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The paper deals with the autonomous history of photography as an art or craft, and traces the formation of the value norm and identity of this image-based occupation over the years. Since the mid-nineteenth century, photography has acquired the undisputed representative status of an operator in the unified media environment of society. Having this status, it dutifully fulfills the Roman motto „I came, I saw, I won“, dominating reality through its capture and verification in images. The main ideas in the paper can be subsumed under the following focal points: pictorialism and realism in photography; the notion of artistic value and the boundaries between painting, photography and poetry; the aesthetic nature of the photographic craft; and the relation between speech and drawing.
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Jiřina Hankeová (* 1948) was born in Kladno. She has a wide range in her work, from drawing and painting, to poetry and lyrics, to photography. She took up photography during her secondary school studies, but eventually she found her creative expression mainly in drawing and painting. She already started to exhibit her paintings and drawings in the ’70s. In the ’80s, she was strongly influenced by her friendship with the Trasa group, especially by the work of Olbram Zoubek and Válová sisters. In the ’90s, her activity expanded to lyrics that she wrote for her daughter Lucie’s music. She published several books of poetry: What to Do with It?, Chlorophyll People, Acrylic Poetry, Other Views and Leaving the City Behind One’s Back. At the turn of the century, she returned to photography again without leaving her previous creative activities. She has exhibited her photographs at more than 40 solo exhibitions both in the Czech Republic and abroad. She called her first photo series in which she plays with lights and shadows “It Started Quite Innocently” (2004) with the subtitle “Light & Shape”. One of her most significant photo series “An Awkward Attempt at Self-Therapy” (2005-2006) originated inside an intimate space. The photo series “Cyclic Landscapes” (2010-2012) which resonates with the optically vibrant softness of reality is in contrast to the trivial snippets of the urban environment in the photo series “Banalities” (since 2010). She fulfills her feelings and visions in extensive photo series of staged images, such as “Same as Different” (since 2015) where she uses her imagination to transform everyday objects, “Lost & Found” (since 2016) in which she tells stories of found things, or “A Little Morbid Images” (since 2018) where she designs constructions from animal fragments.
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Review of: Agata Nörenberg - Auf beiden Seiten der Barrikade. Fotografien und Kriegsberichterstattung im Warschauer Aufstand 1944. / Po obu stronach barykady. / On Both Sides of the Barricade. Hrsg. von Peter Haslinger, Sabine Bamberger- Stemmann und Tatjana Tönsmeyer. Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung – Landeszentrale für politische Bildung. Marburg – Hamburg 2018. 264 S., Ill. 978-3-87969-420-4, 978-3- 946246-08-4. (€ 46,–.)
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Review of Heidrun Hamersky: Störbilder einer Diktatur. Zur subversiven fotografischen Praxis Ivan Kyncls im Kontext der tschechoslowakischen Bürgerrechtsbewegung der 1970er Jahre. (Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa, Bd. 49.) Steiner. Stuttgart 2015. 281 S., zahlr. Ill. ISBN 978-3-515-10924-6 (€ 49,−.). Reviewed by Natali Stegmann.
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Birthday photographing is a modern tradition that attached to birthday ritual, and considered within the family photograph type. In this article, seven photos of birthday celebrations from first half of 1960s and 1990s that they are belong to same family’ four children from two different generations, are examined. And problem is why birthday photos of different persons from different ages have similar frames. The photos are analyzed by Panofsky’s iconographic and iconological methods. However, a perspective formed by the main questions and terms of anthropology is used while analyzing photographs. The owner of the photos is Mustafa Muhtar Kutlu, whose biography was recorded orally. Therefore, the meaning of the photographs, the personal experiences and authenticities hidden in the photographs are revealed through the biography of the owner of the photographs. In the article, it is claimed that practiced three patterns creates the similar frames. One of these patterns is schemata which uses portrait art and also folk art. The other two patterns are created by ritual and family image that these are reasons of the taking the photographs. Although these three patterns make the photos understandable at first glance, they are not the only factor that determines their value. The creativity of the eye that shoot the photographs and a bit of luck are elements that make the photos aesthetically unique. Semantic value is related to both the ethnographic characteristics of the images reflected by the photographs and the memories that the owners fit them.
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The paper discusses images of prenatal development created by Ernst Haeckel and Lennart Nilsson. Despite the obvious differences between a 19th-century biologist and philosopher of nature and a 20th-century photographer, substantial similarities exist in the way their respective narrations situate embryos and fetuses within the cultural realm. The paper traces the processes of creating the representations of stages of embryogenesis and the controversies surrounding them, analyzes the discursive frame within which the images are produced and function, and discusses their media specificity. It also examines the metaphysical ambitions surrounding the process of producing embryo- and fetal identities and the relation of these identities to the important cultural characteristics of their historical epochs.
