Photography is both advanced and limited by the mechanical technology used to capture an image. This link between technology and photography means we see images evolve and give new perspectives as we advance industrially. For Example, Benjamin observes how new artistic technologies allow us to create previously inconceivable effects, ‘The history of every art form shows critical epochs in which a certain art form aspires to effects which could be fully obtained only with a changed technical standard, that is to say, in a new art form.’ (Benjamin, 1935, p.16) The digital age has brought a rapid and significant change in technology. This radicalized how we both make and view images, ‘the process of image making is far removed from the several-minute-long intimate experience […] in the early years of the camera’ (Mishra, 2018, p. 100). It also impacted fundamentally how images exist: today digital images aren’t physical, finite objects, they’re fluctuating code that flows onto and off of every digital device. The dematerialization of the image or, the networked image encapsulates the way photos exist online, ‘the networked image is data, that is visual information to be analyzed and remapped to new contexts’ (Rubinstein & Sluis, 2008, p. 21). They are no longer physical objects, or photographs as previously understood, instead, they are code that is shown as light through pixels.
In order to understand the networked image and how it is altering the future of photographic practice, we can begin by looking at how technology has impacted photography in the past and how current practitioners are operating.
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The link between photography and technology was articulated by Benjamin as he states new art forms facilitate new techniques that were previously unrealizable (Benjamin, 1935, p.16). Thus, in that, we can see how photographic techniques are limited by the technology of their time. New technologies not only redefine the way we operate in everyday life but also the practice of photography. “By speeding up travel, making communications instantaneous, and freezing time, these new technologies not only changed the world, but they also changed the way people understood the world” (The Genius of Photography: Fixing the Shadows, 2007). From the invention of the train, telegram, and photography, respectively we can understand how technology influences perception. In turn, technology influences the way artists and photographers work. The relationship between technology, photography, society, and perception can be observed today. The invention of the internet influenced and changed society’s perception of communication and opened up new possibilities for industry and personal life. The internet also changed photography: when images were digitized and moved online, they were no longer physical, finite, or costly, the digital age redefined the limits of photography by eliminating, ‘the delay between taking a picture and viewing it, and the cost of each exposed frame’ (Rubinstein & Sluis, 2008, p. 12). We could instantly take, see, store, and share photographs. In the past, a photo wasn’t a photo before it was enlarged from its film negative. Today, there’s no separation between process and result, as we see everything on the screen, and this has led to the dematerialization and dissolution of the image.
The dematerialized images we view online are fundamentally different from the physical print. Online images are ‘disembodied information that converts images into entities that can be transmitted and circulated in a frenetic, incessant flow’ (Fontcuberta, 2015, p.14). Here we can understand images as not simply showing us visual information anymore but are themselves constructed from information. Where once, you read an image using your cultural knowledge to deconstruct symbols, now you can read the 0s and 1’s that make up the digital image. Online, images are a ‘variegated field of data that is not bound to obey the material and visual logic often taken to be defining of photography’ (Rubinstein & Fisher, 2013, p.12) this changes how we think of digital/ online images to create something Rubinstein calls, the networked image. This gives images online a new, fluid characteristic, different from any printed image. Though it’s true, physical images can be copied and reprinted, most printed images, are singular and only exist in one place at a time. Today, there’s a constant stream of millions of images being uploaded and viewed over and over again on many different devices at once, for example in 2016, 95 million images were uploaded to Instagram, daily (99Firms.com, 2018). This emphasizes how the invention of the internet hasn’t only changed how we take and experience photographs, but how we think of photography altogether. The modern networked image photograph is coded and translated into light via pixels. Thus, we might argue, anything that is coded to produce a light-based outcome could be considered a photograph.
This abundance of imagery and the dematerialization of the photograph due to the networked image allows photographic practitioners to explore what we consider to be a photograph. What we consider to be photographic is changing and can be exemplified by the existence of post-photography. ‘Post-photography is photography that flows in the hybrid space of digital sociability and is a consequence of visual overabundance’ (Fontcuberta, 2015, p.8). From this, we can understand how the dematerialized aspect of the networked image is creating this ‘overabundance’ of imagery from which post-photography is born. Post-photography isn’t an artistic movement, it’s simply a way in which some contemporary practitioners work, that considers the current cultural and technological age and how photography’s place in society is evolving. For example, _IMG01, by Mishka Henner, can be considered post-photographic. As seen in Figure 1, Henner has created a book consisting of code. This accurately represents the way in which we view images online and how they exist in a dematerialized form. The image shown in the code was taken by James Francis Hurley in (1917), if we were to look at the image online, what we would be viewing would be the same code in Henner’s book but translated into light via pixels. Therefore, Henner is showing us a printed version of the networked image, demonstrating how ‘processing and algorithmic chains of coding that bring images to our screens are always potentially verging on becoming something else’ (Rubinstein & Fisher, 2013, p.12). Emerging techniques that utilize modern and emerging technologies, such as AR, VR, data visualization, video game photography, 3D printing, etc could also exemplify how photography, especially digital/ networked images are becoming something else. Since technology is advancing at a faster rate now, than ever before, the use of these technologies isn’t being added as a new step in photography, in the same way the digital camera was. As Salvatore Vitale remarks, ‘We live at a moment in history where we are questioning the cornerstones of photography’ (Vitale, 2018, p.37) thus, we’re beginning to treat photographic practice as more fluid, expressing emerging feelings in culture and society, using different technologies to do that. The vast new ways in which practitioners are making their images exemplify the link between photography and technology. As we continue to invent and create at this pace, photography will continue to evolve, perhaps to inhabit spaces we never thought it would.
