In music, there are styles that tries to get rid of "conventions" or "rules" in order to achieve various philosophical goals. Incidentally, this music is often described as "demanding". Often it is appreciated by a small "elite" that themselves have education and background in the genre.
Does anything similar exist in photography? Photographers who "break all of the rules", perhaps non-pictorial, make pieces of art that may be appreciated by the elites (but not by the public)?
-h
Im posting my most elusively elite avant garde photo for comments....
So what do you think?
"The Art of Romare Bearden (http://books.google.com/books?ei=frdUU-z2DMO0yATKmYL4DA&id=se9TAAAAMAAJ&dq=critical+focus&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22The+Art+of+Romare+Bearden%22) … All in all, it adds up to one of the most lucid, germinal applications to picture-making of the jazz aesthetic yet attempted -- a rich, ever-replenishing mix of invention, bricolage, and quotation, in which self-expression and collective memory echo and dance with each other like friends who've played together for a lifetime."
Im posting my most elusively elite avant garde photo for comments....It has sort of a Merce Cunningham-John Cage feel to it.
So what do you think?
It has sort of a Merce Cunningham-John Cage feel to it.
Just slightly out of sync.How can you tell? :)
Jeremy
It has sort of a Merce Cunningham-John Cage feel to it.
How can you tell? :)+1
How can you tell? :)If you have to ask, then you wouldn't understand the answer. ;)
How can you tell? :)But there's also a really simple answer, you just look to see how long the track has to play on each.
Does anything similar exist in photography? Photographers who "break all of the rules", perhaps non-pictorial, make pieces of art that may be appreciated by the elites (but not by the public)?
-h
Firstly you have to accept that there are rules.
But to answer your question, I'd say yes there are many photographers who break whatever rules you care to come up with.
1. I would question why anyone serious would be using a medium for communication and not wish to communicate with the widest possible audience.
2. If they are somewhat cynical and just want to be artistically and commercially successful then maybe they are happy to be appreciated only by the elite cognoscenti and especially those who hold the purse strings of commissions.
Mike
Even in point one: you don't want to communicate with the widest possible audience if that means diluting your message.
In the amateur case, you can potentially communicate more to a person who shares your sensibilities than one who doesn't. In a linguistic analogy, you may prefer to use sophisticated language that much of the wider public will not understand, so as to better speak to those who share your concerns. Is Shakespeare diminished in stature because many English speakers cannot read his plays?
In the advertising sense, there is no point communicating to those who are never going to buy the product anyway...
Interesting suppositions.
1. Why do you assume photography has to be an instrument of communication?
It can be - commercially - but most certainly doesn't have to be for the amateur. Having spent time in both camps, I find that the motivation's quite distinct, and today, as retired person, the photographic buzz is from seeing if I can still make a camera do what I want it to do; it's a very personal enterprise. If another soul appreciates/likes/understands where my mind is at, great; if not, so what? Nothing, chez moi, changes.
2. Why do you equate success, in either camp, with cynicism?
Rob C
You have to wonder about Damien Hurst for example, he's not terribly accessible to many people but the cognoscenti are able to understand him so well. And pay for it so well.
Photographs or even painted images by their very nature communicate whether the creator intends them to or not.
It would be fascinating to know what exactly the cognoscenti understand about Hurst. Could it be that in the early 80's there were a crop of new, young rich in the UK who were looking for somewhere to put their money, with the chance of a big speculative gain and limited scrutiny by the taxation authorities? In which case it becomes a bit of game-theory: whose work do I buy that others will also buy, so that the price will go up?
Photographs or even painted images by their very nature communicate whether the creator intends them to or not.
Another human by seeing a rectangular or square frame with light & dark forms knows that it wasn't created accidentally or by any other random means like from some animal. Images already communicate a human made it even if an animal painted it like some elephants and monkeys.
The shape and limitations of the frame that represents a created object automatically communicate a human created it and so by human nature it is implied the other human that made the image had a reason for creating it. The reason is they saw something either in their mind (painting) or a real scene they went to the trouble of photographing so others including the creator will see it as well.
Images communicate automatcially. That's a fact! How effectively images communicate is up to debate. It doesn't matter if it's commercial or amateur work.
I can flick magazine pages and not remember the image on the preceding page; what message did it give?
Another human by seeing a rectangular or square frame with light & dark forms knows that it wasn't created accidentally or by any other random means like from some animal.
I can flick magazine pages and not remember the image on the preceding page; what message did it give? That it was irrelevant to my life? Is that actually a valid 'message' as per the sense of this topic?
And a photograph (image) made for oneself does not even need a personal message: it can owe its existence to any number of reasons that might have zero connections with communication.
Claiming that because somebody made an image implies the image has a message is untrue, as is claiming that, ergo, it seeks an audience beyond the creator. That's neither implication nor inference, but just assumption and not fact. Having a reason for making an image does not mean there is a message implicit in that image.
P.S. Regardless, none of this has any bearing on the question posed in the heading of the thread: music isn't necessarily about message, anyway, unless in song; musical sound is about stirring emotion, and that is a colour-blind, message-void concept.
1. Why do you assume photography has to be an instrument of communication?
Sometimes, all the human did was frame it :)
http://culturainquieta.com/es/arte/pintura/item/9781-12-momentos-en-los-que-el-arte-se-creo-por-accidente.html
There's a message in there somewhere. You can't avoid it. Anything a human makes can't avoid sending some kind of message, but it requires someone receptive and sensitive to it.
One of those is obviously verbal language, which some philosophers had opined was the exact equivalent of intelligence, since thinking is done with words. That is clearly the experience of a monolingual person, but it also fails to recognise that we use music and images to communicate things that words cannot. There is information content, about emotional states for example, that pass by those means (even if only as a memo back to one's self).
Tim,
"The images you glanced over in a magazine didn't communicate to you but you can't speak for everyone. Can you understand my point better if I related images to Egyptian hieroglyphics? We know those "image" writings were made by man, meant to be read by man. Just because we don't understand them doesn't mean they stop communicating."
At this point I withdraw: if you can accept something as meaningless to me as hierolyphics, call that nothingness communication, then I'm afraid the credibility gap's too wide for me.
Consider yourself right - have a very good day. Over and out.
Rob
In music, there are styles that tries to get rid of "conventions" or "rules" in order to achieve various philosophical goals. Incidentally, this music is often described as "demanding". Often it is appreciated by a small "elite" that themselves have education and background in the genre.
Does anything similar exist in photography? Photographers who "break all of the rules", perhaps non-pictorial, make pieces of art that may be appreciated by the elites (but not by the public)?
-h
ex·tem·po·ra·ne·ous
/ikˌstempəˈrānēəs/
adjective
spoken or done without preparation.
Images captured without a lot of preparation..
on the hoof...and off the cuff stuff.
Images one might collect while.....BeBopping....along so to speak
I once made a three minute hand held exposure of the moon and some clouds at night... it was close to free jazz........ but not on a wind instrument, as Id never be able to master circular breathing to the point of actually being capable of playing a 3 minute note.
My photography is closer to Charles Mingus than "Free Jazz" like Archie Schepp or the like.
Musical Example (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0FcKOfRgvE)