Post-photography, similar to the post-archival, can be considered a consequence of the change in how we relate to memory and history. As a result of the abundance of information, accelerated by...Show morePost-photography, similar to the post-archival, can be considered a consequence of the change in how we relate to memory and history. As a result of the abundance of information, accelerated by social media and the Internet, representations of the past have changed drastically. As a result, the way we memorize the past is under severe duress. This thesis focuses on these representations of the past, specifically on contemporary representations of archival material. It first discusses the conjunction of documentary photography and artworks concerning the archive. After this, it turns to two case studies to adequately analyse contemporary changes in the content and aesthetics of photographic as well as archival practices. In the analysis of Walid Raad’s The Atlas Group and Max Pinckers’ and MMWVA’s (Mau Mau War Veterans Associations) Unhistories, special attention is paid to important photographic concepts such as time and space. Essentially, it will offer insights into how representation and association of archival events can be reframed and remediated using photography. This research will also offer insights into the political value of aesthetic and formal reactions on the photographic archive as an institution and as a means of representation.Show less
Studies show that during the COVID-19 pandemic, quarantining, lockdowns and a palpable shortage of outdoor activities led to increased media consumption as a means for audiences to keep themselves...Show moreStudies show that during the COVID-19 pandemic, quarantining, lockdowns and a palpable shortage of outdoor activities led to increased media consumption as a means for audiences to keep themselves occupied, as they cope with the psychological consequences of extended periods of social isolation. Not only did the quantity of consumption increase, but the nature in which audiences engaged with media has changed also. For instance, many have started listening to podcasts during the pandemic. This appears indicative not only of a desperation to try new things, but also that new listeners were attempting to mimic social interaction somehow. Para-social interactions, the one-sided interactions between mediated personalities and their audiences, have existed long before the Web 2.0 era of media. This specific development is a hint that audiences were not only increasingly subjected to these interactions, they may have been actively seeking them out. Cum Town, a vulgar podcast featuring three comedians who have basically become niche micro-celebrities, is one such podcast that saw its audience grow during the pandemic. Given the mischievous character of this show, it seems pertinent to ask whether an increase in such interactions is a good thing, as well as what other repercussions come with this type of consumption.Show less
For the past few decades, nature documentaries have remained a stable genre in the world of television and cinema, evolving at a slow pace towards increasingly spectacular camera performances and...Show moreFor the past few decades, nature documentaries have remained a stable genre in the world of television and cinema, evolving at a slow pace towards increasingly spectacular camera performances and the respect of animals. A guarantee of quality, merging beautiful scenery with cinematic music and simple plots. In recent years however, the chain reaction triggered by global warming has accelerated to an extent that increasingly forces news outlets to call it a climate emergency or the climate crisis. A growing movement of activists of all ages and their influential spokespeople, from Greta Thunberg to David Attenborough, are pressing people and governments to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and take radical action. In this climate, it is difficult to imagine how nature documentaries could remain what they had been up until now: seemingly objective images of animals far from humans, whose untold stories are revealed by the voice of a narrator. With a loss of 60% of the planet’s wildlife since 1970 according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), journalists and filmmakers themselves have wondered how much longer documentaries claiming to care about the environment could still avoid showing man’s impact, while landscapes and species continue to disappear. Two series of wildlife documentaries responding to this criticism were launched respectively on the BBC in October 2017 and on Netflix in April 2019. They were both narrated by the most notorious wildlife documentary voice in the UK, Sir David Attenborough. This dissertation identifies the tools used in Blue Planet II and refined in Our Planet t o introduce global warming into the discourse of their genre. In doing so, it answers the question of how modern wildlife documentaries can highlight the relationship between animal protection and climate change, while visually maintaining the genre’s codes separating nature from the human world. This paper argues that by systematically reminding the viewers of the connection between all living beings, these series have created a new discourse for the genre. This innovation comes after years of BBC nature documentaries rarely acknowledging climate change, and allows filmmakers to demonstrate accountability and encourage viewers to act against global warming, in a way that is unique to wildlife documentaries.Show less
In this thesis I question the role of photographs in relation to Dutch national identity, regarding traditional costumes specifically. I set forth how sentiments of Dutch (national) identity can be...Show moreIn this thesis I question the role of photographs in relation to Dutch national identity, regarding traditional costumes specifically. I set forth how sentiments of Dutch (national) identity can be expressed, questioned, challenged or reinforced through photography. In doing so, I lay bare contrasts between national and local cultural expressions, between othering and elevating people, between feelings of distance and unification, between past and present. The case studies on which I build this research concern two photo series of inhabitants of Marken – a former Dutch island, now a peninsula – photographed by Cas Oorthuys and Jimmy Nelson. In this research the focal point is the argument that a Dutch national identity is reinforced through their photographs of people in Marken traditional costumes. This reinforcement is achieved through constructing identities and by invoking symbolic and indexical relations of nostalgia, idealization, pride, ‘Dutchness’ and heritage.Show less
Aiming to develop an ecofeminist lens of lens-based art, this thesis analyses how the choice of a specific medium enhances the communication of concepts relating to the relationship between humans,...Show moreAiming to develop an ecofeminist lens of lens-based art, this thesis analyses how the choice of a specific medium enhances the communication of concepts relating to the relationship between humans, or women specifically, and nature. The implications of presenting the female body in nature are discussed through an amalgamation of (eco-)feminist theory and three established topics within media studies: representation, the moving image in the museum, and the affective turn. From representation in photography to affect in video art installation, the growing possibilities of lens-based art are argued to work towards more complex and critical artistic explorations of the relationship between the female body and nature.Show less
Since the late 1950s, analog technology began to be replaced by digital technology, leading to the start of the digital age. Although we are presently living in the digital age and most of our...Show moreSince the late 1950s, analog technology began to be replaced by digital technology, leading to the start of the digital age. Although we are presently living in the digital age and most of our forms of technology and communication are correspondingly digital, there has been a conspicuous proliferation and return to analog technologies in the arts and culture. With an increasing fetishization of retro and analog, photographers raised during the digital age still make use of analog photography. This thesis investigates this fetishization by examining the potentials of instant and film photography that attract digital photographers and how they approach them. The aesthetics of nostalgia and analog are construed to assess how they can be applied to the digital and to consider how they are marketed. Materiality as a potential of instant photography is subsequently considered along with how it has been used by female artists as a self-empowering tool. Further, the potential of cinematic gaze in film photography and how it applies the quirky sensibility is considered, which leads to the study of how the cinematic gaze is equally used to redefine how the female body is viewed. Thus, this thesis seeks to comprehend several potentials of analog photography such as nostalgic value, materiality and cinematic use and how they have been appropriated by society, the market and artists.Show less
This thesis researches a number of key conceptualisations of photography that lead the photographic discourse. One of its leading threads runs via two domains which supposedly stand in opposition...Show moreThis thesis researches a number of key conceptualisations of photography that lead the photographic discourse. One of its leading threads runs via two domains which supposedly stand in opposition to one another: the aesthetic domain of the photograph has hampered its socio-political manifestation. A photograph identified as a work of art is at disadvantage of finding recognition for its social or political value since quality is measured first and foremost by means of aesthetic parameters. In Ariella Azoulay's theoretical work on photography lies a means of bridging photography’s aesthetic dimension to its socio-political nature. Using the concept of sensus communis as a tool for understanding Azoulay's conceptions, this thesis looks into the transitioning understanding of photography’s socio-political nature in relation to its aesthetic nature that evolved during the historical course of photographic theory.Show less
This thesis investigates hybrid documentary-fiction films that were constructed through a close collaboration between the filmmakers and the subjects, and in which the subjects’ personal...Show moreThis thesis investigates hybrid documentary-fiction films that were constructed through a close collaboration between the filmmakers and the subjects, and in which the subjects’ personal experiences and ideas about self-representation influenced both the content and the form of the film. The objective of the filmmakers is to raise questions about how to understand somebody else’s experiences, what it means to insert oneself as a filmmaker into the lives of others and how to make the spectator aware of these issues. They do so by using formal methods that are usually associated with fiction filmmaking and by foregrounding the film’s construction. Since the filmmakers do not offer a conclusive perspective on the story or an interpretation of the images, the spectator is made to invest his or her own experiences, which are equally valuable as those of the filmmakers and the subjects of the films. Taking Jacques Rancière’s emancipated spectatorship as a guideline, I will investigate which formal methods associated with fiction filmmaking can employed to activate the spectator, how, and to what effect. I have divided my thesis into three chapters that each treats a specific formal method: identification through ambiguous focalisation; the uncertain relation between voice, text, and image; and database logic as an alternative to narrative logic.Show less
This thesis consists of three chapters, each built up around a case study. The three chapters are divided in temporal sense. In the first chapter the concept of a continuous now is central to the...Show moreThis thesis consists of three chapters, each built up around a case study. The three chapters are divided in temporal sense. In the first chapter the concept of a continuous now is central to the analysis of the case study, the second chapter has a relation with the future, and the final chapter is related with the notion of history. What the films have in common is that in each film the protagonist undergoes a trauma. How the counter-chronological and ‘a-temporal’ narrative structure of these films problematizes the film ending is observed, analyzed and linked to the psychoanalytic notion of drive and desire. Furthermore, throughout the flow of chapters, I will analyze to what extent this manner of ending a film has ideological implications. Psychoanalysis as a tool to analyze film and its protagonists is used as a theoretical framework to analyze the ideological implications these film endings might have. More specific, starting from the angle of the ‘Lacanian’ Mirror Screen theory it is questioned to what extent the apparatus theory is challenged and problematized by these specific films and their endings. Moreover the concept of the simulacrum, as an extreme notion of ideology is questioned and criticized. The notion of ideology, and violence are approached from a ‘Lacanian’, or, I should emphasize, ‘Žižekian’ point of view. I argue that these films in order of appearance demonstrate that the concept of the simulacrum by Baudrillard needs to be reconsidered and redefined in relation with the traumatic kernel of the real, or should be considered irrelevant, and moreover, I argue that the apparatus theory needs to be redefined.Show less
