urban ku # 49 ~ a new place
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 at 09:01AM 
A split second • click to embiggenI am emerging from a kind of modernist/postmodernist what-the-hell-is-what haze. After delving into the notions, it seems incredibly complex or equally simple depending on deep you want to go. I went deep enough to feel, at the extremes, like I was drowning in a sea of either simplistic sentimental dreck (modernism) or wretched intellectual/academic obfuscation (postmodernism).
That said, it seems that there is an emerging middle ground out there where the two cultural paradigms collide and out of the smashed particles a new stew is being brewed - perhaps a kind of post-postmodernism.
Photography-wise, a place where neither intellectual concept nor visual referent reign supreme. A place where the skeptical/questioning gaze of the camera does not descend fully into the 'end-of-the-line-everything-is-used-up' paradigm of postmodernism but rather, it creates a glimmer of it's-not-over-yet hope because, unlike radical postmodernism, the photographer actually believes that the referent matters.
A place where, even though the referent matters, the skeptical/questioning gaze of the camera never places it on an altar of idolatry that drips with sappy sentimentality. A place where the referent is addressed with a respect that preserves its authenticity but still allows the photography-observer to move well beyond the 'actuality of the real world'.
A place where the denoted and the connoted co-exist on equal footing. A place where photography can both illustrate and illuminate.
In short, a place where I want to be.
Reader Comments (6)
Mark,
Glad to hear you're emerging from the fog. I'm still lost out there somewhere. Keep us posted on what you find.
To truly show me some hope, how about reversing the placement of the two images in "Urban ku 49?"
Hey Mark,
It's always fun sharing the ride with you and being a part of all the twists, turns and traffic circles. You're a journey man.
Well put, Mark. I've fully given up on the qwest of self-labeling (I'm as close to a neo-pictorialist as anything) and fullheartedly appreciate the desire to see the two academic schools merge. Much of the contemporary photography that I see these days isn't true post-modernist or true modernist but somewhere inbetween - a shade of gray leaning one way or the other. Well articulated.
I feel much the same way.
Have you read Batchen's "Burning With Desire"? You might enjoy it.
I very much enjoyed the little diptych that accompanies this entry.