A thesis about the relation between Instagram and nostalgia. Why are photographs on Instagram perceived as nostalgic and what kind of nostalgic photographs are posted on the platform?
This thesis considers the manners photographic images act and function online, and the processes that govern them through analyses of the artworks of four Post-Internet appropriation artists....Show moreThis thesis considers the manners photographic images act and function online, and the processes that govern them through analyses of the artworks of four Post-Internet appropriation artists. Chapter 1 describes the online functions of the photographic images that were appropriated in the work of the discussed artists. Through exploration of the characteristics of the digital photographic image, as well as the online functions of the images appropriated in the discussed works, the state of the photographic image in the post-photographic era is described. Chapter 2 goes into the practice of the four discussed artists, in order to consider the manners they have altered and formed the photographic content after the appropriation of these images. This postproduction practice has been inherently informed by online paradigms, which can then also be seen in the ways content is shaped in the artworks. Chapter 3 will discuss these artworks from the point of the post-Internet condition the artists are referring to. By connecting the findings of the first two chapters, it will be possible to consider how these images are positioned and what these artists are aiming to convey in doing so.Show less
This thesis makes explicit how the viewer’s interpretation of a photograph of the American road trip is affected when the car is used as an explicit impact on the photograph’s frame or blurredness....Show moreThis thesis makes explicit how the viewer’s interpretation of a photograph of the American road trip is affected when the car is used as an explicit impact on the photograph’s frame or blurredness. The thesis focuses on photographs of the American road trip specifically as the road trip carries particular significance in American culture, as do both the car and the road. The research done establishes that the viewer’s relationship with (a) the photographer, and (b) the photograph can be affected by the use of the car. In each case, the photographic styles discussed link the road and the car, as two connecting and connected objects that are important for the American road trip. By using the car to either create an additional frame, or to create two contrasting images within the photograph, the viewer, among others, becomes more aware of the presence of the photographer. By using the car to blur the surface of the photograph, the viewer can no longer look through the photograph, but looks at it before he/she can consider the object photographed, the American road.Show less
The aim of this thesis is to investigate how contemporary documentary is appropriating certain strategies that are traditionally only used in art, to question the difficulties of giving an accurate...Show moreThe aim of this thesis is to investigate how contemporary documentary is appropriating certain strategies that are traditionally only used in art, to question the difficulties of giving an accurate documentation of the world. A world that is never transparent or simple, conflicts and situations that are never black or white. For this I will look at the photographs by documentary photographer/artist Richard Mosse, as an example for the wider phenomenon in contemporary documentary, and investigate what strategies he uses to address the problems of documenting atrocities in Eastern Congo and narrating its complicated story to the viewers. I will investigate how the boundary between documentary and art in these strategies (and because of these strategies) is shifting, what the implications are and what effect this has on the viewers. For this thesis I will examine three main strategies Richard Mosse uses in his photographs: first, the use of a certain pre-determined concept and the negation of the decisive moment, as was long (at least until the 1980s) the characteristic of documentary photography and photojournalism. Second, the aesthetization of the documentary photograph and its increasing relationship to art and, third, the presentation of the work in both an installation form as well as the placement of these projects within a cultural and art institutional environment.Show less
