![\"chrisjordan\"](\"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/01\/chrisjordan.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThis week\u2019s readings encouraged us to think about the relationship between a museum, a cultural object, and the community to which it belongs. Charles Zange argues that the museum\u2019s \u201cownership\u201d of the object is an opportunity for them to showcase and educate the public about cultural artifacts. However, this does not mean that they are free to emphasize or omit certain facts at their discretion, while ignoring the richness of the community voice and their role in influencing the cultural backdrop of the object. Especially in the context of digital display and networks, where information is as easily disseminated as it is misrepresented, ignoring the conditions and means of information display would affect the object\u2019s cultural network and therefore its \u201contology\u201d.<\/p>\n
More so than cultural artifacts, I thought about how digital photography fit into the argument. In this age of Instagram, DSLRs and the obsession to create the perfect digital image, photographers often travel to exotic locations to take snapshots of the landscape, the people and\/or the culture. However, it is not as clear to me how many actually bother to connect with the local people and understand the cultural context in which they are capturing these shots. It is easy to see how a well composed shot with the proper lighting, saturation etc would garner a lot of likes, but they might lack the perspective and the narrative behind what compelled them to capture that moment. This is a clear example in which the \u201crisk of dual digital networks\u201d is clearly exemplified- the information asymmetry between a digital photograph and the actual scene in a cultural community or landscape can result in a split of information with \u201cboth sides only getting one piece\u201d.<\/p>\n
One photographer who does do this well is an environmentalist named Chris Jordan. He travels to rural areas of the world where plastic pollution is prevalent, and uses what he knows about the environment to capture and convey the reality of the situation to others (as opposed to just taking pictures of things that look pretty). While this course discusses the importance of preserving the authenticity of man-made cultures, we have not really touched on what it means to preserve and protect our natural environment, which has a carrying capacity and ontology of its own. It\u2019s easy to deny the reality of environmental degradation even when the facts are presented to us, but there is hope that photography as a journalistic device will be a better way to spread this message if photographers i.e. photo curators are able to reflect critically on their work on not only an opportunity for artistic expression but a means for cultural investigation and education.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Midway: Message from the Gyre <\/em>by Chris Jordan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week\u2019s readings encouraged us to think about the relationship between a museum, a cultural object, and the community to which it belongs. Charles Zange argues that the museum\u2019s \u201cownership\u201d … Continue reading “Culture as Subject and the Ontology of Digital Photography”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}