition andpersonal memory to material evidence.Fifteen years after the beginning of the debate over the ‹end of photography› one can establish thatthe radical change from analog to digital technology has not invalidated the notions ofrepresentation, identity and memory associated with the photographic dispositive—rather itcontributes to a destabilization of these notions. In the environment of electronic media, digitalphotography constitutes a threshold phenomenon: It is located so to speak at the transition from oldstorage media to new communication media and their paradigms.

[1] Cf. Marnie Gillett/Paul Berger (eds.), Digital Photography: Captured Images, Volatile Memory,New Montage, exhibition catalogue, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, 1988; Fred Ritchin, In OurOwn Image. The Coming Revolution in Photography, New York, 1990; William J. Mitchell, TheReconfigured Eye. Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era, Cambridge, MA/London, 1992;Paul Wombell (ed.), PhotoVideo. Photography in the Age of the Computer, exhibition catalogue,London, 1991; Martin Lister (ed.), The Photographic Image in Digital Culture, London/New York,1995; Stefan Iglhaut/Hubertus von Amelunxen/Alexis Cassel (eds.), Photography afterPhotography, Basel/London, 1996.[2] William J. Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye. Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era,Cambridge, MA/London, 1992, p. 20.[3] Cf. Jens Schröter, «Analog/Digital—Opposition oder Kontinuum?» in Jens Schröter/AlexanderBöhnke, Analog/Digital. Opposition oder Kontinuum. Zur Theorie und Geschichte einerUnterscheidung, Bielefeld, 2004, pp. 7–30, here pp. 8f. In his introduction, Schröter deals with thedifferent levels of the difference between analog and digital, which are used with respect totechnology and media history as well as symbol theory.[4] Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media. The Extensions of Man, Cambridge, MA, 1964.[5] Vilém Flusser, Ins Universum der technischen Bilder, Göttingen, 1992, p. 11.[6] William Henry Fox Talbot, «Some Account of the Art of photogenic Drawing or the Process bywhich natural objects may be made to delineate themselves without the aid of the artist’s pencil,» in



The Athenaeum, London, Feb. 9, 1893.[7] William Jenkins (ed.), New Topographics. Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape,exhibition catalogue, International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester,1975.[8] According to Charles P. Pierce, sign theory distinguishes three basic forms of the relationshipbetween the sign and its referent: the symbolic, which is produced through convention; the iconic,which is based on a similarity between the sign and its object; and the indexical, which requires aphysical connection.[9] Roland Barthes, La chambre claire. Note sur la photographie, Paris, 1980, English as: CameraLucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard, New York, 1981.[10] On the subject of crime scene photography, cf. in particular Christine Karallus,«Staatsanwälte, Kriminalisten und Detektive,» in Kunstforum International, Themenheft:Choreographie der Gewalt, Jan.–Mar. 2001, pp. 132- 143; and Christine Karallus, «Etwas inAugenschein nehmen. Der Tatort und seine fotografische Identifizierung um 1900,» in CharlesGrivel et al. (eds.), Die Eroberung der Bilder. Photographie in Buch und Presse 1816– 1914,Munich, 2003, pp. 141–155.[11] Cf. Wirklich wahr. Realitätsversprechen von Fotografie, exhibition catalogue,Ruhrlandmuseum Essen, Ostfildern, 2004. On the agenda of photography's promise of reality withinthe context of art cf. Susanne Holschbach, «Die Wiederkehr des Wirklichen? Pop(uläre)-Fotografie im Kunstkontext der 90er Jahre,» in Sigrid Schade/Georg Christoph Tholen (eds.),Konfigurationen zwischen Kunst und Medien, Munich, 1999, pp. 400– 412, and the net discussioninitiated by Kathrin Peters on «Wirklichkeitsfotografie»[12] Philippe Dubois, L’Acte photographique, Paris/Brussels, 1983.[13] Henry Fox Talbot cited in Helmut Gernsheim, History of Photography. From the CameraObscura to the Beginning of the Modern Era, London, 1969, p. 78.[14] This is the term used by André Malraux, French minister for the arts and culture under deGaulles, to describe his concept of a museum that consists solely of photographic reproductions.Cf. the contribution by Jens Schröter «Archive—post/photographic.»[15] Cf. Rudolf Frieling's contribution «The Archive, the Media, the Map and the Text,» in themodule «Mapping and Text.»[16] This, on the other hand, could only be achieved through recognizing that photographs are alsoworks produced by a ‹creative subject.› Thus of all people, it was the commercial photographers inthe nineteenth century who paved the way for the ennoblement of photography as art. Thishistorical example also shows that it was the industrial producers (in this case commercial studiosand photo publishers) and not artists who profited most from copyright. Cf. John Tagg, «A Meansof Surveillance. The Photograph as Evidence in Law,» in John Tagg, The Burden ofRepresentation. Essays on Photographies and Histories, Amherst, 1988, pp. 66–102.[17] Rosalind Krauss, «The Ministry of Fate,» in Denis Hollier (ed.), A New History of FrenchLiterature, Cambridge, MA, 1989, pp. 1000–1006. Also refer to Rosalind Krauss, «A Note onPhotography and the Simulacral,» October, 31, Winter 1984, pp. 49–68. Krauss cites the«Untitled Film Stills» by Cindy Sherman as an example of copies without an original.[18] This means that the status of being an original at best befits the ‹real› landscape, the ‹real›object to which the photograph refers.[19] For Rosalind Krauss' understanding of photography as a dominant medium in art production inthe twentieth century, refer to Herta Wolf's introduction to the collection of essays by RosalindKrauss, The Originality of the Avant-garde and Other Modernist Myth, Cambridge, MA, 1986.[20] Cf. Douglas Crimp, «The Photographic Activity of Postmodernism,» in Douglas Crimp, Onthe Museum’s Ruins, Cambridge, MA, 1993 and Douglas Crimp, «Pictures,» in Tamara Horákováet al. (eds.), Image:/images. Positionen zur zeitgenössischen Fotografie, Vienna, 2001, pp. 121–138.[21] Strategies of appropriation such as Sherrie Levine's re-photographs inspired the coinage ofterm ‹Appropriation Art.›[22] Richard Prince's re-photographs of advertising photos, which he heightens to images throughtheir isolation and enlargement, function in the reverse direction.



[23] This first gave rise to the term mass media. Cf. Dieter Daniels' text «Television—Art or Anti-art?» in the module «Survey of Media Art.»[24] Cf. Elizabeth Anne McCauley, A.A.E. Disdéri and the Carte de Visite Portrait Photograph,New Haven/London, 1984, and Elizabeth Anne McCauley, Industrial Madness. CommercialPhotography in Paris 1848–1871, New Haven/London, 1993.[25] Cf. Thomas Macho, «Vision und Visage. Überlegungen zur Faszinationsgeschichte derMedien,» in Wolfgang Müller-Funk/Hans Ulrich Reck (eds.), Inszenierte Imagination. Beiträge zueiner historischen Anthropologie der Medien, Vienna/New York, 1997, pp. 87–108, here pp. 88f.;and Thomas Macho, «Das prominente Gesicht. Vom Face-to-Face zum Interface,» in ManfredFaßler (ed.), Alle möglichen Welten. Virtuelle Realität. Wahrnehmung. Ethik der Kommunikation,Munich, 1999, pp. 121–136.[26] Brewster developed his stereoscope on the basis of an apparatus that had been constructedby the English physicist to illustrate binocular vision.[27] Charles Baudelaire made this mocking remark in his famous polemic work «The ModernPublic and Photography,» a first criticism of the commonplace taste of the media recipient (incontrast to the art recipient): Charles Baudelaire, «Der Salon von 1859,» in Charles Baudelaire,Der Künstler und das moderne Leben. Essays, ‹Salons,› Intime Tagebücher, Henry Schumann(ed.), Leipzig, 1990, pp. 199–229, here p. 206; cf. Dieter Daniels, Kunst als Sendung. Von derTelegrafie zum Internet, Munich, 2002, in particular the section on «Modernität und Medien»(Modernity and media), pp. 162–176.[28] Only three years later, the London Stereoscopic Company, which was founded in 1854, had aselection of 100,000 different stereograms. In 1864 approximately five million stereograms wereproduced in the United States.[29] For instance that by Oliver Wendell Holmes in his article «The Stereoscope and TheStereograph,» Atlantic Monthly, 3, June 1859, pp. 738–748: «The mind feels its way into the verydepths of the picture. The scraggy branches of a tree in the foreground run out at us as if theywould scratch our eyes out. The elbow of a figure stands forth so as to make us almostuncomfortable. Then there is such a frightful amount of detail, that we have the same sense of infinitecomplexity which Nature gives us.»[30] Cf. the text «Immersion and Interaction» by Oliver Grau in the module «Survey of Media Art.»[31] Jonathan Crary, «Modernizing Vision,» in Hal Foster (ed.), Vision and Visuality. Discussionsin Contemporary Culture, Seattle, 1988, pp. 29–44.[32] The phenacistiscope and the zootrope are first and foremost still known as ‹precursors› tocinematography. They allow individual images to merge together to a single sequence of movement.[33] Cf. Pierre Bourdieu, Un art moyen, Paris, 1965, German as: Eine illegitime Kunst,Frankfurt/Main, 1981.[34] Cf. the text «Instant Images» by Kathrin Peters.[35] William Henry Fox Talbot, The Pencil of Nature, London, 1844.[36] Siegfried Kracauer, «Die Photographie,» Siegfried Kracauer, Der verbotene Blick.Beobachtungen, Analysen, Kritiken, Leipzig, 1992, p. 198.[37] For instance by Susan Sontag in her book On Photography (New York, 1977), in which shemakes reference to Plato's Allegory of the Cave.[38] This is one of many ways to telegraph images, the so-called ‹statistical method of temporaryclichés.› On the methods of image telegraphy from a media-archeological perspective cf. BirgitSchneider/Peter Berz, «Bildtexturen. Punkte Zeilen Spalten; Teil II: Bildtelegraphie,» in: SabineFlach/Georg Christoph Tholen (eds.), Intervalle 5 Mimetische Differenzen. Der Spielraum derMedien zwischen Abbildung und Nachbildung, Kassel, 2002, pp. 202–220.[39] Cf. Dieter Daniels, Kunst als Sendung. Von der Telegrafie zum Internet, Munich, 2002, pp.49– Cf. Hubertus von Amelunxen, «Photography after Photography,» in Stefan Iglhaut/Hubertusvon Amelunxen/Alexis Cassel (eds.), Photography after Photography, Basel/London, 1996, pp.116–123.[40] The epistemological prerequisites for this technology lie in quantum mechanics, thetechnological prerequisites in semiconductor physics. Cf. Wolfgang Hagen, «Die Entropie derFotografie. Skizzen zu einer Genealogie der digital-elektronischen Aufzeichnung,» in Herta Wolf



