Panel Statement

Panel: Work

This illustrated presentation explores the intersections of photography with painting in the nineteenth century and with computers in the twentieth century. Both a theoretical and historical perspective, it accounts for the aesthetic, technological, and ideological factors that shaped photograpny. Early photography revolutionized image making, and visual imaging is again being redefined in the electronic era.

The camera transformed visual information in the nineteenth century. Digital technologies now reiterate the ways we create and perceive photo images. Photographic perceptions change. We attributed a veracity to photographs rarely accorded other visual arts. Photos are never ‘real’, yet new skepticism has evolved with digital photography’s manipulative dexterity. Selection, manipulation, and outright fabrication of the image from camera to print always occurred. Early photographs were staged, composited and otherwise contrived. Photography invariably intersected with other methods, producing hybrid forms.

Current interplay between photography and digital technologies elicits new formulations. Confluence and collision occur when new tools combine with conventional techniques, yielding hybrid forms. Intersections provide fertile straits for contemporary imagery The artist remains the source of ideas; tools and techniques only serve. The conceptual and visual encounter endures. Projected images, from early photographs through cutting edge contemporary works, illustrate the dual revolutions of Photography.

• Mary Stieglitz (USA), Iowa State University, Ames