Chapter 8—Imaging: Photography, Film, Video, and Digital Arts

Introduction: As the tools of technology continue to develop, artists continue to use these new technologies to create art. Sometimes controversy arises over whether art is made by use of certain technologies, such as the camera or computer. Some may perceive that tool as taking over, making mechanical a process that was previously the domain of the artist's eye and hand. Others, including many artists, experience the use of technology as a form of liberation, allowing their artistic vision to be taken to the next level of advancement. Chapter 8 addresses aspects of the development of these visual tools of technology, with quotations from many different perspectives on the subject and an illuminating Compare and Contrast – The Raising of the Flag at Iwo Jima with the Raising of the Flag at the World Trade Center.

Chapter 8 – Why Read It? During the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first to believe, according to his observations and studies, light traveled into the eye rather than emanating from the eye. Over the ages, people have found ways to create tools that extend the powers of the human-the hand—with an obsidian knife, for example; to extend the powers of the eye—using for example lenses, the camera obscura; or, of course, behind it all, to extend or accelerate the powers of the brain—through computers. Imaging technology, over time and specifically in the last 200 years, has made it possible for people to transform aspects of the visual world into art in many new ways.

Most students in colleges and universities today have grown up in the digital age. It’s easy to transmit digital photos or videos to a friend or family member halfway across the globe in a few minutes. Computer programs make it possible to alter or manipulate images so that they may be used for a selective purpose. Most art historians now teach in classrooms with the capability to project digital images of art from a laptop’s flash drive.

Yet, as commonly as we accept photography now, when first introduced, it was not readily accepted as an art form. Some thought the use of such a tool would severely limit abilities of the artist to create rather than merely produce a mechanical mimicry of nature.

Today, audiences in art museums are mesmerized by the vivid large plasma screen productions of Bill Viola such as The Crossing (see image 8-41). He uses carefully created visual and sound effects to portray emotional states in The Passions and other works.

What are we to make of images such as this when they are presented as art? How can one tell if a photograph is exceptional or ordinary, or how much of the photograph was intentional on the part of the photographer, if it was a “lucky” shot, or if it was even intended as an iconic art image?

This chapter explores how photographers, filmmakers, video artists, and digital wizards have developed specific techniques to create their visions in a compelling and vivid medium.

Understanding Concepts: There are many ways to create an image, and ways to produce powerful effects on a viewer’s experience of that image. The camera arts and newer visual and information-based technologies were met with some strong opposition in the art world at first. Now you will be able to distinguish different forms of photography and variations of the digital arts and understand their acceptance into the realm of art.

1. Examine a camera or a computer. Talk with a person who uses one for artistic purposes.

• How is the use of this object similar or different from the ways a painter or a sculptor produces an image or an object?

• Compare a painting or a drawing (see Chapters 5 or 6) with a photograph from this chapter. List their similarities and differences. Compare again with an electronically generated or manipulated image:

Title of selected artwork Similarities Differences

Painting or Drawing:

Title of Photograph:

Digital or Electronic Image:

2. "Photography" is literally, "writing with light." Examine some portraiture in painting, drawing, and photography. How does each image rely on chiaroscuro, or the distribution of light and shadow on the subject, for a convincing portrayal of facial features?

• Find an example of photographic portraiture in this chapter.

• Compare this to a work by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (image 2-37) or to a Baroque painting by Caravaggio (image 17-9).

• How is each artist reliant on the use of a light source for the effects in their works? Notes:

• Locate a work in this chapter that has been defined as photojournalism. How does this work tell a story to the viewer using visual elements, composition or design, and content? Write your interpretation here:

Title of Photojournalistic work:

Its story, or interpretation:

[start Box]

[end Box]

3. Looking at a film or video as art draws upon the same "art language" used for critiquing other artworks. It might also require some different skills from viewing a painting or sculpture. One difference might be that you would discuss only one specific scene in a film, or a particular electronic effect used in a video.

• If you were to critically analyze a movie as a work of art, how would you go about analyzing its purpose or the visual elements? The style? Form and content?

• How would this differ from analyzing a painting, drawing or a print?

• Try this form of analysis with one particular scene of a movie and record your notes:

Title of Movie:

Director:

Purpose:

Visual elements used by the filmmaker:

Style:

Composition:

Symbolic or underlying themes:

Read the credits at the end of the film—see if you can discern how many people played a role in creating the compositional effects you noted.

4. Can you think of examples of computer-assisted imagery you might have seen on TV or in a photographic image? Did you know that many advertisements now rely on some kind of computer-assisted drawing or animation to present their product, whether it’s a car, food or a soap product? For example, when you see the Geico™ “Gecko” talking about insurance to people on a golf course, you hopefully experience the artifice and humor of the advertisement. See if you can spot a few examples next time you watch TV advertising or look at magazine advertisements. Write them down, and compare notes with a classmate:

[start Box]

[end Box]

Making Connections: Understanding an artist’s pursuit within a specific artistic medium brings vision and technology together. The following exercises take you into the creative life of individuals who used the technologies discussed in this chapter to create their unique visions and expressions of life and art.

1. Chapter 8 mentions several names and quotes several people in reference to computer art, cinematography, or photography: Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange, Alfred Steiglitz, Shirin Neshat, Ingmar Bergman, Donald Kuspit, Stanley Kubrick, Keith Haring, and Lynn Hershman. Select two people from this list and find out more about them. Use Internet sources to find out about these people.

• Explore the artistic contributions of these two people.

