In a message dated 7/21/2002 2:32:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> What I wrote there was not very clear - this is a problem with email > which doesn't really encourage careful proof-reading (I expect you'll > jump on this as evidence for your position). No, I won't. Fact is I've been guilty of this as well. I won't pursue my line of argument much further except to say my analogy of film/TV was simply to show how different a function two seemingly similar form of communication can be. And, while TV has become a metaphor for triviality (I attempted to point this out by mentioning that TV's primary function is SALES), film has not. Therefore, the epistemological function of the two is vastly different. "Truth" is possible through film but not TV. With respect to the digital photography question, I'm convinced that it is a different form of communication than traditional photography. As I say, perhaps we don't know exactly how yet, but I think some of the implications I mentioned are enough to make one think about it (the Lewinsky photo example). >What is the epistemological function of film photography? >What is the epistemological function of digital photography? >What are the precise differences between their epistemological functions? Please understand that these are topics unto themselves. Besides, my reason for even mentioning epistemology was to simply clarify that I wasn't making purely aesthetic or other judgments about film or digital photography (like, film photography is better because it has higher resolution). That's all. This is why I was posing questions (is digital manipulation may be an obfuscation of "truth") about the possible role digital may have in the future. How the medium may change photography as we know it because it is precisely that; it's not photography as we know it. Does this make sense? >What other ways are film photography and digital photography different? >What is it that makes them "a different language"? >Why exactly are these differences so much more important than the similarities that they make the 2 media "as different as night vs day"? I thought my analogies worked, perhaps they didn't. Let me just say I believe any new medium has it's own implications. Because of this, every medium may be thought of as a different language. Cell phone technology doesn't "say" (in a metaphorical sense) the same thing as standard telephony. Accordingly, digital photography "says" something different than film photography. Hence, I can't agree that every form of photography "means" the same as any other. I think that it only makes sense to understand new forms of communication as what they are instead of only what they resemble. That all media can change their original "context" and become something else. Neil Postman writes about this in his book "Amusing Ourselves to Death:" "Every medium of communication, I am claiming, has resonance, for resonance is metaphor writ large. Whatever the original limited context of its use may have been, a medium has the power to fly far beyond that context into new and unexpected ones. Because of the way it directs us to organize our minds and integrate our experience of the world, it imposes itself on our consciousness and social institutions in myriad forms. It sometimes has the power to become implicated in our concepts of piety, or goodness, or beauty. And it is always implicated in the ways we define and regulate our ideas of truth." That last line is referring to epistemology. Perhaps this makes more sense. If not, I'm too spent to continue. -Brendan MacRae - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
