PART II/II

read part I of "truth, the first casualty”

For those who are unencumbered by the sucking mud of history dragging at their boots, the ontological shift from analogue to digital has unleashed an intuitive transformation in the cultural function of the image. Ironically, the innocent (uneducated) vernacular use of imagery is now defining its social meaning. As dramatically as technology has changed the nature of the visual image, so the billions of images now generated daily by people all around the world have changed the place of the image in daily life. People still make images of special occasions that are kept as domestic archives but by far and away the majority application of imagery is not to support memory but to engage in current conversation.

The medium once considered precious enough to store and index every photograph is now utterly disposable. Just as in spoken conversation words come and go without leaving verbatim memory of what was said, so photographs disappear almost as soon as they’re seen, often to be forgotten. But as with words, although the details are not remembered, the meaning and significance stay and arguably accrete to create a deeper form of knowledge than the more static photography of days gone by. Everywhere we look in technology and in culture the visual image is shifting and shuffling into its new paradigm.

The medium once considered precious enough to store and index every photograph is now utterly disposable. Just as in spoken conversation words come and go without leaving verbatim memory of what was said, so photographs disappear almost as soon as they’re seen, often to be forgotten.

Many of these new digital practitioners are engaged in legitimate processes of enhanced communication but more worrying is the unscrupulous use of imagery in more sinister ways. I have talked elsewhere about the transformation of the image from an object of memory that represents a past experience to the image as the actual, current experience. This is often the innocent representation of a birthday cake, which doesn’t exist primarily as a nutritional item to be eaten but as an image to be visually consumed by remote friends and acquaintances. But this new experiential quality was most powerfully demonstrated by ISIS with the video beheading of James Foley in August 2014. The image of this killing was not a representation of war; the video itself was the actual prosecution of war. By a single, video stroke, ISIS changed the international policy of Europe and North America and set a new parameter for modern conflict. 

A grim catalogue of attacks that are targeted specifically at news photographers in conflict zones offers a measure of how vital the image is in contemporary war. There is an accelerating trend of kidnappings and killings of photographers that is designed to intimidate and disrupt independent coverage, because the protagonists have increasing access to high-quality production equipment and easy Internet distribution and they are intent on using imagery in controlled strategies to get advantage over their enemies.

Everywhere we look in technology and in culture the visual image is shifting and shuffling into its new paradigm.

Other dangers await as we learn this new “language” of digital imagery. There are many agents of visual communication who will actively seek to misinform and deceive by their use of imagery. During this transitional period while we are struggling to properly understand the nature of the new digital medium and before society has agreed the protocols by which we interpret digital imagery there is vast opportunity for mischief. This is a temporary phase that will pass as we establish new rules of engagement with the medium that is currently bizarre and confusing. Consider for example how the black and white photograph came to occupy its position as a trusted form of truthful communication. The black and white image is of course utterly fantastical and does not represent the world as any of us actually perceive it; and yet through consistent exposure we learned to use it and to believe it, to the extent that for several decades the black and white photograph was the de facto medium of visual truth as represented on the pages and TV screens of every major news operation. So it will be with the new emergent digital media. 

The culture within which we live and with which we seek to engage is rapidly developing different expectations of imagery. Not only different expectations, but communities are speaking a different language that no longer comprehends the relevance of a simple two-dimensional rectangle of pixels, isolated in time and space, static and inert, cut off from the world.

The speed with which new protocols are developing is evidenced by two magazine covers, the first in 2005 (Newsweek) and the second appearing four years later in 2009 (Time). In March 2005 the celebrity broadcaster Martha Stewart was due to be released from prison having served time for insider trading. In anticipation of her release, Newsweek created an image of Martha apparently jumping out from behind a theatrical curtain, which they created by blending a studio image of a model with a file picture of Stewart’s face. In spite of the clearly displayed label identifying the image as a “photo illustration” there was widespread and furious public reaction to the extent that Newsweek published an apology. Only four years later Time magazine ran a similarly constructed photo illustration of the newly elected President Obama dressed as a medic, illustrating a feature about his plans for healthcare reform. I scoured the media online and in print to monitor the reaction and I found not a single comment. A new protocol was born which after an uncomfortable birth was easily accepted by a public now familiar with the concept of photo illustration.

There is resistance of course, not only as an alarmed response to such drastic change and consequent possibilities of ethical and aesthetic abuse, but also because there is so much good in the old processes why would we abandon them? It’s true that if the modern process successfully mimics the old, there’s good reason to continue this practice because good has been achieved and will be achieved again by so doing. But to retain the use of the old medium without a deep understanding of the new would be a fatal mistake for two reasons. Firstly, the culture within which we live and with which we seek to engage is rapidly developing different expectations of imagery. Not only different expectations, but communities are speaking a different language that no longer comprehends the relevance of a simple two-dimensional rectangle of pixels, isolated in time and space, static and inert, cut off from the world. Secondly we deprive ourselves of the powerful tools that can work in the service of visual narrative and documentary record that extraordinary potential for richer deeper communication; it will become a world in which the image is not merely a depiction of reality, using all available attributes to enrich the story, but in which the image file can be an active participant in artistic and journalistic processes.

