Media Technologies in Transition

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Media Technologies in Transition

• What happens in between the discoveries ?

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Qualities of New Media - (Manovich)

• Numerical Representation and Manipulation-
  analogue audio and vision broken into discrete
  units (digitisation)
• Modularity- individual media units that can be
  accessed independently i.e. pixels or object
  orientated programming
• Automation- media becomes programmable for
  complex repetitive tasks
• Variability- infinitely reconfigurable - liquid
  quality of new media
• Cultural Transcoding- exchange of concepts
  between between culture and computing

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Social history of photography

• Photographic history is often told as a linear
  list of technical inventions from the 16th
  century Camera Obscura through to modern
  photography.
• Context1760 1850s - Industrial revolution in
  Britain Britain was the first country to
  industrialise in the world.Previously people
  used to live and work as farmers but during the
  industrial revolution people moved to the cities.
• The concept of the factory was developed that
  required centralisation of workers. In particular
  steam engines and mechanised looms for the
  textiles industry were developed. In 1850 for
  example Britain was producing 2/3 of the world
  cotton supply

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Human effects

• People were moving and meeting people outside of
  their traditional communities. Railways were
  allowing people to see more of the
  worldPopulation explosion. People were often
  forced to live and work in terrible conditions.
  Overcrowding, smog -Dickens Oliver TwistThe
  streets and yards examined contained about 422
  dwellings inhabited at the time of the enquiry by
  2,400 persons sleeping in 852 beds i.e. An
  average of 5.68 inhabitants in each house and 2.8
  persons per bed.- Preston, 1842 Time of huge
  change effects on science, politics and culture
  in general

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Technical innovation

• Optical - Camera Obscura, lenses
• Chemical In 1727 Johann Heinrich Schulze
  discovered that certain liquids change colour
  when exposed to light. The first successful
  picture was created in1827 by Niépce, using
  material that hardened on exposure to light. This
  picture required an exposure of eight hours! He
  started working with Louis Daguerre who made the
  process public in 1839, and called it the
  Daguerreotype.

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Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. -View from the Window at
Le Gras. ca1826
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Portrait of Michael Faraday (1791-1867) by
Antoine Claudet (1797-1867), early or mid 1840s.
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Group portrait of three men posed with an Everest
theodolite and other instruments anonymous,
c. 1840-50.
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What did they think at the time?

• The announcement that the Daguerreotype "requires
  no knowledge of drawing...." and that "anyone may
  succeed.... and perform as well as the author of
  the invention" The Daguerreotype were extremely
  expensive and produced only a single unique copy.
  Exposure times were extremely long 30 min.
  The invention was greeted with enormous
  interest, and "Daguerreomania" became a craze
  overnight. The photographs were not art works
  but curiosities and toys like mobile phones today.

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Cultural meaning of photographs

• The wish to capture evanescent reflections is
  not only impossible... but the mere desire alone,
  the will to do so, is blasphemy. God created man
  in His own image, and no man - made machine may
  fix the image of God. Is it possible that God
  should have abandoned His eternal principles, and
  allowed a Frenchman... to give to the world an
  invention of the Devil?Article in the Leipzig
  City Advertiser 1839/40

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William Henry Fox Talbot, Trafalgar Square,
Nelson's Column Under Construction, 1845,
(Calotype)
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Hippolyte Bayard, View from the Madeline onto the
Rue Royale, Barricades of the 1848 Revolution in
foreground, 1848, Eastman House
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1848 Chartist Demonstration Kennington Common
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Etching printed 1848 in the Illustrated newspapers
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Art Photos?

• Artists put a lot of work into their creations,
  whereas for a photographer it is simply a case of
  click and process. The amount of effort
  required could be miniscule in comparison, which
  is the main reason why artists resent this
  medium.
• Photography is not an art form. Compared with
  real artwork it is a childrens game - complete
  with little plastic toys. It is too simplistic -
  just click? Its very effortlessness excludes it
  from being considered art. The only connection
  that Photography has with art is the demise of
  portrait painters in the 19th Century.
• - Hermann

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Photography

• Photographers, however, could argue that
  photography can go beyond click and process.
  Enthusiasts put a lot of effort into their
  images, possibly going out specifically to find
  that perfect picture which requires a lot of
  effort. Printing can be a long and intensive
  process if you wish to make your print perfect,
  and it doesnt stop there - image manipulation by
  hand or computer requires a lot a time, effort
  and patience - similar to a lot of artistic
  methods.
• I have come to appreciate what photography has
  to offer. I do believe it is the one art form
  that captures the true essence of a moment, even
  more than words. Photographs are what make up
  life.
• - Christine

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Synthesis

• Photography is not art any more than oil paint
  is art. Some photographers used it to create
  art.
• - Peter Marshall

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Realism ?!?

• Photography
• - Allowed painters to capture scenes that they
  would not have been able to previously. They
  could take the photo to the studio and work on it
  from there. - Allowed Portrait painters to
  abandon the lengthy sittings that their subjects
  had to endure. - Released painting from its
  responsibility as the primary realistic
  representative medium, extending the scope for
  new styles. - Became an art form in its own
  right, with photographers cropping up as artists,
  or as artists using the medium in their work.

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Man Ray

• Dadaist/Surrealist Photographer and Painter,
  1890-1976A tireless experimenter with
  photographic techniques who participated in the
  Cubist, Dadaist, and Surrealist art movements,
  Man Ray created a new photographic art which
  emphasized chance effects and surprising
  juxtapositions. Unconcerned with "Craft," he
  employed solarisation, grain enlargement, and
  cameraless prints (photograms) which he called
  "Rayographs" - made by placing objects directly
  on photographic paper and exposing them to the
  light.

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Man Ray