Jose's Artist Statement
Digital Photography rocks, and being able to use it in education can help students better make meaning through a multi-modal approach.
The changing role of photography and the growth of the visual has thrust upon the world a society-wide experiment where documenting everything through photographs is fair game, and expected as a power ritual of sorts in the online social landscape. This massive documentation of the personal within the public realm has extended the definition of a photograph and has extended the former realm of professionals to include amateurs (one could argue it always has allowed amateurs into its ranks, but never to the scale the digital realm affords us). As James Estrin has stated "If everyone has a camera, Big Brother isn't the only one watching. Who knows, this fanatical documentation and hyperconnection could lead to a profound shift in our way of being. Perhaps we are witnessing the development of a universal visual language, on that could change the way we related to each other and the world. Of course, as with any language, there will be those who produce poetry and those who compile shopping lists," (2013).
There is no denying the visual realm has grown exponentially because of the affordances of digital cameras and the web, but whether there can be a universal visual language is doubtful; cultures are too unique and experiences too specific to all cultures that not all photographs can be readily understood by everyone else around the world, at least not without text or some form of translation or interpretation that explains the photograph. This is something the New London Group advocate: text and images should not be separated. A case in point is Pieter Hugo's work of Nigerian Hyena men; trying to understand his photographs without any text is like watching a silent film from a foreign culture full of mystery, nuances, and references with no connection to one's own culture. Another case could be made for images of Japanese rock gardens; they carry a meaning only someone familiar with the culture that produced them could understand. When you add text the intention of the artist becomes more apparent, but, as with all art, we always project into art our own experiences, prejudices, beliefs, and predilections (see Flusser's view on how a photograph only creates the illusion of objectivity). And artists, being artists (and this includes photographers), sometimes purposefully avoid using text when they exhibit their work. Whether that's done to instigate dialogue or make a point about artistic conventions is a matter of debate.
If there is a visual language that is slowly coming to fruition at an international scale it is one that still requires translations, which makes me wonder if "visual fluency" is really how people work, because like any language those born into it are be able to read in it, write in it, speak it, and understand its cultural contexts, nuances, and idioms, but those new to it will have differing levels of fluency.
I selected a multi-media website to showcase our work and our research because it represents the general direction education is taking with regards to amalgamating skills and training children to make meaning with multiple modes of representation. It would also be a little silly to discuss photography without images (something so many philosophers and critics of the craft are guilty of doing!).
One thing to keep in mind with the visual mode of communication (as I learned from my project on the Telegraph) is visual communication is very limited in its affordances to convey messages. It was for this reason the Telegraph became an auditory tool (listening to dots and dashes) as opposed to a visual one (reading the dots and dashes on paper or seeing flags/arms from a distance). We can make far more meaning in listening than we can in seeing (or to put the old maxim on its head, seeing is not always believing). We did not cover this in our project because I felt it fell outside the scope of this project, which was mainly to discuss the affordances of digital photography within a historical context, and to see how these affordances could be used in education within the context of a multi-modal meaning making (or "multi-literacies" as the New London Group calls them). Within education text, images, video, and audio have never been easier to use.
I selected Google sites because it was a system I am very familiar with, and one that is very flexible and easy to use. I had no idea my partner was having difficulties embedding a Capzle slideshow. Even with all of this technology around us, clear and direct communication is always important. There are always workarounds for everything if you know a bit of HTML.
As with my project on the Telegraph I approached this from a historical context, and then dove into the research. One researcher whose work was very helpful is Yamada-Rice's work. She gave a more contextual approach than the other researchers because her work was directly involved with students and she even included photographs of the technology they have access to (as opposed to just writing about them, which is what pretty much everyone else did!). It boggles my mind to no end why people who critique and think deeply about photography seldom include photographs in their work.
I was surprised twice during this project. Dylan Yamada-Rice is actually a woman and Jose Van Dijk is also a woman! Photographs can certainly shatter assumptions! I know in my case they did.
Stacey's Artist's Statement
While it was my group member's idea to use a multi-media site for this collaborative project, I had no hesitation about this choice of presentation tool. First, it seems counter intuitive to use text to discuss digital photography. Images should be shown, not described. My own goal was that the images and text support and enrich each other. Second, with the web 2.0 technologies and digital photography we were covering in this project, it seemed natural to actually use some of these technologies in our project, rather than to write about them.
We have included a lot of video in this project as well. You will see more video especially where the information is more technical and complex. I created a short piece of multi-media for the ‘analog to digital’ section as I thought the visuals and audio might be easier to digest, than reading a dry description of how the technology works. This may also be reflective of my own perspective, as I only have a casual interest in the technology end of things. I more attracted to the images, the aesthetic values, communication, expression, and the meaning of images. Also, it would be near impossible for me to create a video to demonstrate how the technology works. As a more reasonable and achievable option, I used some images and some animation effects (i.e. pixilation) to try and visually capture the content. However, we were also able to supplement this section with some decent video that demonstrated the technology.
For the ‘timeline of digital photography’, I had initially created a multi-media timeline using a web-based program called “Capzles”. As it is written on the Capzles site, the tool “helps anyone create beautiful, interactive, rich-media timelines online using videos, photos, text, music, audio and most documents”. The product was very polished looking, and I was looking for a way to create a multi-media timeline that I could embed in a page. However, I discovered it was not possible to embed a Capzles project into a google site. Given these limitations, I had to recreate the timeline using text and image alone on a web page. Unfortunately, this approach limited the number of images or media I could include without creating a page that is overwhelming and disorganized due to limitations with the site, and the layouts you can use.
In my mind, other sections required multi-media in the form of text and images. It would have been difficult to communicate the reasons why we take pictures (Cameras Don't Take Pictures, People Take Pictures) without using text to provide more information. There is also some overlap between categories, such as reinforcing social connections and constructing group or personal memory. I used a few images to the illustrate examples of why people take pictures, but there was also overlap in the images, so the text helped clarify the difference in intent and purpose of the image. For example, it is hard to look at a family photo and know whether it was intended to document, reinforce relationships, or both. Video interviews with people about their photos would be very interesting for this section, but I could not find any existing resources, and it would have beyond the scope of the project to create video for this purpose. This would have been quite time consuming and also treading into the territory of research (requiring ethics approval). In this, I think text and image was the most efficient choice to get the job done. For the digital photography and education section, I found some appropriate videos that enriched the text. In many cases throughout my pieces of this project, I have intended to order the information from general to more specific. Likewise, I have layered the information by including links to supplemental resources or videos for those in the audience who may wish to delve deeper into a particular topic. This allows the audience some control over the pacing and depth of the information presented. Everyone has different knowledge and skill levels and so general information is up front, with other options to link to more in-depth video or articles for those who have more knowledge or experience. My decisions to include multi-media are also informed by the fact that I am just trying to further my own skills with multi-media, by experimenting with different forms of communication, and consciously thinking about how I use image, video, audio, and text.
I also want to mention that in working on this project, it was clear to me that it is becoming more difficult to tease apart these different modes of expression (video, audio, still images). And in fact, as I have learned about the technology as I worked on this project, the boundaries are blurred with the hardware and software, as digital cameras now take video, and vice versa. It was difficult to discuss ‘digital photography’ in isolation, or out of context of web 2.0, social media, and other digital technologies.