• What are their connections to the camera or the computer? (For example, how did Kubrick’s camera work in “Clockwork Orange” or “2001: A Space Odyssey” differ from Ingmar Bergman’s in “The Seventh Seal” or “Wild Strawberries”?)

• What kinds of critical decisions did they make in order to bring about their art?

• How do these people differ in their uses of technology for image making and art production? Record your findings here:

A. Artist:

B. Artist:

2. Compare and Contrast – The Raising of the Flag at Iwo Jima with the Raising of the Flag at the World Trade Center explores the portrayal of an emotional topic and the presence of a powerful symbol. Images such as these arise out of the terrible or powerful events of history and come to represent those events.

• How does one image come to have so much meaning or weight?

• What content and compositional components of each image are similar?

• What role does the symbolic object, the flag, play in each of these photographs?

• What feelings and thoughts do each of these images bring up for you as a viewer?

3. Web design is commonplace today. If you venture onto the Internet, you cannot avoid experiencing it. Without knowing it, you have probably become a critic of web design. For example, there are certain features that you appreciate, such as being able to return to a previous page easily or having a nice graphic layout that makes it simple to find what you are looking for or add to a shopping cart. There may also be features in websites you dislike, perhaps enough to avoid returning to that site.

• Explore a couple of websites and list some features you think are well designed, perhaps even having the visual components of a work of art. List features you think visually enhance or detract from the design.

Website Artistic features Features that detract

A.

B.

Taking Notes: This chapter has a lot of information in it. It reviews several art-making media that are each unique, but that also share similarities. While taking notes, specify the kind of processes the artists used to create their unique work of art. Make note of the individual contributions some of the artists made to their field. Many of the names in this chapter are seen as precedent setting figures for the field they represent; for example, Alfred Steiglitz and his small group of friends known as the Photo-secessionists fought to establish photography as an art in its own right.

Review the chapter for vocabulary words, making sure you are familiar with the nearly 40 camera and computer-related terms used. Do you know the difference between color reversal film and color negative film? What is a camera obscura used for? Would you be able to distinguish a flashforward, parallel edit, or a fade in a cinematic production?

Preparing for Tests: As in some of the earlier study guide exercises for this chapter, an instructor might ask test questions about individual artists and their works, a specific image-making medium and its characteristics—such as film and photosensitivity—or particular historical developments that made modern day photography and computer arts possible. Events recorded or represented through an image-making medium might be the basis for an essay question. For example, an essay question might ask you to compare the "authenticity" of photography in the past with the present-day computer capabilities to convincingly manipulate an image and its truthfulness. You would be asked to use two examples to demonstrate your point of view concerning this visual issue.

Another essay question approach might ask you to explore the historical contributions and controversies of photography as an art form. You would need to cite an example of a precedent-setting image and how it might have been compared to a painting of its time.

Multiple-choice or matching questions would ask you to demonstrate your knowledge of the artists from this chapter and their works by title, time period, type of image (photojournalism or film storyboard, etc.), technological application, genre (is it a comedy film using parallel editing, or a propaganda film?), and subject matter or content (a view of the Flatiron Building in the evening, or a scene or single film still from Batman Begins).

Test questions might also ask you to draw parallels to compositional aspects of other art forms, such as the use of value or chiaroscuro to create a compelling image. Review sample questions at the Understanding Art website (www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e), in the Student Test Packet, or on the ArtExperience Online for Understanding Art.

Enhancing Your Observational Powers: By critically looking at and observing objects we think are familiar with, we can gain more information than we previously had. Photographs are interesting because nearly everyone has had some contact with this art form, either as a subject, viewer, or photographer.

1. Most of us have taken photographs or been photographed. Find a photograph you have taken or that has you in it and view it using the compositional and formal points of analysis as explained in Chapters 1 through 4.

• What was, or is, the purpose of this photograph? (see Chapter 1)

• What are some of the visual elements present in its composition? (Chapter 2)

• What elements do you experience as missing or which do not seem to apply?

• What is its underlying design? (Example: is it a balanced composition? See Chapter 3)

• Does it have a story, a visual narrative or any symbolic content present? (Chapter 4)

2. See if your local library, archive, or media resource has some films listed in Chapter 8 and watch one of them, for example The Incredibles, Batman Begins, Triumph of the Will, Citizen Kane, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Great Dictator, Birth of a Nation, or The Seventh Seal.

• What do you notice about how it is filmed?

• Do you recognize any of the creation methods—editing or camera techniques— mentioned in this chapter?

• If you were to look at a single film still or one scene of this film, do you feel it would be characterized by some of the visual and compositional aspects of aesthetics that also apply to paintings, sculptures, prints, or possibly even architecture? How so? Give this form of visual analysis a try and write below:

• Find a poster or online teaser created to advertise a film. How does the topic of the movie relate to the way it is represented in a single poster image for it or ajust a few brief scenes?

• Make some notes here about one of your favorite movies as art, noting a couple of specific scenes:

Title:

[start Box]

Artistic qualities within a specific scene: Artistic qualities within a specific scene:

[end Box]

For More Understanding: Purpose, the visual elements, design, style, form, and content play an important role for the viewer in discerning what a photographic, cinematic, or computer-generated work of art is about. As demonstrated in earlier chapters, research is needed to understand the place of photography, film, video, and digital arts in the world of the other visual arts. Fortunately, you have at your fingertips access to many ways to research these topics.

Visit the website for Understanding Art (www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e), which features a glossary and audio pronunciation guide, sample test questions, and more.

ArtExperience Online for Understanding Art: Use these resources to learn more about the information and artwork presented in the Compare and Contrast section. Use the flashcards to create a study set of images.

Notes and Links to Remember: