From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sun 11 Jan 2004 - 20:08:52 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: "derek gatherer" <dgatherer2002@yahoo.co.uk>
> Data is not information.
> Information is not knowledge.
> Knowledge is not understanding.
> (So if your 'information' is not informative, it's
> just data.)
Remus, Derek and all,
The context from where I got the initial concept for my original
post is all about pictures_ photographs, just specific snap- shots
of a particular moment in time.
The " information " within the frame taking by the photographer
is just an image stopped in time. No rhetoric can silence the core
of a photo, an excution is an excution, but there is no additional
" information " about what is shown.
If you want more detail, you have to get the discussion about
the power of emotions first, like Diego argues.
Such a discussion opens ways for a more detailed treatise about
cruelty, about pain in general. So you have to get a certain amount
of " imagination " to get to the point of a more general understanding
of what you see.
According to some ( Sontag Susan) firstly you have to think ( what
is going here ), secondly there is the concept of " remerbering "
( victims) but in most cases that is falling behind.
So we must not consider things but we must take into account the
concept of imagination. Imagination as the unique ability to step in
one's shoes, to understand why ' victims '( suicidebombers) become
active !
If information is anything that reduces the uncertainty of a viewer
then photographs are not the best informs- models.
Sontag argues that considering photo's as being images of a kind
of ' fictional violence ' ( there is no emotional depht within) is pro-
blematic, moreover it is a charter for no further questioning and
analyses.
Taking like this we can argue, ok, than such images are ' noises ',
but I think this passes the concept of imagination.
So, no in this way I can 't agree. Photographs, taking rightly and
in good ways, must show " reality ", must show the hardness of
poverty, abuse and misery.
Ethics, like Sontag says, is no part of taking a picture.
So, for having an information being informative, we need the
human abilty of imagination....what reduces the uncertainty is
our ability to imagine what any kind of victim felt being attacked.
Regards,
Kenneth
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