Aims:
- Notions of censorship and truth
- The indexical qualities of photography in rendering truth
- Photographics manipulation and the documentation of truth
- Censorship in advertising
- Censorship in art and photography
Today's lecture began with a very unclear beginning and jumped around to different picture a fair bit without reaching an ultimate conclusion so it was very difficult to start writing about it.We started off by looking into the work of Ansel Adams which are featured below that show the theme slightly in his work. We looked at his work to begin with in particular as it is an example of how the truth can be taken away from a image by the use of photograph manipulation. In particular 'Aspens' as he used dark room manipulation to alter the appearance of this and heighten the contrast of the image to change the way it looked.
'Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico' c. 1941-2
'Moon over Half Dome' 1960
'Aspens'
We then moved onto looking at how this new age of technology can be used to influence censorship and truth of a painting or photograph. Much like in the first images where we can see older methods used to manipulate the image we can also see this using newer techniques; and so began the age of Photoshop in which nearly every image that has appeared on magazines and other such items have usually been heavily altered. This rise of Photoshop and other image editing software has made it even easier to be able to edit images and change aspects of them. A good example of this is Kate Winslet on the front of GQ Magazine in which the editors have used Photoshop to elongate her legs to make her appear more sexually desirable to the public.
We then started to look at Jean Baudrillard as he has theorised in detail about this subject and looked at how we can have four succesive phases of an image, these being:
1. It is the reflection of a basic reality
2. It masks and perverts a basic reality
3. It masks the absence of a basic reality
4. It bears no relation to any reality, whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum
This can also be seen in television as well and was most prominent during the Gulf War in which according to the writings of Peter Turnley in 'The Unseen War' it was almost simulated; set to broadcast at exactly the right time so that it was in sync with the New York and Washington timezone so every part of it could be documented and the media could receive good viewing figures from the coverage. During the Gulf War Turnley alongside Ken Jarecke captured images of the war during 1991. During this time they used black and white photography to capture the horrific scenes but in a way not using colour takes away the shock factor and doesn't make the images appear as truth breaking and real.
‘A few days after the
end of the Gulf ground war, an American soldier looks at a dead Iraqi soldier
lying in the desert near where his convoy of vehicles was bombed and strafed by
Allied aircraft as the convoy attempted to retreat from Kuwait back to Iraq.
This was a different and much less exposed convoy that was bombed, from the
Mile of Death. This convoy was on an obscure road to the north and east of
Kuwait City. This attack left most of the Iraqi soldiers in the convoy
carbonized and their bodies were buried by Allied Forces at the end of the
war’.
Peter Turnley, 1991
We then looked at the definition of censorship and how it can be broken up. We define it as; The practice or policy of censoring films, letters or publications. But we can then break this up into a further three subsections which are censor itself, morals and ethics.
Censor
- A person authorised to examine films, letters or publications in order to ban or cut anything considered obscene of objectionable
- To ban or cut portions of (a films, letter or publication)
Morals
- Principles of behaviour in accordance with standard of right and wrong
Ethics
- A code of behaviour, especially of a particular group, profession or individual
- The moral fitness of a decision, course of action etc.
- The study of the moral value of human conduct
This study can be linked in very well with Cadbury's Flake advert from the 1960s to the 1980s. The way in which the lady eats and interacts with the chocolate can be seen to have other connotations and can be also seen as sexual.
Another example is the United Colours of Benetton by Ollviero Toscani in 1992. One piece of this work includes an image of a man, who looks like some adaptations of Jesus, who appears to be dying in bed with others around him crying, but it is actually an image of a man dying of aids. Aids during the early 90s was commonly associated and represented with the gay community which was, ironically, frowned upon by the Italian company Benetton and of course the Church.
Another example is again YSL's Opium, as this is said to be sexually suggestive and likely to cause widespread offense. Yoiu can see her nipple in the picture which was the worst thing about it, yet we have always seen nudity in history - especially in art. Venus, Cupid, Folly, Time, 1545, by Agnolo Bronzino is probably the best example of this. Venus and Cupid were said to be mother and son yet in this painting we see that he is kissing her and has his hand on her breast but this is classed as classical and traditional painted art. So we ask ourselves, does fine art sit outside of censorship?
To finish up we can look at The Miller Test, 1973 which uses three questions or phrases to be able to justify and label whether art can be seen as obscene and hence denied constitutional protection. Which are:
1. Whether 'the average person, applying contemporary community standards' would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
2. Whether the work depects or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct
3. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value
Conclusion
- Just how much should we believe the 'truth' represented in the media?
- And should we be protect from it?
- Is the manipulation of the truth fair game in a Capitalist, consumer society?
- Should art sit outside of censorship laws exercise in other disiplines?
- Who should be protected, artist, viewer or subject?
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