Evan's Communication Lab

Hito Steyerl is discussing the changing nature of documentary images and the challenges to the “unbroken belief” in their truth. By “unbroken belief,” she means the unquestioned trust and faith that people historically placed in documentary images, assuming they accurately represented reality. She highlights that in the contemporary digital age, this belief is being increasingly challenged due to the proliferation of documentary images that are uncertain, abstract, and lack focus.

Steyerl argues that documentary images are no longer primarily about representing reality accurately. Instead, they are about expressing the uncertainty, tension, and excitement of the world in which they are created. In the age of digital reproduction and information overload, the focus has shifted from objectivity and scientific integrity to intensity and emotional impact. People no longer rely on images for straightforward information but for the affective experiences they provide.

This shift raises questions about the relationship between truth and fiction. In the context of documentary films and movies based on true stories, truth informs fiction when filmmakers draw from real events and facts to create narratives that resonate with the audience. These works can serve to shed light on historical or current events, providing insight into reality through storytelling.

On the other hand, fiction can inform the truth by creating narratives or scenarios that challenge conventional perceptions and provoke critical thinking. In some cases, fiction can be used to allegorically depict social or political issues, offering a lens through which to view and understand reality in a new light. It can serve as a means of social commentary or critique.

The significance of authenticity and representation of truth in the media that people consume on a daily basis is substantial. The public relies on media outlets to provide accurate and credible information about current events, politics, and societal issues. Authenticity in reporting ensures that the audience can trust the information they receive. However, Steyerl’s point is that the contemporary media landscape often blurs the line between authenticity and the representation of truth, as the desire for intensity and emotional engagement can sometimes overshadow strict adherence to objective reporting.

The role of a live broadcast, as mentioned in Steyerl’s text, is to provide a sense of immediacy and presence in the coverage of events. Live broadcasts aim to bring the audience closer to real-time events and create a feeling of “being there.” However, in this quest for immediacy and intensity, the images presented may lack the traditional clarity and focus associated with documentary truth. Live broadcasts can evoke strong emotions and reactions but may not always provide a comprehensive or objective view of the events they depict. The line between representation and expression in live broadcasts can become blurred, contributing to the uncertainty and tension in contemporary documentarism.

I spent most of my adolescence in Shanghai. The city back then was pillared by plumes of smoke and hills of construction dust. The sky was often gray and going outside without a mask was essentially asking for lung cancer. It was no place to raise a child. But my parents did not let the industrial negativity of the city affect me. They chose to move next to Century Park and take me to camp, frolic, and fish in the little green sanctuary almost every weekend. There I developed an everlasting love for mother nature. During my high school years in Hawaii, I had positively the best time of my life hiking through the boundless Hawaiian jungles and viewing the blue seas from the Koolau’ range. Without my parent’s dedication to give me the most natural of a childhood possible in a gray city like Shanghai back then, I would not have had the appreciation for nature that very few other people have. Thus, whenever I hear the singing of sparrows, the rustling of leaves in the wind, or the trickling of water in the stream, I am brought back to the park that raised me.

 

SILICON FUTURE by Evan Pan

The concept of my Diptych revolves around the contrast between the present and the cyberpunk future that awaits us. Recently, I finished Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, an anime set in the not-so-far future, where mega-corporations dictate every aspect of daily life. The denizens of the sci-fi environment–Night City–are equipped with all sorts of cybernetic enhancements, with a lot of them more metal than human. Everyone is judged based on the extent of their cybernetic enhancement and whether they work for a mega-corporation or not. People are revered for what they owned and casted out if they own very little. Long story short, in the future, the things that we own end up owning us. This is the central theme of SILICON FUTURE. The motorcycle that the girl owns in the picture ends up replacing her in the seemingly vibrant future. In the constant race for progress, humanity and compassion (represented by the teddy bear and the girl holding it) are slowly being traded for innovation and globalization, and we may entirely be replaced by our creations one day. 

