Yes, this is the same photo featured in our Sunday post. Michael Humphrey commented on that post with the accusation that it was animated by “moral idiocy” masquerading as “moral seriousness.” His argument is that publishing photographs that underscore the notion that “war is hell” don’t accomplishing anything without being accompanied by a “serious statement.”   His position is a serious one, and indeed something of a conventional piety that gets repeated often and again by any number of iconoclasts (most notably Susan Sontag) and it deserves serious response.

The iconoclastic position is simple enough: photographs can at best be only a surge of raw emotional energy that is devoid of the rational capabilities necessary for ethical relationships; this is so, as the photograph—by itself—cannot provide moral knowledge. Accordingly, the viewing public is locked into a passive spectatorship that leaves little room for anything like serious moral engagement (i.e., at its best something like compassion fatigue, at its worst, “moral idiocy masquerading as moral seriousness”). Photography may be put to better or worse uses but remains a profoundly suspect medium of representation, indeed one that is presumably and inherently fraudulent because the image can never provide the adequate knowledge of reality that is promised.

The argument assumes that photography bears the burden of representation, which is to say that the “truth” of any photographic image is mitigated by the fact that it always offers a partial and limited view of the world—and in its most extreme forms the argument is that photographs offer little more than fantasy, deceit, and manipulation. So far so good, as any medium—not least, the spoken and written word—is subject to precisely the same limitations. The difficulty is that proponents of this position place the full burden of representation on the photograph with the assumption that its inherent inadequacies can be solved by turning to the word (i.e., “serious statement”) without recognizing that rational discourse and verbal narratives are no less subject to the exact same problem. To get the point, note how discussions of photographs often underscore the fact that we need to “know more than is shown” or that the “context” needs to be elaborated, but we never see rational or narrative reports that include serious discussion of the inadequacy of the word to fully explain a situation.

Ultimately, all media are mixed media, and the image needs the word as much as the word needs the image, so this is not an argument against “serious statement.” It is, however, an argument in favor of taking the photographic image on its own terms and to be willing to “think” with and through it. That is, not just to look at it, but to see what is being shown on its own terms and to seriously consider its implications. Mr. Humphrey quotes a Washington Post editor who is altogether blithe in conceding that “war is hell” as a simple matter of fact without being willing to interrogate its particular hellishness (as displayed in the photograph of carnage) apart from a “serious statement,” and in so doing creates the conditions for normalizing our attitudes towards war as a taken for granted assumption. What matters then are the rational causes for conflagrations and not the affective or moral implications of the body of the dead child that the photograph above forces us to stand in witness to.

Mr. Humphrey assumes a degree of “moral clarity” to the political situation in the Middle East. Maybe from his perspective it is morally clear, but I don’t quite see it. When I allow myself to think with and through the above photograph on its own terms, however, I find myself questioning the world in new and different ways as it invites consideration of what is at stake when we concede that “war is hell” and move on to other matters. Are we comfortable participating in a world that assents to the normalization of war as a taken for granted assumption and, more, one that accepts any rationale whatsoever as justification for the murder of children? Whatever the answer to these questions, the point is that the photograph invites—perhaps demands—their asking, and it such invitations/demands that coaches moral seriousness.

Photo Credit: Stringer/Reuters

 

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It seems the New York Times has a thing going for the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordon.  Along with regular reports, they’ve provided an interactive graphic and a multimedia feature story on camp growth.  The stories always include attention to the considerable suffering involved in getting there and living there, and to the resourcefulness of the people in adapting to their difficult circumstances.  You would never have described the reportage as upbeat, but that may be changing.  The latest report was titled “Refugee Camp Evolves as a Do-It-Yourself City,” and it was pretty clear that we may be looking at a model development–indeed, an “urban incubator” that has exciting prospects for a world with 50,000,000 refugees.

The slide show accompanying the story is suitably banal, but this photo did a good job of capturing the deep ambivalence that I think lies beneath that narrative.  Supermarket shelving stocked to the brim with packaged foods is one of the stock images of the abundance provided by modernization.  Indeed, I never get completely past marveling at this everyday institution, which typically will stock 45.,000 products in a single store.  (As a member of the latte-drinking liberal class, I should know better than to marvel at rows upon rows of product extensions of junk food, much less making a fetish of the whole capitalist system, but I can’t help myself.  Besides, it beats poverty.)  In the photo above, the message should be pretty clear: they have it pretty good, all things considered.

OK, they do, and it sure beats being crushed in the queue for the food truck, which is what we’ve seen in too many other camps.  And I can’t help thinking that the woman behind the cart is laughing, whether at a joke or the act of being photographed, which either way would be another type of abundance.  She may simply be avoiding the camera, however, or even overcome with worry or discouragement.  Whether wanting privacy or more than that, the sense of privation is picked up bot the empty spaces behind the products lined up on the shelves.  And despite the basic conformity with supermarket design around the world, that ceiling is too low, the lighting too spotty: this is not the same as getting that high-end store in the new urbanist development near you.

