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media theory
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ReadingsAndré Bazin and Hugh Gray, The Ontology of the
Photographic Image
The mummy complex: In the ancient religion of Egypt, mummification was
seen as a way of continuing life after death. This preservation of life by a
representation of life is what he calls ‘the mummy complex’.
The practice of embalming
While we don’t believe in religious motivations of an image, we agree that the
image helps us remember the subject and to preserve him from a second
spiritual death
The preservation of life by a representation of life
The history of plastic arts is less a matter of their aesthetic than of their
psychology
The discovery of the camera obscura put the artists in a position, where they had
to create a 3 dimensional space where things appeared exactly like in reality
Painting was torn between two ambitions:
1. Aesthetic, expression of spiritual reality, the symbol overcomes the model
2. Purely psychological, duplication of the outside world
Perspective was the original sin of Western painting
There was a confusion between the aesthetics and the psychological, realism
and giving an essence to the world
Photography and cinema freed plastic arts from their obsession with likeness
Photography and cinema satisfy our obsession with realism
Painting was forced to offer us illusion, it will always be subjective
The solution is the way of making the image
Readings 1
, For the first time, between the origination object and its reproduction, an image
of the world is formed automatically, without the creative intervention of man
Originality in photography as distinct form originality in paining lies in the
essentially objective character of photography
Indexical relationship between the photograph and reality (like a fingerprint)
Cinema is objectivity in time
Painting is an inferior way of making likeness, an ersatz of the processes of
reproduction
Photography does not create entity as art does, it embalms time, rescuing it
simply from its proper corruption
Photography contributes something to the order of natural creation instead of
providing a substitute for it
Surrealism
Surrealists don’t consider aesthetic purposes and the mechanical effect of the
image on our imagination as things apart
The logical distinction between what is real and what is imagination disappears
The image and the object are the same
Photography produces an image that is a reality of nature
Surrealists are interested in dreams!!
Photography can also contribute to the order of natural creation instead of
providing a substitute for it
Questions for Bazin
What does Bazin mean by ‘the mummy complex’?
The mummy complex: In the ancient religion of Egypt, mummification was
seen as a way of continuing life after death. This preservation of life by a
representation of life is what he calls ‘the mummy complex’ (embalming)
How does Bazin relate this to the psychological motivation of all the visual arts?
While we don’t believe in religious motivations of an image, we agree that
the image helps us remember the subject and to preserve him from a
second spiritual death
Readings 2
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