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February 28, 2007
Anonymous photo mural posted on a construction site in Paris, photo of mural by Jim Casper
One of the reasons I started Lens Culture was that I felt there was an ever-increasing, unstoppable trend toward constant photography of everything -- and I wanted to try to understand it and what it means in the way we live our lives and think about our worlds. This trend is certainly evident in any tourist destination, but also in every day life across all parts of the world. Access to a camera is fairly universal (think of your mobile phone), and the ease and low cost of taking and disseminating photographs seems to burden (or enhance) our image-laden world more and more each day.
I wish Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes could muse today about why so many people are obsessed with taking photographs.
A current, ongoing, interactive exhibition is trying to grapple with this phenomenon now at the musée de l'Eysée in Lausanne, Switzerland. Everyone in the world is invited to participate!
Here's the info from the press release:
WE ARE ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS NOW ! EXHIBITION
The rapid mutation of amateur photography in the digital age
Conflict in Palestine © Keystone
Everything is changing...
...how we take photographs, manipulate them, share them, store them — even how we pose for them. Our tools are mutating quickly, promising ever faster, clearer, brighter and cheaper pictures. Meanwhile telephones become cameras, desktop printers morph into mini-printing labs, and high-definition screens threaten to dislodge the venerable photographic print from gallery walls. And the eyes of the whole world are only a click away on the computer keyboard.
Where are we all heading?
During photography's entire history, the amateur and the professional have represented distinct and often contrary approaches to photography, each battling for supremacy. Has the digital revolution tilted the field of battle irrevocably in the amateur's favour? Or has it swept this traditional rivalry into the dustbin? Can anyone say?
A laboratory, an experiment, an exhibition
This innovative project takes a close look at the current state of this exciting, rapidly mutating image environment. A highly interactive event, it welcomes submissions from across the globe, and invites both live and virtual debates between visitors of all ages, educators, representatives of industry, photographers, editors, curators and cutting-edge internauts, netizens, and digerati. And just as our image world shifts with each passing hour, minute and second, so too will our exhibition respond to new developments with constant updates.
A comprehensive overview
Cell-phone imagery, digital camera pictures, sharing sites like Flickr and photolog, amateur agencies like Scoopt and Splash, individual blogs, electronic scrapbooks, hotlinking, 'citizen photojournalism', professional photographs showing amateurs at play, new printing opportunities, and historical precedents going well back to the 19th century... all are fodder for our electronic experiment. This is the first major museum project to undertake a comprehensive overview of the digital revolution as it impacts on everyone.
Wherever you are in the world, participate in our exhibition! Upload your image on www.allphotographersnow.ch it will be displayed in our galleries.
The exhibition will attempt to shed light on many burning issues, among them:
• Does the digital shift constitute a revolution, or merely an evolution?
• Does the shift represent a real democratization of photography?
• Is citizen photojournalism worthy of its name?
• Does the shift threaten the livelihood of professional photographers in fundamental ways?
• Does the shift represent a shift towards more authenticity or truthfulness — or less?
-----End of press release----
What do you think?
The anonymous photo you shot was created by photographer/street artist, JR: http://www.jr-art.net.
Steve--Thanks for the identification of JR. He's doing some fascinating work on so many levels -- the photos are really good, and the guerilla tactics he uses to display them are remarkably effective and stunning. His website is great, as well as the sites he links to. Cheers!
HI there, interesting to see this blog being created on a subject that has interest me for a long time and which I started developing a few years back in the form of lecture on the history of photography in an art school.
I personnally came to call the phenomenon you discribe as the `constant self recording mode`, a self recording mode of Reality that began the very moment Niepce could look at the point de vue d'une fenetre du gras.
looking forward to see how all this develop, thanks.
gilles
It would be extremely interesting to know the answer to the question that why are we becoming an image ladden world? What is it about recording every passing moment in our own frames so important? What 'truth' are we trying to capture and pay attention to that leads to this frendzy? Is it the fact that we have now better access to taking and keeping picture or is another way to communicate and influence others and how they percieve the world?! Apart from the usual reasoning it would be interesting to get more creative light shed on the matter!