And, by the way, they are refugees.  They have fled a war that is destroying the real cities where they and their families had lived, perhaps for generations.  And nothing that happens in the camp is likely to have any effect on the outcome of that war.  They are coping, but here that means dealing with effects, not causes; being resourceful, but not being able to believe in a viable future; getting by, but still dependent on the kindness of strangers.

Hence the ambivalence.  Zaatari is not a good solution to the problems that created the refugee crisis, but it may be the best option for coping with that crisis.  More to the point, there is a lot there that Jane Jacobs would like, and that therefore might be a basis for thinking about urban politics not only in the camps or the Global South but everywhere.  But I can’t believe that will address the root problem, which is that war is expanding across too many countries and displacing far too many people.

Boosterism aside, the Times article is well written and makes a very important argument.  If ordinary people are given the opportunity to turn a camp or a slum or any other disaster zone into a city, they will do that.  (Detroit, are you listening?)  Life, not merely bare life, will grow like weeds.  As cities always do, prosperity and culture will be created and shared.  The people thinking about refugee camp management are right to be valuing the achievement on the ground at Zaatari.  “A number of forward-thinking aid workers and others are looking at refugee camps as potential urban incubators, places that can grow and develop and even benefit the host countries.”

So we get to what might be a distinctive form of urban development in the 21st century.  Can host countries create new cities out of the camps that are being created by the wars that are wrecking other cities and other countries?  It’s a rotten question, but it seems to be one we need to face.

No city has to have a noble beginning, but the question of where it will end should not be taken lightly.

Photograph by Adam Ferguson/New York Times.  It turns out that I have a thing for Zaatari too.  I’ve posted on it twice before: here and here.  I wouldn’t say those posts are out of date, but the story continues to evolve.

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Important news sources ranging from the Onion to the New York Times have discussed China’s amnesia regarding the Tiananmen Square massacre that occurred 25 years ago this week.  The Times article was accompanied by an illustration that picked up on what has become a common lament: in place of the quashed democratic revolution, China has become a case study in consumer capitalism.  Citizens have become shoppers, thronging to the malls instead of the public square.

Needless to say, the point is made visually by invoking the iconic image of a man standing before a row of tanks on Chang’an Avenue.  The contrast is clear: by substituting more contemporary figures for the man before the tank, a public act of protest against the authoritarian state has been replaced with political quiescence on behalf of commercial consumption.  Nor is the shift in values limited to China.

Whether stylish consumers or fat cat merchants, everyone is on the take.  Democracy has been sold out; surely the martyrs did not die for this.

They did not die for China’s mashup of capitalism and authoritarian government, but the story always was more complicated than the ironic contrast would suggest.  To see that, you need look no farther than the iconic image.

As John and I argued in No Caption Needed (the book), the Tiananmen tank icon channels a deep tension within Western, liberal-democratic societies: it articulates both democratic and liberal attitudes, reflecting what is a persistent trade-off one way or the other in modern politics.  This tension often is resolved very productively, but it is constitutive and dangerous.  As Tocqueville, Benjamin Barber, and others have suggested, democracy nurtures liberalism, which ultimately can subvert democracy.  Note also that China has expanded private liberties without democratization.

The democratic commitment is to governance of, by, and for the people.  The liberal commitment is to respect and protect the autonomy of the individual person.  These are not the same thing, and neither is an unalloyed good thing: democracies can become a tyranny of the majority, and individual freedom can be used to harm one’s fellow citizens.  More to the point of the Tiananmen commemorations, liberal democracy means that you should be able to elect your public officials, and to ignore politics altogether while you shop until you drop.

In the tank icon, a lone individual stands up the to impersonal state on behalf of the people, and so it is a liberal-deomcratic vision, but more liberal than democratic.  Consider, for example, how much is not being shown of the democratic movement that had inhabited the Square for weeks.  Consider also that the original protester was holding what appears to be a shopping bag.

The full argument runs to 34 pages, which I’ll leave to your discretion.  (Hey, would it kill you to buy the book?)  Nor am I suggesting that commemorations of the massacre are misplaced.  The people living in Hong Kong will not let us forget, and we shouldn’t.  But nor should we get off too easy.  Citizens are turned into consumers every day while democratic governance is being subverted on behalf of oligarchy, and I’m not talking about China.

The man standing before the tank embodies two fundamental principles, not one, and the challenge of making them work together is one of the great ongoing tasks of modern societies around the globe.  I have no doubt that China needs more democracy, but I would not offer the present mix of populism and neoliberalism that defines politics in the US today as a splendid model to which they should aspire.

One virtue of iconic images is that they can provide models for citizenship.  The tank icon does so, but it also says something about the world in which we have to act.  And what seems to be an image, may also be a mirror.

Cartoons by Michela Buttignol/New York Times and Scott Stantis/Chicago Tribune.

Cross-posted at BagNewsNotes.

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In Focus has put up some of the entries for the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest.  All are remarkable examples of natural wonder and artistic skill, and some are simply stunning.  One might ask, however, to what extent they are original.  Are we really seeing something new, or seeing with new perspective and insight, or are the photographs recycling images that, however lovely, are nonetheless familiar sights.  The leading image at the In Focus slide show provides a useful vantage on the question, for it is a double image.

