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View submission: Kierkegaard, Mimesis, and Modernity: A Study of Imitation, Existence, and Affect
Kaftanski depicts Kierkegaard’s immediate cultural predecessors as deeply engaged in the recasting of the classical notion of mimesis.
I think a good example is to evaluate photography in these key elements:
• Moving beyond copying • Mediation of mimesis • Theoretical as opposed to lived experiences • Transcendence • Reshaping mimesis
Soulless duplication and mimicry were shunned in favor of an ideal of mimesis which could generate the unique and originary and make manifest the spirit of the letter.
I recently started diving back into photography, and there are some aspects I can report on which unpacks this quote.
In searching for “good photos” today, one might be surprised at Google and other search engine results; the former collecting optimized key terms (SEO) and the latter I don’t think has such a potent algorithm — you’ll usually end up with ads to sell tools regardless of which search engine you use. A search for “good photos” requires a bit of Boolean excluders to perhaps land upon “good photos” (-ads, for example), but even then you’ll likely find articles explicating the techniques that then want to sell you tools. Searching for “criticisms” may help.
Film vs Digital: there’s controversy, and it probably has a tooth in which format is ‘superior’ as it related to art or fine arts; there’s also the critique that photography was meant to be reference material for painters. Photography goes back and forth on what is created within a darkroom or modern ‘lightroom’ and what is considered ‘better’. The arguments gets a bit gray in unpacking the process as both formats opens a photographer to opportunities to compose a shot and then do something with it (develop it with chemicals and an enlarger or use sliders on RAW). I am not fully convinced that either format doesn’t include this human aspect — what I think is going on is the issue in the representation. The digital format is already removed from a sort of direct presentation (a lived experience) and is represented immediately through digital view finders and digital screens as soon as light hits the ISO and instantly ‘develops’ a photo.
Heidegger’s Hammer: Much of the controversy surrounding photography seems to go beyond accurate representation (despite it being ongoing) and into the present-at-hand; descriptions by modern MFA students doesn’t let the piece speak for itself; the lengthy theoretical descriptions have inundated galleries to inform us of an author’s intent; there is a need to write more about the piece itself while ‘turned’ away from the experience of seeing the original work. “Just let the photo ‘speak’”. The criticisms are that digital and online format removes the person from the piece and gallery, an experience of the finality of film, … but proponents add democratization of skills with money, and the ability to take 100 shots with immaterial costs (as long as you have a battery charged or a computer to view it on a monitor). The difference between the two is that the accessibility to photography has shifted into a global opportunity, and I think we are hearing more voices — not just the ones being gate-kept.
Online, I find necessary execution techniques (basic exposure triangle lessons, composition summaries, and so on) which demonstrates how to take a good picture but not how to take a good picture in the latter sense of the quote. For the former, I relearn concepts such as ‘depth of field’, ‘rule of thirds’, ‘leading lines’, and so on, so there’s a need to master the techniques and tools. But examples of “good photos” show birds frozen in flight, a landscape of a canyon with details, and so — as if to make a forensic account of what truly occurred — to highlight and call into attention a few nuances like colors, textures, and so on, makes it art? In my old photography books, there is much of the same!
While accurate representation and skillful execution is necessary, it is not sufficient — I believe that’s what is being said in these two quote lines. The review of Katfsanki moves beyond, “they go beyond their religious/theological scope” and into this pivotal conclusion: “[Kaftsanki] advocates for a practice of ‘indirect’ mimesis, which avoids lifeless subjection to the ideological depictions of human ‘success’ which have proved so powerful in modern culture.”
To produce a “good photo”, then, means to ‘reject’ the dominant stuff you find online.
There's nothing here!