Within the filmic landscape, the male gaze has always had the upper hand. Films are generally made by men, for men and although this may seem as something from the past, it is still the case. There...Show moreWithin the filmic landscape, the male gaze has always had the upper hand. Films are generally made by men, for men and although this may seem as something from the past, it is still the case. There is an imbalance between the presence of women and men in film, how they are presented and, more importantly, who the films are made for. Within this thesis I want to explore this further and see how this lack of equality has influenced the possibility for identification with the characters on screen by the female spectator. With this I want to focus on the female (super)hero as she is up and coming, but struggling to truly settle in within the male genres of film. I want to try to discover whether her presence has made a difference for the female spectator and if she is someone to they can identify with, as this has for the most part been difficult to do in the past. Moreover, I want to look at what female heroes have been important over the past decade and whether they have changed the gender imbalance or have kept it intact, only seemingly changing things on the surface but not on a deeper level. What possibility for identification have they been able to offer to the female spectator?Show less
Op weg naar (n)ergens: de Nederlandse road movie. De belangrijkste kenmerken van de meest recente cyclus van Nederlandse road movies na 2008. De focus ligt op twee kenmerken, namelijke...Show moreOp weg naar (n)ergens: de Nederlandse road movie. De belangrijkste kenmerken van de meest recente cyclus van Nederlandse road movies na 2008. De focus ligt op twee kenmerken, namelijke multiculturele identiteit (en de zoektocht hiernaar) en traumaverwerking.Show less
The topic of this thesis is backstage photography. Backstage photography is a genre within photography that contains intimate behind the scenes photos of celebrities. This thesis is focused on...Show moreThe topic of this thesis is backstage photography. Backstage photography is a genre within photography that contains intimate behind the scenes photos of celebrities. This thesis is focused on backstage photography within the music industry and in particular the rock & roll genre. Backstage photography however does not solely entail photos that are literally made ‘back stage’ (e.g. in the wings or dressing room of the artist); they also pertain all the photos that are made when the artist is ‘off stage’; whether that be on the street, at a bar or at home. Backstage photos are more private in comparison to the photos that are made of the artist on stage, but can still be part of a ‘public’ space. The main question of this thesis is what these backstage photos mean and how this relates to the photographic aspects of voyeurism and exhibitionism, journalistic and documentary photography in specific, and their position in portrait photography. The first chapter of this thesis explores the applicability of the concepts of voyeurism and exhibitionism to backstage photography. Particular effects such as absorption and ‘to-be-seennes’ are present in backstage photos, albeit incomplete: the artist is never fully absorbed but the photo also does not fully contain an embedded theatricality. The relationship between the artist and the photographer is of high importance; due to the intimate relationship between the subject and the photographer, the subject lowers its guard and allows the photographer to get closer than ever. As a result, the photos explore and explain the artist’ character in new ways. This in turn leads to exhibitionism and shows how the artist, even behind the scenes, partly remains in his role. The spectator of these photographs has certain expectations that the photographer aims to satisfy. The second chapter of this thesis discusses in which ways photojournalistic and documentary photography fit with the concept of backstage photography. The argument is made that backstage photography can be viewed as a result of two important developments: the rise of the tabloid press where photos were first published in the media and the rampant rise of the music industry that permeated global culture and new methods of production, marketing and distribution were realized. It is important to note that a backstage photo can initially be categorized as photojournalism and become part of documentary photography later. Whereas photo assignments are being done under the pretence of photojournalism, they may eventually ‘evolve’ into products of high artistic value and be considered as documentary photography or even ‘art photography’. The third and final chapter analyses the position of the backstage portrait photo. A backstage portrait differs from any other portrait because of the location, setting and attitude or feeling of the photographed artist. Besides, these portraits are often not published at the time they were made. Therefore, the argument can be made that the backstage portrait is part of the private domain instead of the public. This domain changes once the photo does get published. Interestingly, the backstage photo is made in a more private environment, but the model is a public figure. Backstage photos are intriguing because they give a new, different image of a celebrity. Our fascination with the human face resulted in an ever-growing celebrity culture. We like to see how public characters behave on the stage, but even more so within private environments. Backstage photography embraces these desires.Show less
