The results of the invention cannot, even remotely, be seen —
but all experience, in matters of philosophical discovery, teaches us
that, in such discovery, it is the unforeseen upon which we must calculate
most largely. It is a theorem almost demonstrated, that the consequences
of any new scientific invention will, at the present day exceed, by
very much, the wildest expectations of the most imaginative. —
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Daguerrotype," 1840.
Throughout this paper, several aspects of photography have been examined.
First, a brief technical history of the medium has shown that photography
happened to be invented in 1839 - even though the components of the
process had been known for quite some time - and was the result of a
cultural desire to fix the shadows of the camera obscura. Then, it was
demonstrated that the photographic image has been historically, technically
and socio-culturally constructed as an exact, truthful rendering of
reality. However, as we have seen in chapter two, the modern idea of
photographic truth has been contradicted by the history and the theory
of the medium. Nevertheless, the belief in the truth effect of photography
has remained a popular one, based in great part on its referential characteristic,
Barthes' "that-has-been."
However, the introduction of digital imaging technologies in the 1980s
and especially the recent progress made in the field, seems to mark
the end of the privileged status of the photographic image and many
theorists and critics are announcing the death of the medium. As it
has been explained in chapter three, the specificities of the new technology
- speed, ease of use, availability, and low cost, coupled with endless
possibilities to alter seamlessly photographic images - increases the
cases of altered photographs. In addition, the capacities offered by
digital-imaging technology are fundamentally challenging photography's
central concept of the referent. Indeed, one of the most important aspects
of the technology is its ability to create, with the appearance of the
real, representations of events, persons or things. This potential signifies
the beginning of a new world of representation, or as Baudrillard would
refer to it, a world of simulation. As we have seen in chapter four
through the example of women's magazines, the manner in which technology
is used emphasizes the notion of the simulacrum: the images we are presented
with have no basis in reality.
A hundred and sixty years after the invention of photography by Talbot
and Daguerre, the progress made in the field of computer-generated images
has created a new world of representation, in which the operators of
the virtual era multiply the ways to manipulate our perception of reality.
As we have seen throughout this thesis, digital technology is modifying
what we see in the media and edited reality is everywhere: on billboards,
in magazines, tabloid newspapers and, of course, in advertisement. Life
seems to become an impossibly perfect model - almost always digitally
retouched, smoothed out and airbrushed - making the images we consume
in our culture, literally highly manipulated. In chapter four, we have
seen how the technology is used to alter the representation of women,
constructing images that have no basis in reality. Therefore, what needs
to be realized is that technology is used to promote a certain image
that has nothing to do with reality, but rather with the standards of
our culture. As we have seen, there is a human will to control and manipulate
representations of reality. We have to be warned against the temptation
of the universe of simulation, where attempts to expedite life through
technology can result in a gradual imprisonment.
With the advent of electronic imaging we have moved a step further into
simulation, but most importantly we enjoy it, fascinated that we seem
to be by technological advancements and the so-called "digital
revolution." As several theorists remarked it, our era seems to
be attracted by virtual worlds. In 1843, in the preface to the second
edition of The Essence of Christianity, Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
(1804-72) already observed that his time "prefers the sign to the
thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality,
the appearance to the essence... illusion only is sacred,
truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion
as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree
of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness"
(in Debord, 1967: HREF).
In the 1970s, Susan Sontag stressed the role of the photographic medium
to emphasize this situation in On Photography: "The powers
of photography have in effect de-Platonized our understanding or reality,
making it less and less plausible to reflect upon our experience according
to the distinction between images and things, between copies and originals"
(Sontag, 1973: 179).
Furthermore, writing about digital culture and the internet in Life
on the Screen, Sherry Turkle suggest, more than a century and a
half later after Feuerbach made his famous remark, that "we are
moving towards a culture of simulation in which people are increasingly
comfortable with substituting representation of reality for the real"
(Turkle, 1995: 23). Douglas Crimp, managing editor of October,
an art journal known for its use of postructuralist theories, stresses
similar concern about the present situation when he states: "Our
experience is governed by pictures, pictures in newspapers and magazines,
on television and in the cinema. Next to these pictures, first hand
experience begins to retreat, to seem more and more trivial" (in
Trodd, 1998: 95).
As Arthur and Marilouise Kroker warn us in their essay "Code Warriors:
Bunkering in and Dumbing Down:"
Photography, cinema, TV, and the internet are successive stages in
virtualization. Beginning with the simulacrum of the first photograph,
continuing with the scanner imaging-system of TV, and concluding (for
the moment) with the data archives of the Internet, human experience
is fast-dumped into the relays and networks of virtual culture. McLuhan
was wrong. It is not the technological media of communication as an
extension of man, but the human species a humiliated subject of digital
culture (Kroker, 1996: HREF).
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