LECTURE 11 - censorship and truth

- notions of censorship and truth
- indexical qualities of photography in rendering truth
- photographic manipulation and the documentation of truth
- censorship in advertising
- censorship in art and photography

The camera never lies

“At one with the power of the American landscape, and renowned for the patient skill and timeless beauty of his work, photographer Ansel Adams has been a visionary in his efforts to preserve this country’s wild and scenic areas, both on film and on Earth. Drawn to the beauty of nature’s monuments, he is regarded by environmentalists as a monument himself, and by photographers as a national institution. It is through his foresight and fortitude that so much of America has been saved for future Americans.”

Ansel Adams - iconic, quality or common
- manipulation in dark room alters what the print shows
Moon over half dome, 1960

Documentary photography

- the rendering of real life events

- propaganda 

- notion that photograph renders truth

- individuals being removed 

Robert Capa

- not real name or real image
- staging an image, was a soldier dying but not in the context it was said to be

‘At that time [World War II], I fervently believed just about everything I was exposed to in school and in the media. For example, I knew that all Germans were evil and that all Japanese were sneaky and treacherous, while all white Americans were clean-cut, honest, fair-minded, and trusting.’

Digital photography

- morals and ethics of advertising

- digital technology can change the context of the original image

- frivolous 

- digitally enhanced images, making things more appealing to the audience - Is this fair?

Is what is presented in a photograph true? Does it even matter?

Abstraction

‘Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or relativity: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth it is the map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra’

'Whereas representation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting it as false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum. These would be the succesive phases of the image:

It is the reflection of a basic reality.

It masks and perverts a basic reality.

It masks the absence of a basic reality. 

It bears no relation to any reality whatever : it is its own pure simulacrum.’

Gruesome images in the media

- do you really want to see it?
- gone too far?
- different levels of newspaper will show different things
- making art out of conflict

Censorship

- person authorised to examine films, letters, or publications, in order to ban or cut anything considered obscene or objectionable

- to ban or cut portions of a film, letter or publication

Morals

- principles of behaviour in accordance with standards of right and wrong

Ethics

- code of behaviour, of a particular group, profession or individual

- moral fitness of a decision, course of action etc
- study of the moral value of human conduct

Advertising

- sexual aspects
- does it say more about you than the advert?
- certain things banned within advertising but celebrated within fine art

Obscenity Law

- to protect art whilst prohibiting trash
- dividing line between speech and non-speech
- dividing line between prison and freedom