My opinion on manipulation and authenticity

[mbarrick]

This was written as a response to a post by Ed Book where he reflects on authorial authenticity with digital cameras.

---

Primarily I am a painter [and illustrator], and my photography supports that. More often than not the images I make with the camera are intended as a step in the processes that I will use to make an image with paint. Painting is nothing *but* manipulation and the same conventional wisdom that says the unphotoshopped photograph is more authentic also says the image painted in situ while looking at the subject directly or from the mind's eye is more authentic than one painted from a photograph. That's contradictory nonsense.

Whether I decided to go with what the camera does to my composition "as-is", whether I manipulate that in the dark-room or with Photoshop, and whether print the photo or the digitally manipulated painting, frame it and call it done then or I move on to represent the image in paint, and what I do with the paint are all my choices. The image and the object at the end are the product of my "authentic" authorship no matter where I stop and say "done."

When it comes to digital photography I do draw a line between what's a photograph and what is a digital work. If my Photoshopping involves no more than basic darkroom manipulations or things I could have done with filters on the camera (e.g. cropping, changing the contrast, changes in saturation and tone) I continue to call it a photograph. If my manipulations involve more complex manipulations it becomes a digital work. Still, though, the line is shady... your dodge and burn example being on that line. If I split an image into layers and mess with the histograms and focus in the layers separately I'm not doing anything that couldn't be done in a darkroom, but it's not anything I'd personally want to do "the hard way" so I'd be inclined to call the image a digital image after that rather than a photograph, but either way it still doesn't change the authenticity of the piece.

Comments

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

Ahhh.. interesting. An interesting way to get around the crisis of artisitc integrity with regards to the simplicity of the new media tools overshadowing the traditional methods.

Declare your work a new art form with a different name.

photography -> digital imaging All the art - none of the guilt.
"I climb the stairs ..I can't call that Dance..so I will call this new art form 'foot Kinetics'."

[logik.livejournal.com]

~~ "one who draws" - is there a specific word for that?]"

Yes, illustrator.

Thank you

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

I just couldn't come up with that.

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

An analogue graphite linear technician

That's not the point at all

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

My argument here is that no action of the author on his own work can be considered to impair the works authenticity. The author is the one who makes the choices on what tool to use how to use the tool. What you call the end result irrelevant to the issue of authorship and authenticity.

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

"What you call the end result irrelevant to the issue of authorship and authenticity."

I disagree....

Authenticity is a funtion of classification....and is dependant on it by definition.

"My argument here is that no action of the author on his own work can be considered to impair the works authenticity"
as long as he classifies it properly

You can call the Mona Lisa , and Stary Night authentic PAINTINGS
The Thinker cannot be called an Authentic painting because it is a sculpture.

'Authorship' is a classification so I can say that that painting is an Authentic Van Gogh ,That play is authentic shakepeare. And if I shit on the floor and call it art - it is an authentic RYAN crap sculpture.

but I could not say that that ballet dance is an authentic musical piece.

Clarification

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

In the first part of your argument you aren't using "authentic" in the same way I am. When you say "The Thinker cannot be called an Authentic painting because it is a sculpture." the authorship of the piece is extraneous and irrelevant to the classification. If you wanted to call it a "nafflegabber" it wouldn't make any difference to the question of whether or not Rodin is the author.

Authorship is not matter of classification. Simply "classifying" a play as "authentic Shakespeare" does not make it authentic if it was in fact written by Francis Bacon. Authorship is the act of human creation, and the 'authentic' (in the sense I am using the word) is that for which the authorship, i.e. the identity of the human creator, is not in question.

> Authenticity is a funtion of classification....and is dependant on it by definition.

Precisely which definition of "authentic" are you using? If you are using the word as a synonym of "actual" (i.e. 'of the class of things reffered to as...'), then what you say about the Mona Lisa and Starry Night being authentic 'actual' paintings is correct. However, that use of the word is quite different that the latter part of your argument where you are using it in the sense of "authored by", where Starry Night is an authentic 'authored by' Van Gogh. I am arguing solely in the latter sense.

Therefore, the question is, does the use of a tool like Photoshop bring the authorship and therefore the 'authenticity' of the resultant image into question? My postition is, "No, it does not."

The classification of the resultant image as to whether it is a photograph or a digital image is something else entirely. So let's clear up the question above (which I think we basically agree on) before moving on.

I agree.

[morbioid.livejournal.com]

I use Photoshop for both my photographs and drawings (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/michaelmorbius2000). The photographs have to be Photoshopped anyway; after I scan them, I at least have to crop them and resize them. Sometimes I also despeckle and blur them. After that I check to see if any of the filter effects look nice; I usually go with cutout and stamp. The drawings, like the photos, have to be good enough to stand on their own before I scan them—the computer can’t magically make a bad drawing good—but once scanned sometimes I find that the cutout filter serves the same function as a comic book inker, emphasising weight in the strokes that wasn’t obvious with my Sanford Sharpie. Usually I include both versions when I post them and leave it up to the viewer which is better. I don’t think the filtered version is less authentic; it’s just a work that required one more tool to create.