(ed.), Paradigma Fotografie. Fotokritik am Ende des fotografischen Zeitalters, Frankfurt/Main,2002, pp. 195–235.[41] Cf. Friedrich Kittler, «Computergrafik. Eine halbtechnische Einführung,» in Herta Wolf (ed.),Paradigma Fotografie. Fotokritik am Ende des fotografischen Zeitalters, Frankfurt/Main, 2002, pp.178–194, on the process of computer-generated images.[42] The processes of digital photography were initially developed for these contexts. Before thecommercialization of computer technology they could only be implemented there. Cf. JensSchröter, «Eine kurze Geschichte der digitalen Fotografie,» in Verwandlungen durch Licht.Fotografieren in Museen & Archiven & Bibliotheken, Rundbrief Fotografie, special issue 6,Dresden, 2000, pp. 249–257.[43] Jim Pomeroy in Marnie Gillett/Paul Berger (eds.), Digital Photography: Captured Images,Volatile Memory, New Montage, exhibition catalogue, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, 1988, p.2: «Since digital information is easily copied by modem transfer, disk duplification, and othermethods, computer images are equally adaptable for mass media publication or tiny, samizdat runs—anyone with a compatible computer can print-out the material. Every receiver becomes a press.»[44] In this connection also refer to the series «Plakate» (1997) by Thomas Ruff, which isreminiscent of John Heartfield's collages.[45] On this subject refer to the text by Anette Hüsch «Artistic Concepts at the Crossing fromAnalog to Digital Photography.»[46] This would mean the devaluation of their work. Karin E. Becker undertakes a differentiatedanalysis of the professional examination of new image technologies using the monthly journal NewsPhotographer, the official publication of the National Press Photographer’s Association (NPPA), asan example: Karin E. Becker, «To Control Our Image. Photojournalists Meeting NewTechnology,» in Media, Culture and Society, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 375–391, reprinted in PaulWombell (ed.), PhotoVideo. Photography in the Age of the Computer, exhibition catalogue,London, 1991, pp. 16–31.[47] Cf. Ritchin, op.cit.[48] Martha Rosler, «Bildsimulation, Computersimulation: einige Überlegungen» (1988, 1995), inHubertus von Amelunxen (ed.), Theorien der Fotografie Bd. IV, 1980–1995, Munich, 2000, pp.129–170.[49] Cf. e.g. Fred Ritchin, «The End of Photography as we have known it,» in Paul Wombell (ed.),PhotoVideo. Photography in the Age of the Computer, exhibition catalogue, London, 1991, pp. 8–15, here p. 15: «There is nothing more real than anything else. Into the societal vacuum comespower, both overt and covert, determining truth. Logic, prediction, and specificity are conceptswhich are being devalued, replaced by a sense of overwhelming chaos.» The title of Jens Schröter'stext, «Das Ende der Welt. Analoge vs. Digitale Bilder—mehr oder weniger ‹Realität›?» (in JensSchröter/Alexander Böhnke, Analog/Digital. Opposition oder Kontinuum. Zur Theorie undGeschichte einer Unterscheidung, Bielefeld, 2004, pp. 335–354) also plays on the fear of the lossof reality.[50] William J. Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye. Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era,Cambridge, MA/London, 1992, p. 13.[51] Also refer to the text by Anette Hüsch, «Artistic Concepts Linked to the Transition fromAnalog to Digital Photography.»[52] Cf. the exhibition catalogue «PostHuman. Neue Formen der Figuration in der ZeitgenössischenKunst,» Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, 1993.[53] Refer to the contribution by Verena Kuni, «Mythical Bodies I,» in particular the section«Stories of creation, revisited» in the module «Cyborg Bodies.»[54] Hubertus von Amelunxen, «Photography after Photography,» in Stefan Iglhaut/Hubertus vonAmelunxen/Alexis Cassel (eds.), Photography after Photography, Basel/London, 1996, p. 117.[55] Peter Lunenfeld introduced the term dubitative image (Cf. Peter Lunenfeld, «DigitalPhotography: The Dubitative Image,» in idem, Snap to Grid. A User’s Guide to Digital Arts,Media, and Cultures, Cambridge, MA, 2000, pp. 55– Cf. Wolfgang Hagen, «Die Entropie derFotografie. Skizzen zu einer Genealogie der digital-elektronischen Aufzeichnung,» in Herta Wolf(ed.), Paradigma Fotografie. Fotokritik am Ende des fotografischen Zeitalters, Frankfurt/Main,