There is now an absolute inversion taking place whereby vernacular activity defines the parameters of successful imagery, not only by the sheer force of volume but also by innovation and repurposing, experimentation and demonstration beyond the capacity of any individual or even institution.

Imagine the image that identifies malnutrition before it’s visible to the eye, connects information and resources that can tackle the condition, can seek and integrate others engaged in similar activities. It’s a simplistic example but it clearly illustrates how the craft of framing an image can become a highly enriched process of communication and action. This is why we must move from photography to this new world that’s so fresh we can’t even name the parts.

Integral to this transition is a change in role for those who currently consider themselves image professionals, whether that be as photographer, curator, technician or teacher. “We” might have considered ourselves to be leaders in the world of visual representation, tastemakers whose leading practitioners have defined the context within which all other imagery is evaluated. But there is now an absolute inversion taking place whereby vernacular activity defines the parameters of successful imagery, not only by the sheer force of volume but also by innovation and repurposing, experimentation and demonstration beyond the capacity of any individual or even institution. It’s a dynamic environment that for the aware and the adventurous is a place of growth and expansion but for the uncertain and unaware can be a place of fear and tremendous insecurity.

The representation of conflict has developed its own aesthetic within the overall photographic canon, revealing the particularly sensitive position of conflict both within photography and as it is understood by society.

The representation of conflict has developed its own aesthetic within the overall photographic canon, revealing the particularly sensitive position of conflict both within photography and as it is understood by society. In broad strokes the aesthetic could be described as an anti-aesthetic that is intended to convey the brutal realities of conflict with rugged, unadorned honesty: the images are made on location without rehearsal with minimal intervention from the photographer either in staging the events or in post-production of the resulting images. Even simple cropping is viewed with suspicion although deformations caused by camera movement in low light, and other similar variations from the human visual process are accepted as evidence of authenticity. It is commonly argued that such serious subjects should not be subjected to the whimsy of creative interpretation and the aestheticisation of violence is viewed with disdain. (This orthodoxy has been challenged by artists such as Luc Delahaye, Simon Norfolk and others, some of who even reconstruct events as an extension of the documentary form. James Nachtwey’s highly polished reportage remains in continual contention.)

This belief in the crude authenticity of imagery made by observation and without intervention has always been questionable because the very act of putting a frame around a subject is by definition an aesthetic process. More to the point, if a photographer wants to seduce viewers into looking at unwelcome sights they must at the very least create a harmonious frame that combines form and colour in ways that don’t repel the viewer or require undue effort to interpret. Why risk one’s life to make an image that no-one wants to look at? It should also be recognised that although somehow distinguished from other documentary forms, conflict imagery is received into a common cultural soup of advertising, commercial, fashion, art, informational and documentary imagery and is perceived by the viewer to be compliant with the same generally accepted principles of representation. As a consequence, images of conflict exist in a state of tension that accepts the expressive potential of photography while denying the intervention of the photographer. It’s an uncomfortable position that can only become even less comfortable as digital processes become integral to the image, putting conflict imagery in a position of extreme sensitivity during this transition from analogue to digital.

It should also be recognised that although somehow distinguished from other documentary forms, conflict imagery is received into a common cultural soup of advertising, commercial, fashion, art, informational and documentary imagery and is perceived by the viewer to be compliant with the same generally accepted principles of representation.

As an example of how non-photographic elements have started to play a part in the representation of conflict consider GPS tagging (the embedding of location data into the structure of the image file). This probably has little consequence for the domestic viewer who is unlikely to be even aware of its presence, but is of very high significance to the protagonists in the field. Removing this data requires extreme diligence by the photographer and rarely happens but in some circumstances transmitting unencrypted data could have cataclysmic consequences that make the rules of non-manipulation utterly foolish. But does manipulating the image file to remove GPS data comprise a form of deceit akin to removing visual artifacts and does it even make sense to consider the manipulation of metadata as a form of distortion even though the metadata is intrinsic to the structure of the digital file? Or consider facial recognition: while it might be possible to disguise the location there is absolutely no off-button for facial recognition and the digital image occupies a new and extraordinary place in the spectrum “truth” and “reality” that transcends conventional analogue representation. The image is now a powerful active agent in the process of knowledge formation, independently of the author’s visual intent and to argue the innocence of the image as an honest representation of unadorned reality is disingenuous when people's lives are put at risk. This is to consider only two of the more familiar non-photographic attributes that are now integral to the digital image and it is be hoped that we learn to understand the modern image in very different terms before too much damage is done. To simply proceed as though nothing has changed in the transition from analogue to digital is irresponsible.

