Digital Appropriation as Photographic Practice and Theory + Post-Photography

Jonny Briggs, Envisionaries No. 1 (2013).

From Here On (Arles), a 2011 photography exhibit,  says that everyone is an editor and maker of images. With the internet as inspiration there is a different sense of what it means to make. Images only become interesting when questions are asked like “what is it that I am actually looking at?” High quality is not really relevant. It is a manifesto for dealing with the continuous confrontation with images on the internet.

Theres a disproportion of ordinary photographs in relation to art photography and documentary photography, which are the photographs which go down in history. Helen Westgeest’s essay Digital Appropriation as Photographic Practice and Theory aims to clarify the relationship between current photography practice and appropriation by breaking it down into the categories of ‘appropriating images from observation and recording systems', ‘appropriating iconic images’, and ‘appropriating the world’. She also discusses the influences of digitization and the use of the internet for appropriation.

Nicole Belle, Untitled (2008).

What I found particularly interesting in this essay is the notion that photography itself is an act of appropriation. Westgeest quotes Susan Sontag saying “to photography is to appropriate the thing photographed.” Photography is an act of taking as much as, if not more,  than it is of making. Photography is a recording, a simulation of reality, a distance magnified. Only through isolation of images and presentation do people begin to reflect. This is particularly interesting when discussing the re-appropriation of archived images, copyright issues, and permissions. This reminds me of the work of Santu Mofokeng and Jon Rafman, who worked with South African family photo archives and Google Earth captures, respectively, to bring light to new ideas regarding the images.

In essence, Westgeest argues that appropriating photography is a way of putting the works in the line of discourse, creating new perspectives and relationships. Today’s technology seems to assist in creating this connection and disseminating these relationships.

Robert Shore's essay Post-Photography: The Artist with a Camera argues that in this day and age everyone has a camera and is constantly documenting life. Because of this, the internet is flooded with photography. Sometimes it seems like photography can no longer be original, but with the post-photographic strategy of appropriation, image-making is able to be more experimental and transformative than ever. Again mentioning the From on Here photography show, appropriation is described as a process of making made easier through the endless resources. Appropriation is an act similar to editing or curating, and it tests the idea of reality versus truth in photography.

"The idea persists that photography is above all else a medium of witness, a self-effacing window on to the world which is primarily concerned with recording that thing to which we breezily as 'reality'."

 In a world that is hyper-documented, artists are able to abandon the act of making photos for the creation of their own new realities. Artists curate that which is overabundant to give it conceptual meaning.