Invasion of the Lens: Culture Resistance and Aesthetic

Invasion of the Lens: Culture Resistance and Aesthetic

25 Nov – 04 Dec 2020
Online on the Galeri Soemardja’s (Virtual Gallery) website
Extended Exhibition: 07 Jan – 07 Feb 2021
Selasar Sunaryo Art Space
Jl. Bukit Pakar Timur No.100, Ciburial, Kec. Cimenyan, Bandung, Jawa Barat 40198, Indonesia

From the organizer:

Participating Artists:

Ali Mecca (Indonesia)
Ryota Katsukura (Japan)
Anna Kedziora (Poland)
Kamila Kobierzyńska (Poland)
Chien Hua Huang (Taiwan)
Wan-Ling Chen (Taiwan)
Jim Rammer (USA)
Peter Fitzpatrcik (USA)
Yong Hwan Lee (Korea)
Kang Jaegu (Korea)
Phan Quang (Vietnam)
Son The Nguyen (Vietnam)

As a medium that produces visual products and was born in the era of the Industrial Revolution, photography has intersected and even involved in the visual aesthetic development after the Industrial Revolution in various parts of the world. On the other hand, photography has become an industrial commodity that forms a visual culture nowadays along with the technological development of the medium. In the industry world, every product and phenomenon that is influenced by it will always be the mainstream of civilization change, and photography is no exception. The use of cameras that produce photographic images now seems to have combined with each individual, from smartphone cameras to high-resolution cameras, and also surveillance cameras such as CCTV and so on. Therefore, it is not wise if the discussion of photography practice only touches on technological developments. More than that, the area of the discourse, its influence on society, habit, and also visual aesthetic approaches must be a more serious discussion.

Camera is a tool for New Man and New Artist

– Alexander Rodchenko

A little questioning about the photographic habit that contains representations and evidence, it seems to be both an advantage and a curse for photography that has an impact on public perception, it is because current photography technology makes manipulation easier. Not only that, the development of internet technology which supports the acceleration of the dissemination of text and visual information, makes the photography medium more difficult to control. This underlines that this medium should be an important target of discussion in the realm of visual medium discourse today. Digital technology, which opens up great opportunities in visual manipulation brings into question the context of photographic evidence again, while the internet technology that makes the reproduction of photographic images infinitely seems to keep the photographic image away from its authenticity. The phenomenon of post-truth (impact of manipulation practice) and post-internet (related to reproduction and acceleration of circulation) in the world of photography can be likened to the story of the Opening Pandora’s Box in Greek mythology. The photography image has become a virus that infiltrates and dominates the collective memory of every individual nowadays. We see the world through photography and respond to the photographic image as a new reality, although it has undergone a manipulation process.

One of the efficient ways to control the use of photographic media in the public space, both in the real and virtual world: is to build public awareness in order to respond to the practice of production-consumption of photographic images itself. Examining every fundamental matter in photographic media and its practices has become something urgently so that public awareness can begin to build by degrees through education that based on the latest analysis results and can be accounted for. As a visual media that has also been adopted in the academic area of the college, it is increasingly clear that this media is consciously accepted as a study that must be guarded by qualified discourse in its consumption production practice. However, if examined further, education to the public from the results of academic thoughts seems distant and well accommodated. This has a very significant impact on photography practices in the realm of visual culture and visual arts due to the inadequate mastery of photography discourse. The repercussions of this condition can lead to public blindness towards the media of photography that will accumulate in the loss of the aesthetic values of photography widely, regressions also occur in the understanding of discourse where rapid progression is taking place In the technology. Therefore, the importance of building bridges between various science disciplines and various parties related to the photography media is urgent, especially the science that focuses on visual aesthetic values that is art science and its interrelations.

Art is a field that has always been the initiator and indicator of change in every node of civilization history, it is also a field that can be relied on in discourse development as a means of public awareness through any media. Photography as one of the visual media also cannot be separated from the intervention of art in its body, especially fine art. Instead of becoming a controversy in the art world in the Modern era, photography has become a medium that has a significant impact on art practices in the Postmodern and Contemporary eras. Postmodern that prioritize existence and Contemporary that prioritize representation, both are clearly related directly to the ontological habit of photography as well as the problematic impact of nowadays technology. The questions and challenges (especially) of contemporary art can easily be linked to the photography media in both criticism and practice. Departing from that, it is quite reasonable if today we need to observe photography practices in various cultural backgrounds and how they respond to this media through practitioners who seriously take photography media from various genres in the contemporary art corridor.

NO COMMENTS

Leave a Reply