Rather than attempting to maintain the disguise of the digital image as just another form of photograph we should release our sentimental attachment to the photograph as a tool of forensic visual investigation and accept the new role of imagery as a highly active instrument of participation rather than an inert product of observation. It is impossible to predict how this might evolve in years to come but the first step we can take now is to recognise that the ontological qualities of the digital image are not just a superficial variant of photography. This will require us to relinquish many core beliefs in the characteristics of the photographic image in order to let the new medium grow. This is an exact parallel with the 18th Century realisation that the photogenic image was not a form of drawing, which allowed larger thinking and the evolution of all the dynamic qualities we now appreciate in the photograph. Ironically the imaginative shift that is required of us in the 21st Century is the exact inverse of what was required of the 18th Century: where they had to rethink their ideas of interpretive representation in light of the new indexical qualities of the photograph, we must loosen our expectations of indexical rigour and embrace the opportunities offered by the many tools of arbitrary measurement and expression. We are at a point where the image is developing new powers to describe not what we see, but to show what we know. The prospect is horrific to those who believe that only facts can be trusted to tell truths, but to anyone who has studied the growth of written journalism from Martha Gellhorn onwards the power of a trusted intelligence to use information as only a foundation upon which we can build knowledge, the opportunity is enormous.

the first step we can take now is to recognise that the ontological qualities of the digital image are not just a superficial variant of photography. This will require us to relinquish many core beliefs in the characteristics of the photographic image in order to let the new medium grow.

This evolution from observation to understanding should also be welcomed as a long overdue relief to the representational tedium that has become the standard of conflict photography.  Just about every visual aspect of mechanised conflict had been photographically documented by 1918.  At that time the information was transformative and held a truthful light to the lie of the “Great War” as a noble and valorous enterprise.  Yet decade after decade we have seen uniformed men with guns and more uniformed men with guns and still more uniformed men with guns, and what exactly have we learned about conflict that we hadn’t previously understood?  (Images of Hiroshima being a ghastly exception to this repetitious parade of hardware and violence, along with significant evidential revelations from Vietnam, Bosnia and elsewhere). Tim Hetherington expressed his frustration with the standard protocols of conflict photography with a typically insightful metaphor that informed his deeper exploration: “The truth is that the war machine is the software as much as the hardware. The software runs it and the software is young men. … I was a young man once. … I get it, I get the operating system. I am the operating system.”

Hetherington died in 2011, leaving a tantalising glimpse of how documentary could be reimagined using visual attributes that were previously unavailable to photographers. His 19-minute film Diary, edited by video artist Magali Charrier was described by some as “experimental” but might be better understood as a manifesto: it is a non linear, non objective yet profoundly and disturbingly honest challenge to the orthodoxies of conflict reporting. Less well known are the storyboards that Hetherington was developing at the time of his death, in collaboration with filmmaker Topaz Adizes. In 2010, perched on a barstool in Brooklyn, Hetherington excitedly laid out his plan to return to Afghanistan to make a new form of documentary. With the Oscars not yet called for his documentary Restrepo he had moved on and was creating a new visual strategy that would represent the true other-worldliness of the Afghan conflict using the visual tropes of science fiction. Entirely documentary content would be created using the lenses, filters, audio techniques and other digital techniques to reach a level of engagement not available with purely analogue capture. His belief was that such a documentary would have the power to not only deliver a deeper understanding of the realities but to reach a wider audience that wouldn’t otherwise take an interest in the urgent yet relentless matter of American intervention in Afghanistan. We will never know if Hetherington was right but we can learn from his insights and at least give permission to others to develop similarly audacious assaults on the traditions of the photographic image, if only we could understand the limitations of those traditions in this new and expanded universe of digital imagery.

We are at a point where the image is developing new powers to describe not what we see, but to show what we know.

The risks are as great as the opportunities and by working fast to understand the new intricacies of visual imagery in culture we can identify the greatest risks and maybe even work to preempt and forestall them. There is an urgent need to engage with new visual practices and to name and explain them in the shortest possible order, because the period of transition from one regime to the next is when the greatest damage can occur. Sometimes innocently and sometimes maliciously, the old standards can be applied inappropriately causing an automatic metamorphosis of information into misinformation and disinformation. By seeing a photograph but interpreting it as a drawing we can severely undermine the credibility of truth, however that is defined by each age. 

This is a moment of great vulnerability because the old recognised standards of good practice / bad practice become decreasingly relevant and the new standards are not yet established. Misunderstandings, misrepresentations and raw mendacity can abound because they’re not identified and even if identified we lack the cognitive practice of resolving dissonance between what is seen and what is understood, a process that seems so easy and automatic. 

The worst fear is that truth itself becomes the price paid for technological advancement.

The worst fear is that truth itself becomes the price paid for technological advancement. But as wiser voices have said (in paraphrase), the technology will come but what we make of it will always be a choice. To be absent from the process and the attendant discussions is to abrogate responsibility and cannot be an acceptable response. At the very least we must find a vocabulary that facilitates understanding of the processes around us, and “photography” should not be part of it. The wisdom we have gained through the experience of photography must not be lost entirely but neither should it be preserved intact; we should take it and mould it, adapt and change it to support the new media. The unabated presence of armed conflict combined with the unmediated distribution of digital imagery for the purpose of evidence and as propoganda brings urgency to the discussion. Understanding the true nature of this new medium is truly a matter of life and death.