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domingo, janeiro 23, 2005
Putting the photos in perspective
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The papers are again full of images of domination and degradation - photos of British soldiers simulating punches and kicks at trussed Iraqi detainees, standing on a detainee with stick in hand, or forcing others to act out gay sex.
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Degrading snapshots are everywhere - but commentators have offered little in terms of analysis or explanation. More insight comes from a somewhat unlikely quarter: On Photography, a slim book of essays published in 1977 by the American writer Susan Sontag, who died a few weeks ago (1). Sontag showed how Western society's use of images reflects its problems of social, intellectual and moral alienation.
The growth of photography, said Sontag, was about taking a 'chronically voyeuristic relation to the world'. With camera in hand, the world and its occupants become prey for our amusement, with our subjects expected to pose, to expose themselves on film. The effect, said Sontag, 'is to convert the world into a department store or museum-without-walls in which every subject is depreciated into an article of consumption, promoted into an item for aesthetic appreciation'.
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spiked-culture | Article | Putting the photos in perspective
The papers are again full of images of domination and degradation - photos of British soldiers simulating punches and kicks at trussed Iraqi detainees, standing on a detainee with stick in hand, or forcing others to act out gay sex.
...
Degrading snapshots are everywhere - but commentators have offered little in terms of analysis or explanation. More insight comes from a somewhat unlikely quarter: On Photography, a slim book of essays published in 1977 by the American writer Susan Sontag, who died a few weeks ago (1). Sontag showed how Western society's use of images reflects its problems of social, intellectual and moral alienation.
The growth of photography, said Sontag, was about taking a 'chronically voyeuristic relation to the world'. With camera in hand, the world and its occupants become prey for our amusement, with our subjects expected to pose, to expose themselves on film. The effect, said Sontag, 'is to convert the world into a department store or museum-without-walls in which every subject is depreciated into an article of consumption, promoted into an item for aesthetic appreciation'.
...
spiked-culture | Article | Putting the photos in perspective
posted by CMT, 4:44 da tarde
