- What does Ritchin mean with the “fluidity of the digital”? Give an example of digital imaging/digital photography that exemplifies this.
In the book, Ritchin mentioned in the foreword that “the fidelity of the mechanical age was being replaced by the fluidity of the digital. ” From my perspective, it indicates the transformation in technology and photography. Photos are no longer shot by the rules of light and electricity. With digital imaging, the image can be easily manipulated, since the information context of the picture can be interpreted and altered by algorithm. So, to say that, digital image is not a type of new photography, but indeed a new media.
The photo of the Artificial Instagram Influencer Lil Miquela(right, CGI) with model Bella Hadid
It is super easy to manipulate an image to fool people’s eyes, even the whole appearance of a people can be built up.
2. Reflect on the extent to which photography is capable of capturing reality; and compare it to other media (technology) (e.g. text, video, virtual reality, books).
I would to compare the process of taking a picture as select a point on the time axis, and froze everything of a certain physical space from a certain perspective. According the reality on that moment on that right spot is captured in a 2D frame, serving similar function as our eyes do. For example, the biggest difference between picture and video is about the motion. Photos are used to capture a fixed time point, or it is still. But videos are for record a set of movements happen in a period of time. While Words involve not only visual but but only the language perception.