As we move forward in time, we are beginning to see a rise in post-photographic practice, with many opting to ditch the camera and utilize networked images to create their work. Though we cannot predict the future of photography, we can look to contemporary practitioners for suggestions. For example, in Lev Manovich’s project Phototrails, Manovich produced visualizations by analyzing 2.3 million Instagram photos posted across 13 cities. Although this was created for analytic purposes, Manovich has created a photographic piece, using images that have traveled across social media and through the internet as data. It is also interesting to note that Manovich didn’t use a camera to create his photographic work. With the abundance of images online, one could question why 21st-century photographers should continue to take photographs especially if, ‘digital technology has erased boundaries between all mediums, effectively making the notion of photography redundant.’ (Shapley, 2011, p. 5). If then, we turn away from the camera in the future, are we still photographers? Maybe as the photograph evolves and integrates with the technology, so will the photographer, so, in the same way, the online image isn’t fixed (it's dematerialized) the rules for the photographer won’t be so rigid. Or, should these new, networked, post-photographic practitioners be given a new identity and exist apart from traditional photography?
The ever-changing evolution of photography is what makes the medium so powerful and unique. The shift from physical, to digital to networked imagery, is just as natural as the change from black and white to color photography (even though color wasn’t originally accepted as ‘proper photography’ by some). Through my practice, I am exploring the new relationship we have with the networked image, and visualizing what the networked image means. Though it is obvious the Internet holds the largest database of images, we don’t realize how similar online images and the physical infrastructure for the Internet are, this is explained by Mirzoeff. ’Fibre-optic cable carries information as light rather than as an electrical signal on a wire […] There is a pleasing symmetry to the idea that global visual culture is enabled by a network of cables carrying information as light’ (Mirzoeff, 2015 p.151). Fiber optics carry information as light, much, in the same way, digital images show information as light. This comparison forced me to consider that the internet itself could be considered the largest post-photographic piece of art, and thus how imagery and the internet are intrinsically linked.
By examining the links between the internet and post-photographic practice, I am, in my own work, beginning to explore how the non-physical existence of images online has caused the image to dematerialize to a point where anything which is code/ information shown in a visual way can be considered a photograph. As seen in Figure 3, I have produced a moving image piece, showing an exploded, rotating image, with a pixelated, highly digital aesthetic. The technique in creating this piece is the most important aspect of the work, in terms of visualizing the networked image and how we define the work as post-photographic. The image seen in Figure 3 was originally a cyanotype. As one of the earliest forms of photography, its existence as a physical entity makes it far removed from any notion of the internet and surrounding themes. However, by scanning this image to make them digital, the image is completely dematerialized into lines of code which are only made visible by the translation into light via pixels. The image now exists as a networked image, fluid, and non-physical, purely data. In order to visualize this concept, the code which constructs the image was then used in processing software and completely edited, which when played, created this moving image piece. This work was made to demonstrate that the existence of the networked image means that we could consider anything made via code to produce a visual outcome as photographic. What makes the work post-photographic is the consideration of how both the infrastructure of the internet and digital online imagery are light-based translations of data. Much how the processing program translated the written code into the moving image piece, both online images and the fiber optic cables which make up the internet translate information into light.
Overall, theories about the networked image, its existence, and how technology and digital culture helped to shape it, are what informed the process for my practice. I’ve examined, some of the fundamentals of photography as a modern medium and explored not only how the image exists, but how emerging photographic practices are redefining how we think of photography. The internet is a technology that has changed photographic practice, not just in the tools it provides us for taking, storing, and sharing images, but the way in which these images inherently exist online; as networked images. The strong link between technology, photography, and perception means that, as we evolve and create more, the way we look at the world and represent it in any given medium is bound to grow with us. Photography’s dependence on technology as the instrument for its creation causes unpredictability in both how we define what a photograph is now and how this definition will change in the future.
Bibliography
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