2002, p. 253.[56] I.e. through the credibility of the source or through an electronic watermark that seals the stateof the photograph before any further processing.[57] Cf. Wolfgang Hagen, «Die Entropie der Fotografie. Skizzen zu einer Genealogie der digital-elektronischen Aufzeichnung,» in: Herta Wolf (ed.), Paradigma Fotografie. Fotokritik am Ende desfotografischen Zeitalters, Frankfurt/Main, 2002, p. 233.[58] This is a term used by Peter Lunenfeld, in Herta Wolf (ed.), Paradigma Fotografie. Fotokritikam Ende des fotografischen Zeitalters, Frankfurt/Main, 2002, p. 165.[59] In the exhibition «Photography after Photography,» a number of works were shown that arebased on this principle ability of digital data to be translated. Cf. in particular Andreas Müller-Pohle, «Digitale Partituren (nach Nicéphore Niépce)» (English as: «Digital Scores (after NicéphoreNiépce)» 1995–1998) and George Legrady, «Equivalents II» (1993).[60] My thanks to Dieter Daniels for this formulation.[61] Refer to Jeff Rothenberg's «Digital Preservation Summary,» which lists the various factorsrelating to mechanical impermanence and countermeasures to preserve digital artifacts. Rothenbergsees little reason to be optimistic about the ability to pass on digital archives. (Jeff Rothenberg,«Digital Preservation Summary,» Apr. 4, 2003).[62] Kathryn Pfenniger, Bildarchiv digital, Rundbrief Fotografie, special issue 7, Esslingen, 2001, p.10.[63] The age of digitalization will not leave any forgotten treasures in the attic, rather at mostcomputer scrap.[64] According to Wolfgang Ernst in a text on the effects of media change on the paradigm of thearchive. He predicts that the twenty-first century will be «beyond the archives.» In contrast, holdingon to the archive in a traditional sense (for the preservation and safeguarding of cultural assets)would mean «not mobilizing archives in the sense of digital spaces, rather preserving them as amedia-conservative counterweight in their simple mechanics in comparison with electronicinformation.» Wolfgang Ernst, «Archive im Übergang,» in Interarchive. Archivarische Praktiken undHandlungsräume im zeitgenössischen Kunstfeld, Cologne, 2002, pp. 137–146, here p. 137. Referto the texts «Beyond the Archive: Bitmapping» by Wolfgang Ernst and «The Archive, the Media,the Map and the Text» by Rudolf Frieling in the module «Mapping and Text.»

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holschbach, susanne - continuities and differences between photographic and post-photographic...

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