Output (or: when is a work complete?).
Related questions have come to mind recently, and were further encouraged by a post at http://photomusings.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/phases/ (16/06/08).
In discussing analogue photography as a series of stages Butzi states:
...it’s always been a sequence of things: making the exposures, developing the image, making prints.
In this, he draws a distinction to the digital where the
... workflow has blurred some of those boundaries.
Of course, such stages are curtailed with integral film, but it has led me to re-think where my current practice might lead to once I am unable to locate any further stocks.
An initial answer is to produce work primarily located on the web and in a manner that would approach - in appearance - a printed black and white version of the image, and not on photographic paper. All images would be loaded up at a resolution of 72dpi and in gray scale ( as the work sculpture (04941006255-02 05320 5344) has been) to go some way towards approximating this. The screen image and prints derived from it would each constitute the work in equal measure rather than function as a document of it. Of course, I am not equating the two to be identical - the screen and the print - or indeed, perhaps similar, but as a means by which to know that a work is complete. And, of course, this would mean a switch to digital as a primary tool (my main concern will no doubt remain the integral photograph).
This of course also relates to differences between screen and print display, between digital and analog, and between digital and object, as two other posts have recently discussed:
http://reciprocity-failure.blogspot.com/2008/06/its-not-same-its-not-same-its-not.html (17/06/08). http://www.12thpress.com/blog/?p=355 (17/06/08).
Not surprisingly, such distinctions between web and print output - in relation to my initial comment - were also mentioned in response to Butzi's initial post. For instance, Andreas Manessinger (16/06/08) locates the primary location of his photographic output as the screen:
Most of the time the end result is not a print, it’s a post on my blog...A related question I have recently been considering is how tor reference recent moving image work/what form will it finally take? While there are numerous instances of such media art-products been limited to a certain number so as to attain additional value (both financial and auratic) , my main preoccupation is between Windows Movie Maker / Windows Movie Maker files conversions to MPEG-4 for such sites as YouTube, or stills; combinations of these three, all three or just one.
The problem in both cases - and one that I have/had circumvented by the use of integral film - is how to present, how to know that such work is completed. And while I am perhaps no nearer the answer, Butzi's post and my initial response to it have at least got me thinking.
S. Cousin
Post a Comment
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments