PH4023 - wk2 Tom Gunning

Tom Gunning
“What’s the Point of an Index? Or Faking Photographs” Still/Moving: between Cinema and Photography ed. Karen Beckman and Jean Ma  (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008) pp. 23- 40.


The Man.

- Looks a bit like WeiWei
- Professor of Art History, Committee on Cinema and Media Studies, and the College
- Current research on the relation between early cinema and the experience of modernity.
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Essay Summary + points

It is a criticism of the indexical... he will go on to argue that it is a semiotic term that doesn't quite explain account  fascination of a photograph... or give an accurate account for our experience of them interpretation

Charles Peirce's indexicality - the physical relationship between the object photographed and the resulting image. (knowledge of HOW it was made? can't explain the fascination)
Rhetoric - the art of discourse
Iconicity - 
The Truth Claim - derived from indexicality, to describe the prevalent belief that traditional photographs accurately depict reality. He states that the truth claim relies upon both the indexicality and visual accuracy of photographs


- Excited and concerned about emerging new media...
- Particular worry is that older media is looked upon as flawed that new media will suceed
- 1 of Largest problems first... the truth claim of traditional photography. (identified with charles Peirce's indexicality) He will investigate both.
- First he will look at the issue that The digital and indexical are opposed terms.
    So, there is a difference in how an image is made, light sensitive emulsion VS. data encoded in a matrix on numbers.
- How does this challenge indexicality?
- They both capture information but the difference is in how it is captured.
- This has implications for -stored -transferred -manipulated.
- Storage seems fine, (numerical data) digital images can be kept as passport photo's.
- "foolish to identify the indexical with the photographic; most indexical infomation is not recorded by photography" signs are not recorded by photography? They are culturally given like in the next reading?

Pierce Trichotomy of signs
icon - likeness, doesn't have to be connected
index - a sign that is linked by an actual connection... such as an action
symbol - like most language, no relation... horse has no relation to the actual horse itself, just words, sound (unlike onomatopoeia)

- iconicity doesn't undermine its indexical properties
- An index need not resemble the thing is represents

So, both digital + analogue have indexical properties determined by objects outside of the camera... so no difference!

If one considers a photograph a direct imprint of reality, cutting out the intermediary states...
which brings forth that digital images can be manipulated in ways photographs cannot.
- He suggests that both CAN still be manipulated in many ways and so the indexical can be ignored or undone.
- returns to digital and points out 'visual accuracy + reconisability' of the edited image... (is this not the same as an icon?
- evaluating a photo as accurate, depends on indexicality + recognition of it + its subject
- painting freedom
-power in recognising them as manipulated photogaphs

p27 which tackles truth claim (indexicality + visual accuacy)
truth claim knocked by paranoid position (photos as evidence for non existence( or schizo position) release from truth
- immediately adds it is a lot about interpretion
- the photograph is used as evidence
- photo can only tell the truth if it can tell a lie (simple logic which i like) truth claim lurks behind a lie claim
- the truth implies the possibility of lying and vice versa

Introduction of FAKING PHOTOGRAPHY

- kind of proves his own point, if a photograph can be faked, lied. then it is fair to say that the photograph has a truth claim to it, doesn't deny it, it demonstrates it (top p29)
- going back to using it as evidence, strict codes and law are put into place to determine the accuracy of a photograph

- photographs used as science evidence, too much data, intertwined indexical + iconic aspects
- eg Marey, element of time, more abstract... digital manipulator?... couldnt remove the indexical relation to the subject however...

NOW, seems to talk of some of the benefits of manipulation
- not faking photographs but more creative, play and imagination... Art photography.

Finally, IF the truth claim was over completely overthrown, images couldn't be trusted... don't worry. The possibility of deception would also be abolished + counterfeiting would cease. They would lose their power.

p32 We come to a doubt in photography. approach it phenomenologically, not semiotically
phenomologically - of conscious experience
semiotically - (relating to signs, symbols)

Reason: believes best to grasp our drive behind digitalisation (he's concerned then) why its unlikely to disappear... and what it offers us, other visual representation can't

- we delight in digital manipulation... it is 'clever' but it is not a case of being fooled... mostly never, we are aware what a real image is, but we delight in the familiarity with accuracy and also the obvious distortion of the image.
     'potentially an accurate representation' =fun
     'Thus a sense of the photograph as reference remains inherent even while contadicted (or played with) in a manipulated image.

bottom p33 'a phenomonological FASCINATION with photography' the relation between image + pre existing reality
- indexicality is a semiotic term (from the trichotomy) less sure it provides proper (or sufficient) term for the experience....

Cultural knowledge shapes our perception of things! INTERPRETATION... things that shape how we interpret

Mentions Andre Bazin + Roland Barthes (complex way) (realist positions)
 Phenomenological framework has been laid by these two

So, in the remainder of the essay, WHY he thinks this tradition of interpretation us valuable, why it outruns an indexical account.

-pause, stop explaining the photograph + DESCRIBE it.
- it's features, never mistake for the real world!
- we don't approach it semiotically, but it is still clearly a sign for something
- They are more than signs.
- signs seem to reduce (their reference to a signification) somethig, photographs open up this complex world


"The photograph does make us imagine something else, something behind it, before it, somewhere in relation to it"
    Barthes 'photograph + referent adhere'

Barthes shares Bazin beleif, the photograph puts us in the presence of something, it possesses an ontology rather than a semiotics

"a magic not an art"

BOTH: photography contributes neither a copy, or substitute "it contributes something to the natural order of creation"

fascination due to uniquness + contingency as well (ptaining to future events)

FULL CIRCLE DISCUSSION
other media, relate strngly to artificial realitites

to touch on:
= richness of the detailed visual array of a photograph
= temporality, to refer to a point in time

TO END:
-this is only the beginings to describe fascination with photography
-index is not adequate or accurate enough a term
-barthes + bazin, a photograph exceeeeeeds the functions of a sign



Thoughts + problems + discussion

they are opposed terms in what sense? physical, corporeal?
why is truth claim a problem?

1 digital vs indexical are separate, doesnt like that... difference between them
2 returns to truth claim
3 truth, is interpreted, photo can be used as evidence (truth) .... subvert that, people will inevitably fake photos