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Texte zur zeitgenössischen Fotografie und digitalen Bildkunst
Examining the steady stream of new photographs we notice a significantly higher portion of photographically satisfying pictures than we would have found in any random sample a decade ago. People do not only take many more photographs than they did before, they also look at many more photographs. They get much more feedback, too. We may even start to think about the possibility of general visual literacy in the not too distant future. Today the knowledge about the photograph's deceptive nature is certainly more widespread than it was one generation ago, and that is without the slightest doubt due to the widespread use of digital cameras and the resulting copious presence of photographs.
In a new situation new models of images emerge, and the ones that are fit for the new environment succeed and spread. There's a new mainstream style in amateur photography that has emerged because the pictures look great in thumbnail size. There's a new extremely popular pastime — the self-portrait made with the camera held at arm's length — that is so successful that we start to wonder how long it will take before the course of movement becomes part of our genetic code. Hardly anybody took pictures like these before there were digital cameras. However, it is not the camera itself that triggers the behaviour but the ubiquitous presence of the image model in online communities inspiring its imitation. An android can easily be programmed to replicate the gesture. Looking at the resulting image the android may start to wonder what "self" is supposed to mean.
The image-producing collective called humankind has the opportunity to get a much better picture of itself than ever before. We may have wondered what the photographs of all these Japanese tourists visiting Europe look like. Now we have a chance to look at them. We can also have a look at the pictures the Japanese take when they are not traveling. We can also have a look at our immediate neighbours' photographs, the ones they take when they are traveling, when they are staying at home, when they are having sex, when they are eating Currywurst – and while we are doing that the neighbours and the Japanese can have a look at our photographs, too. Basically we have arrived at a point where nearly the entire world is being photographed nearly automatically, with regular updates in short intervals. A human life that is continuously accompanied by photographs published in real time from the moment of its conception to the moment of the body's funeral is no longer beyond imagination.
Joachim Schmid
23.08.2008
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