Friday, April 11, 2008

Through the lens

I would like to use this, my first virtual post, to highlight the motivating forces behind my discussion. My arch-topic is photography and the discussion revolves around various cultural, political and economic implications that the new media phenomenon heralds for the development of this art/technology. I have decided to focus my research under four major headings: Culture, Virtuality and Market are the first three (the fourth will be touched upon later in this post). Here I will try to provide a small history and transformations of the cultural form, its development and practices. Then, in light of the new media context, the concept of virtuality will be discussed i.e. what it means and what impact it has on photographic culture. As an off shoot of the cultural discussion branching away from the phenomenologist perspective I would like to bring the discussion into a more market based light. Here attention will be paid to the political economy of the industry, products and applications as well as the effects all this has on the working photographer. The end goal of my discussion however, remains somewhere in the realm of mystery as the heading may evoke a tone of science fiction and obscure late night programming. It is the topic of cybernetics and it is actually not as out there as it may first seem. I would like to use the initial discussion as a platform to jump into a more futuristic prediction/ discussion of where the world is, and where it is going, in terms of a cybernetic meta-synthesis of man and machine. So if you have a camera, take pictures or even like to look at them you are the perfect candidate to comment on my blog post. Whatever you have to say I'm sure it will be useful to the discussion in some way or the other. Thanks for reading and I hope you will continue to do so as the nebulous realm of the i-world is explored.

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