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The article aims at analysing figures of thinking about modern weddings and wedding photography in Poland. It draws on ethnographic material collected in the course of research conducted by the Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic Museum in Cracow (research project „Wesela 21”). The author describes main assumptions behind the project, research methodology, and provides a brief description of the analysed materials, applied method and theoretical perspective. She reconstructs notions about the wedding photography market, which are revealed in the interviews with wedding photographers and filmmakers, and modes of creating wedding representations. The author also discusses different typologies of weddings mentioned during the interviews. The division into „country” and „urban” weddings, as the author suggests, calls for critical analysis. It seems to mark social and cultural distinctions. The attributes „country” and „urban” are rather aesthetic categories than those which describe a particular space conceived in geographical terms.
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Urodzona w Łodzi. Z wykształcenia etnograf. W latach 1974-1980 pracowała w filmie jako asystent i drugi reżyser (m.in z Wacławem Borowczykiem, Krzysztofem Kieślowskim, Piotrem Szulkinem, Krzysztofem Zanussim, Andrzejem Trzosem-Rastawieckim). W 1980 roku porzuciła film na rzecz fotografii. Dokumentowała początki przemian politycznych w Polsce i narodziny „Solidarności”. W stanie wojennym związana z niezależnym ruchem kulturalnym, współpracowała też z podziemną prasą solidarnościową. Od końca 1982 roku wszystkie zdjęcia z życia codziennego w Polsce włącza do zbioru Fotodziennik czyli piosenka o końcu świata. Zdjęcia opatrzone krótkimi odręcznymi podpisami - subiektywny zapis, klatki pamięci - a jednocześnie ostry komentarz polskiej rzeczywistości. Zapis ten powstaje nadal. Bohdziewicz jest też autorką innych dużych projektów, których realizacja trwa od wielu lat: Kapliczki warszawskie, Kosmos, Antypocztówki, Piękni i szczęśliwi, Prywatna telewizja. Anna Bohdziewicz była też komisarzem wielu wystaw fotograficznych (m.in. „Fotografie Gazety Wyborczej”, „Pod ręką boską” Marka Rostworowskiego, „Warszawa 1943-1944. Fotograf nieznany”). Razem z Mariuszem Hermanowiczem stworzyła wystawę „Ofiary stanu wojennego”. Jest także autorką licznych recenzji i tekstów o fotografii oraz wywiadów z fotografami, m.in. z Zofią Rydet, Edwardem Hartwigiem, Annie Leibowitz. Ma na swoim koncie szereg wystaw krajowych i zagranicznych, zarówno w Europie jak i w Ameryce. Fotodziennik pokazywany był w ponad 60 krajach świata. Wydała Kapliczki warszawskie (razem z Magdaleną Stopą), Warszawa 2008; 1981. Lekki powiew wolności, Warszawa 2014; Wszystko od nowa. 1989. Fotodziennik, Warszawa 2014.
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This paper demonstrates the way an autobiographer shapes his/her identity in the creation of his/her narrative. The autobiographer’s struggle in his/her understanding of the self is sometimes evident in the work. This project focuses specifically on the work of Adi Nes, an Israeli photographer. His photographs demonstrate the ways in which he feels like an outsider in Israel, as both a member of the Sephardic community and a homosexual. His photographs are staged, and he uses figures of alterity by projecting himself into his images with the use of models, which may lead the viewer to question the referentiality, or truthfulness, of each image. While demonstrating his identity through personal experience and memories, his images are created in the context of a stratified society, demonstrating the power dynamics of the military and the different groups that reside within Israel. The paper draws on images from three series – “Boys” (2000), “Soldiers” (1994–2000) and “Prisoners” (2000).
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In their theoretical study, the authors of the paper address the hidden meanings of image of communication in the medium of photography. Specifically, they focus on the encoding and subsequent interpretation of images on the basis of their inner construction. At the same time, the authors are trying to find an answer to philosophical questions – whether photography is wise or rather foolish, whether it represents life or death, and contemplate the question of whether a photograph is more an embalming of a moment or its memento mori.
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A collection of photographs from the Łódź ghetto is the largest surviving collection of this kind of photographs. The collection consists of several thousand photographs taken officially by members of the Jewish and German administration, and from hundreds of illegal copies, both those documenting the Holocaust and from private memorabilia. The collection was often used in publications and exhibitions, most often as illustrations. The author tired to systematize those photographs, analyzing individual shots, not only in order to identify the situations and people depicted and primarily the circumstances in which the photographs were taken, in a bid to interpret the intention of the photographer.