Beautiful, isn’t it?  It’s also a study of geological processes, and of photography as a way of seeing.  Now that we’ve exhausted my knowledge of geology, we can turn to the optical dimension.  A still pool of water mirrors the earth and sky above; one element becoming a reflective medium for two others.  Deep in the center of the image, a tiny figure stands and is reflected as well.  These double images model the actual photograph, which is the still reflection of what was actually in front of the camera.  Nature is copied inadvertently by itself (in the water) and then again and intentionally so by the photographer.  (I believe it was Shaw who said that human beings are nature becoming aware of itself.)  And the single photograph’s depiction of copying also can reflect its repetition at the National Geographic website, In Focus, here, and surely elsewhere as well, and with that the definition of photography as a medium of mechanical reproduction.

Which may be why we shouldn’t be surprised to have seen the image before.

Sure, it’s not exactly the same, but take a good look.  Note the many formal similarities, right down to the single grey figure in the foreground of the second photograph and the background of the first.  Prop0rtions, colors, cropping, and the like vary a bit, but let’s not deny the obvious.  In fact, we’ve shown it before at this blog, but that is the least of it.  The second image has been publicly available, including on the cover of one of the photographer’s books and through charity auctions for environmental causes.  Even the comments on the first image when it was the Photo of the Day at National Geographic include remarks that it’s been seen before, particularly as desktop wallpaper; significantly, these are not criticisms, they don’t diminish the reader’s sense of natural beauty, and one comment leads to explicit admiration of the work necessary to get the shot.

Does this mean that originality doesn’t matter to either photographers or their audience?  Not really, but it does suggest that the question of originality is the wrong question.  First, we should consider that not everyone will have seen any given image before, including perhaps the photographer who took the more recent version, and that new viewers are coming along all the time; originality, like clarity, is not a product of the image or the text but rather a relationship between the work and its audience.  Second, allusion and more direction reproduction of previous work is an important component of fine art, and many fine artworks are studies in very similar subjects in very similar styles; originality is rarely the only value in aesthetic judgment, and consider also how judgment has gone awry when it was the only consideration.  Third,  multiple readers of a book by the same reader, or multiple viewings of a painting by the same viewer, are taken to be a compliment and not the sign of some failing; an artwork rewards revisiting because it is a distinctive (and reflective) encounter with its subject, and photography can do that as well.  Fourth, and most important, photography is not a public art, and its more casual attitude about originality is one mark of that difference; what needs to be appreciated, however, is how the high rates of replication are, although not without their problems, nonetheless a source of cultural value.

People don’t go to the Vermilion Cliffs Monument to see something no one has seen before; they go to have an encounter with nature’s beauty; something that may be a distinctively human response.  We don’t look at a photograph of the natural marvels to be seen there because we want to have a unique aesthetic experience, but to have one that others have enjoyed as well.  In place of the original, a copy; in place of the unique work of art, a community.

These habits are easy to belittle, and let me be clear that I think the world needs every kind of art, not simply those I would label public arts.  That said, the images above might merit additional appreciation.  Let’s think of them as Deep Copies: that is, as images that reflect reflection and reproduce reproduction, and do so elegantly, beautifully, profoundly.  Nor do they do so abstractly, but rather by showing how these processes for replication are part of something material, whether mineral strata being laid down crystal upon crystal for eons, or the social habits that continuously pass along human societies from generation to generation, or the imaging processes of the human brain as it creates consciousness itself.

And to see any of that, we will have to see the same image more than once.

Photographs of The Wave landform, Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness, Arizona, by Nicholas Roemmelt/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest and Jack Dykinga/Corbis-iLCP.

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One sign of a healthy public art is that people argue about it.  Photojournalism appears to very healthy, as once again the World Press Photo Awards are provoking discussion.  As is happens, an earlier post at this blog was pulled into the fray.  Back on October 24, 2011 I wrote about this image, which recently received the Photo of the Year award.

I had raised the issue of how one might come to terms with seeing the image through the cultural lens of Christian iconography: by seeing the outline of the pieta, one’s response could be both emotionally true and otherwise distorted.  After the award was announced, Michael Shaw at BAGnewsNotes prompted renewed discussion, summarizing my post along with commentary by another BAG contributor, Madeleine Corcoran.  The comments that followed expanded the discussion further, including an entry by one of the contest judges, Nina Berman.  At the same time (a day earlier, actually), Jim Johnson voiced his “disappointment” with the selection, arguing that it was derivative not only with regard to the pieta but also within the history of photography, and that it depoliticized the Arab Spring, reinforced traditional gender roles, and interfered with understanding the complex politics of modern Islam.  Jim provoked a dozen comments, and once again Nina weighed in.  On the same day, the New York Times Lens Blog started out with a celebration of the selection (and quoted Nina), but the discussion there soon turned up some of the same issues.  And over at Conscientious, Joerg Colberg added to the critique, pointing out that reliance on conventional iconography makes it too easy to project our own beliefs–and, with that, our military forces.

Joerg also points out that one solution to the problem is increased visual literacy, which is precisely what each of these blogs is trying to provide.

Photograph by Samuel Aranda/New York Times.

Update: The debate is curated much more thoroughly at bitly.

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