I needed three elements in my life-sized still-life to convey my main theme: the element of humanity, the element of materialism, and a wide empty space that has great potential to showcase the “benefits” of innovation and globalization. I decided that my female accomplice (with one of her many stuffed animals) would make a great representation of humanity with her soft yet hopeful appearance. Recently I have invested in an electric motorbike, and it brings me great joy, to the point where it became an obsession for a little while. I have spent too much time in the past three weeks researching electric motorcycles and the different modifications that I could make to mine and I feel that the electric motorbike has taken so much of my time and my resources that it might own me instead one day. I decided that was a good representation of materialism. For the backgrounds, I found a bridge on the way to school with a view of the river and a skyscraper in Puxi. I felt this was the perfect spot to stage my shot because it already had hints of a cyberpunk future, yet there was still so much more to be filled into the spaces between the sci-fi-esque buildings. I did different shots, both in the night and the day to fill up my contact sheet with elements I can use for the project. The original image was going to be in the day while the edited image was going to use my night shots.

Creating the image was a creatively enlightening process as I learned so much more about photoshop. The first step was to isolate as many elements as possible, such as the electric motorcycle, the girl, and the many shots of sci-fi-esque buildings that I took. Then, I swapped out the day backdrop to night and began working on the back-midground first, which was the skyscrapers, the future. I used photos of buildings that were colorfully lit and progressive in architecture as a way to showcase the bright future that consistent innovation may provide for us. This was the “juice” of the project as it had a lot of elements to be implemented into, so I did it first in order to make the placement process more precise. Then I did the foreground, which was the bridge barrier and the motorcycle. The girl and her stuffed animal has been taken completely out of the picture in order to represent what we might have to trade in the name of progress. Instead, all that is left is what the material object that ended up owning her. To further reinforce this idea, I created a background using just pictures of the motorcycle, which in all honety, had a evil feel to it. Placing the idea of materialism in the foreground and the background gives the effect of “surrounding” and “foreboding” which is exactly the effect technology has on us right now. This effect will be far more physical than we would like in the future. As the piece has a lot of intermingling elements, I applied an afterglow outline in order to better separate everything. I colored the city blue to show the bright side of progress, and the motorcycle elements purple to further accentuate the feeling of being trapped.

If I could have done anything differently it were to capture more photos of futuristic buildings in order to have the effects of progress appear more convincing and grandiose in scale.

 

 

Fluidity of the Digital:
Ritchin likely refers to the malleability of digital images, how they can be easily altered, combined, and manipulated. An example of this is the concept of “photoshopping,” where elements of a photograph can be edited or even entirely fabricated. The fluidity of the digital means that images can be shaped to convey different narratives or emotions, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

Ritchin’s work challenges the traditional notion that photography captures an objective reality. Digital photography, with its capacity for manipulation, raises questions about the authenticity of images. In contrast, text, while subjective, relies on interpretation and is less immediate in conveying visual information. Video, virtual reality, and books each have their unique ways of presenting reality, but photography stands out for its ability to capture a single frozen moment. However, even this frozen moment can be easily manipulated in the digital age.

Photography’s Capability to Capture Reality:
The term, less is more differentiates photography from other forms of media. A song can take up to five minutes of your time, a movie for two hours, and a book for several days. A powerful photograph will immerse you in a story worth a million words in a mere second. Take the world-famous portrait photo of Che Guevara, Guerrillero Heroico. Anyone with a hint of knowledge in political history will recognize the photo as the face of freedom and liberation. Even to a naive audience, the sheer determination and yearning for a brighter future on Guevara’s face is enough to inspire them. There is no book, no movie, and no song that can beat Guerrillero Heroico at representing who Che Guevara meant to the world.

 

 

1. What is the overall concept for the Diptych? What are you trying to convey?
    A recurring theme throughout my projects in this course is science fiction, particularly that of the cyberpunk type. My intention with the first photo is to capture a modern human being in the present city (hints of cyberpunk may be in the photo already to signify that the transformation to such a future has already began) and then create another photo of the same person in the same city, but the composition is completely covered in cyberpunk elements. The general message is to scream, “the future is now.”
2. For the Diptych project, one cannot exist without the other. i.e. The existence of both images complete the project. One is only a partial information. What kind of conversation do the two images create and assist each other to convey the concept together?
   The conversation that I would like the photo to have is present and future. To draw contrast between what is, and what could/will be
3. What image(s) do you plan to take photos of? 
   Likely candidate:
4. How do you plan to manipulate the image(s) using Photoshop?
   The cyberpunk genre is often riddled with neon flairs, capitalism, cyber-implants, and advanced technologies. Collages and stickers of these elements will be strewn across the composition, as well as adjustments to lighting and emphasis using burns and dodges.