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This article is based on photographic images as the sole evidence of the visage of temporary artworks. An object of interest is the monumental decoration put up on the occasion of May Day, International Workers’ Day in 1945, in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital. A parallel is drawn between the images of sculptures, captured in nine photos from the photographic archive of Todor Slavchev (1900–1992), and information in records from the archives of the Union of Bulgarian Artists and major publication on the subject. This paper focuses on problems of art commissioning (mainly public) and art-commission relation, as well as on the structures and the organisation of art practices in the decade preceding 9 September 1944. The article seeks to trace the ‘evolutionary’ line in the development of the processes, rather than the ‘revolutionary’ one, proclaimed under socialism. The facts of the report by the evaluating commission on the artwork performed on the occasion of Labour Day are provided in detail, citing the teams and their artworks. The subject of labour was visualised by presenting the main sectors of the then Bulgarian economy: farming (figures of a “Sower” and a “Female harvester”), crafts (“Smith”), mining (“Miner”), industry (“Industrial worker” and “Female tobacco worker”) and construction (“Builder”). War, an undesired, yet existing reality, was also included in the statuaries (“Warrior”) and the still discernible role of intellectuals (“Mental Work”). A figure of a “Partisan” pointed towards the hero of the new era.
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The transition from photography with the classic camera to digital technology gives photography some definitive advantages. Digital photo processing offers an unexpected opportunity for the viewer: the somewhat magical sizing of the image, by adding what we call today ”effects”, in addition to increasing clarity, brightness or contrast, as appropriate, which brings a definite plus of image representation.In the spring of 2020, during the ”state of emergency” due to Covid 19 pandemic, we carried out a museum advertising experiment, based on digital photography (selfie), through which we tried to promote images from the Banat Village Museum in Timișoara. Moreover, I created stories behind photos. The experiment was a success – thousands of visitors accessed the Facebook page of the museum during that period.
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The text focuses on post-anthropocentric cinematographies of human exclusion zones, created within theory- and practice-based research conducted with artistic methods. The examples include: research activities of the Strelka Institute ("The New Normal" and "Geocinema"), art by Emma Charles, John Gerrard, Evan Roth, Trevor Paglen and Liam Young (also within Unknown Field Division), Young’s theoretical concepts, as well as theories by Benjamin Bratton. The human exclusion zones include machine landscapes, such as data centres, server farms, automated production lines and mining sites that provide raw geological materials used in technological production. Also important are the networked circulation of images as data without human involvement (machine vision by artificial intelligence) and global data from sensory networks. All examples are discussed in the context of art projects using the medium of film.
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In the ascending age of automation factories, storage facilities, and server farms, intelligent buildings are becoming less dependent on human maintenance. These new and updated architectural forms do not comply with traditional typologies. From the Vitruvian Man to Modulor, our bodies were the measure of most constructions. Yet automation renders new constructions incompatible with patterns of human habitation. This article focuses on the iconography of buildings designed to operate with little to none human interaction, providing an insight into how such settings influenced recent (last decade) science-fiction films like "Blade Runner 2049" (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2017), "Captive State" (dir. Rupert Wyatt, 2019), "I Am Mother" (dir. Grant Sputore, 2019), or "Transcendence" (dir. Wally Pfister, 2014). In each of them, artificial intelligence is an intrinsic composite of the environment, terraforming a post-anthropocentric reality of data centres, automated warehouses and drosscapes.
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The main subject of the essay is Michael Snow’s "La Région" centrale. Referencing various writings on the film, the author highlights areas that have not been tackled by scholars: the sensuous character of the film experience and its consequences for cinema’s status as a sphere of the cognition of reality. "La Région centrale" is juxtaposed with Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of painterly catastrophe and diagram in order to show how the experience of landscape becomes a post-humanist project of creating the whole new world, where existent dualisms of body-mind, subject-object or human-animal are completely overthrown. This interpretation is accompanied by a reflection on the cinema’s role during the age of Anthropocene and a re-affirmation of realism in film theory.
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The text presents an analysis of selected films, both Polish ("Pora umierać", "Dzikie róże", "Cicha noc") and foreign ("Grüße aus Fukushima", "Con el viento") and artistic projects which address the issue of home in terms of matter/meaning and intra-activities between human and non-human subjects. The methodology of the analysis is based on post-human theories of Karen Barad and her idea of agential realism, and Rosi Braidotti and her concept of a reconfiguration of the post-human subject and of ethical micro policy. There are also some references to Félix Guattari and the idea of multiple ecologies: social, environmental, and mental.
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