As we are currently witnessing what is often called the sixth mass extinction, photography is facing a new challenge. It can either respond with acting upon the “rescuist” impulse which often...Show moreAs we are currently witnessing what is often called the sixth mass extinction, photography is facing a new challenge. It can either respond with acting upon the “rescuist” impulse which often arises under such dark prospects (by keeping endangered species alive in the form of an image), or follow a more self-reflective path. In my written as well as visual research, I use lichens — the symbiotical growth of algae, fungus and bacteria — as a metaphor through which to explore the precarity of our environmental conditions. The resulting photograph which is normally said to “immortalise" turns out to be a trap, as lichens become less likely to die as they grow older. This thesis aims to investigate how photographing extraordinarily durable organisms in times of ecological instability challenges the notion of photography as an embalming practice. It delves into the aesthetic implications of the current condition — joined under the term Anthropocene, by introducing the concepts of Timothy Morton’s “hyperobjects” and Tim Ingold’s “leaky things.” Subsequently, it scales up to the level of photography as a medium declared dead multiple times, often following major technological shifts. Here, extinction as an affective threat takes the place of such a disturbance, and, understood as a generative process, serves as the basis for speculating about the future of photography.Show less
ABSTRACT: Contemporary society recently faced the introduction of a new phenomenon: the post-truth era. Terminology often used conjunctively with, amongst others, “alternative fact,” “fake news,”...Show moreABSTRACT: Contemporary society recently faced the introduction of a new phenomenon: the post-truth era. Terminology often used conjunctively with, amongst others, “alternative fact,” “fake news,” and “misinformation.” The term “post-truth” was coined in 1992 by Steve Tesich, to describe American society’s proneness to accept government lies. However, since its incorporation into the Oxford Dictionary in 2016, post-truth is defined as “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” This research aims to analyze, in what way, in a regimes of post-truth world, alternative meaning is established, and what role photography plays in this process. An extensive framework of literature is operationalized for the analysis of two case studies, both of photographs in a post-truth context. Subsequently, as the concept of meaning in the post-truth society is fractured, the potential, for the documentary language of images, to suture is explored.Show less
Contemporary mass media is continuously presenting overwhelming amounts of information along with outstanding headlines and powerful images, targeting media users daily for their attention. Since...Show moreContemporary mass media is continuously presenting overwhelming amounts of information along with outstanding headlines and powerful images, targeting media users daily for their attention. Since visual content requires less time and effort to grasp the basis of an event, photographic images, given their general notion of being truthful, play a crucial part in representation of the events and thus are the key element in constructing news narratives. What is more, aftermath photographs, often used in news reports, are vital in creating common memory and helping to understand the issue while landscape photographs illustrate the scale of the disaster and present political or institutional powers of the place. However, a closer look at the mass media news reports shows that geopolitics may be another critical yet overlooked component in constructing mass media news stories with potentially unfavorable effects on news credibility. Visual analysis of two recent events presented by this research, namely Amazon rainforest fires and Siberian wild forest fires, illustrates how selection of photographs regarding the place of the event might be dependent on geopolitical aspects, in turn making some of the events more visible than others despite their equal significance on a global scale. Hence, this thesis discusses the role of geopolitics in visual representation of the events and questions in what ways do they contribute to the framing of the news on mass media platforms along with possible consequences of their perception and evaluation by the public.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
This is a comparative research between Dutch 17th century food still life paintings and contemporary food photography in order to analyze how our perception of food has changed over time. The...Show moreThis is a comparative research between Dutch 17th century food still life paintings and contemporary food photography in order to analyze how our perception of food has changed over time. The paintings and photographs are analyzed from both an art historical and from a social point of view, because social developments are essential to provide a full understanding of the changes in the depiction of food in both painting and photography.Show less
The ancient Egyptian mummies have been extensively portrayed throughout history, since the early inceptions of photography and cinema, and remain popular in visual culture. Certain ways of...Show moreThe ancient Egyptian mummies have been extensively portrayed throughout history, since the early inceptions of photography and cinema, and remain popular in visual culture. Certain ways of portraying them have been repeatedly followed like traditions, which resulted in establishing stereotypes. In this thesis, I investigate how some of these recurring portrayals dehumanise the ancient Egyptians. For this purpose, I have compiled an archive of photographs and films, and analysed their stereotypical portrayal patterns. In doing so, I have identified two traditions; the portrayal of mummies in non-fictional photographs as artefacts (artefication), and their portrayal in fictional films as monsters (monstrification). In two visual essays accompanying this thesis, I demonstrate how these traditions systematically deny the portrayed mummies essentially and uniquely human qualities, resulting in their dehumanisation. Further, I discuss their spectacularisation — inherent in their artefication and monstrification— and the mode of spectatorship evoked by the mummified body as a spectacle. The thesis thus aims to offer a critique on dehumanising portrayals of the ancient Egyptians, shedding light on the repercussions of the encounter with such images.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 takes on an inter-disciplinary approach to examine the extent to which the state of Kenya used the genre of portrait photography to create a sense of nationhood after independence. I...Show moreThis thesis takes on an inter-disciplinary approach to examine the extent to which the state of Kenya used the genre of portrait photography to create a sense of nationhood after independence. I take on the theory of nation and nationalism as a framework to discuss and visually analyse the portraits of Kenya's four president and citizens portrait in the form of identity photography. By first establishing how modern-state Kenya came into being, the discussion set a premise to the motivation behind the study. The first chapter analyses the standardised official presidential state portraits, their materiality, physicality and their symbolism to communicate a change of leadership in Kenya. The second chapter investigates the 'self-fashioned' portraits of the presidents which take on different aesthetics and visual codes creating different meanings and therefore are interpreted using other references. The last chapter is a shift from 'honorific' portraiture of the presidents to the 'repressive' class of the sitters- the citizens. This chapter investigates citizen's portraits used in the colonial times to control movements of labourers and surveillance and how it is now used as a form of document of National Identification. This thesis argues that all the mentioned kinds of portraiture contributed to disseminating the idea of nationhood.Show less
The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate in how and why encyclopedic projects by archival based photographers, challenge and counter the figure of the digital database. The yearning for...Show moreThe main purpose of this thesis is to investigate in how and why encyclopedic projects by archival based photographers, challenge and counter the figure of the digital database. The yearning for collecting or ‘archive fever’ (as defined by Jacques Derrida) is still found in some contemporary art projects. Consequently, in a world where more and more objects, documents and photographs are stored digitally, the question remains why some photographers resort to the archive as their working method and continue to display their works through analogue techniques such as the book and the installation. In order to understand the working method these artists adopt, this thesis shares them under the position of ‘the-photographer-as-archivist’. This thesis considers two case studies, firstly Parallel Encyclopedia #1 (2007) by Batia Suter (1967) and secondly The Universal Photographer (2018) by Anne Geene (1983) and Arjan de Nooy (1965). Their projects are assessed visually as well as theoretically, using the method of visual research as proposed by Gillian Rose. This method bases itself on the three modalities of technology, composition and social elements that surround visual imagery. The research has shown that both of the explored works, contain anti-database characteristics such as physicality, materiality and narrativity as their most prominent features. This means that in terms of discourse they comment on the structure, active accumulation, the usage and functioning of the digital database.Show less
