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P
Ali Hossaini
Vision of the Gods:
An Inquiry Into the Meaning of Photography
by
Ali Hossaini
hotography is ubiquitous within global culture, but we hardly understand
its meaning. And we have only a dim comprehension of its origin. Unlike
cinema, which contains the complexities of motion and montage, the
photograph is simple and, for the most part, brutally realistic. Perhaps the
photograph has seemed too obvious to merit prolonged scholarly attention.
Histories of the medium abound, but their authors follow a pattern
exemplified by Alison and Helmut Gernsheim’s distinguished History of
Photography, first published in 1955. By the standard account, the first
inklings of photography appeared when a 5th century scholar noticed a
camera-like phenomenon, and culminated in the 1820s, when Nicephore
Niepce doped a pewter plate with light-sensitive chemicals and exposed it
within a camera obscura. At their most comprehensive, standard histories
include references to the mediaeval scientists who experimented with pinhole
optics and ultimately invented the camera obscura.
Though the standard account is correct in its details, it neglects the broader
context of photography. Photography is an evolutionary phenomenon, not a
fixed process, and it has drastically altered society at each stage of refinement.
Starting with simple devices, the medium has branched into an enormous
family of technologies that includes cinema, television and digital imagery.
Individuals use cameras, but the medium is far more powerful in the hands of
corporations and the state. Optical media entertain and inform, impress and
oppress; they permeate everyday life, yet cultural theory does not approach
this variety from a coherent base of understanding. What ties together
snapshots and surveillance? Theorists perceive the social effects of mass
media, which range from liberation to abject dehumanization, but the origin
of these effects has not been outlined. We need a paradigm that captures the
common thread of photographic technologies, one that matches the
sophistication of contemporary engineering. Current theory of the
photograph depends on the camera, but the physical device is insufficient to
Logos 2.3 – Summer 2003