I’m interested in the transition from observing as an art form, to observing as a passive act of science. It’s inspiring to know that something as culturally concrete as physical perception can be flipped on its head by the invention of tools. The medium a photograph is captured in can have obvious effects, like if the data being collected even describes the state being recorded. This seems to be the overarching goal of these scientists and artists experimenting with capture medium; to convert world data to visual representation by whatever means necessary. The objective value we prescribe to sight is what gives photography so much power. We can believe that what we see is what is real, but we only see the abstracted information our eyes and brains (organic cameras) are able to immediately present to us in forming our perception of physical space and the events that take place within it. It makes me wonder if it was necessary to rationalize the possibility of photographs and illusions to rationalize our own sense of sight as a similarly organized phenomenon.
Photography is now so widely available and consumed, that the realization of sight as a medium doesn’t even expose its fragility in the same way. Being born into a culture guided by manufactured icons, we can’t help but associate them with natural reality. If you had to struggle to see things, or if you were made immediately aware of the great lengths and processes needed to produce such images, you would understand the nuanced reasons why photographs don’t express reality, and are only estimations with limited focus. Because photography aims to transcend process, and just present a neatly bundled product, these considerations aren’t necessary to make in its everyday application.
