Waste by Roberto Simanowski

Author:Roberto Simanowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Facebook; ARPANET; DARPA; Zuckerberg; fake news; Donald Trump; filter bubble; social media; Faust; privacy; data privacy; big data; data; Google; big brother; 1984; FOMO; Huxley; snapchat; archive; algorithms; Rilke; Twitter; black mirror; Brecht; Agamben; apps; smartphones; smartphone; app; iPhone; Apple; Steve Jobs; internet of things; Habermas; infotainment; news feed; internet; internet culture; digital culture; shitstorm; troll; trolling; internet trolls; Russian trolls; emoticon; emojis; nerds; knowledge society; silicon valley; coding; coders; code; Cheryl Sandberg; Oculus Rift; virtual reality; VR
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: 2018-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

Verbal Photography

“A nun, littering,” “a doghouse with a snarling pitbull inside, beside a children’s swingset,” “a woman in fitness workout wear; running shoes, shorts, and an active top; standing by herself in a deserted aisle of a fluorescent-lit supermarket, her arms crossed in front of her chest, tears smearing her cheeks while she unwaveringly stared at the store’s selection of baby diapers.” Such texts are to be found on Michael David Murphy’s blog, Unphotographable.com, under the slogan “This is a picture I did not take …”3

The inspiration for this “regression” in the history of media was a trip Murphy took to majority-Muslim Ethiopia, where photographing people, and especially women, is frowned upon. The amateur photographer returned with a newfound love of the old cultural techniques of describing, imagining, and fantasizing.

These texts vouch for nothing: not the messy nun, not the growling dog, not the weeping jogger, who is strongly reminiscent of Hemingway’s famous six-word novel: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” But whether what is presented has really been seen (in that way) is of secondary importance when what really matters is thinking of it. A written “copy” of a photo that never happened secures the lived as the experienced because it must pass through the mind. For example, you can show a photo of something without having seen it (the visual unconscious), but you cannot write something without having thought it. Every word secures the dominance of the viewer over his or her object; no butterflies enter the “picture” by accident. The verbal reproduction of reality attests to having been there, perhaps not authoritatively, but in a certain way more authentically than the obligatory photo for social media.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.