Presentation done!

I did my presentation and 750 word essay, which i'll put below. This is the link for the presentation, i used prozei, which i don't really get, but it looks pretty cool:

http://prezi.com/gg7tp5xncxp4/photography-proposal/

The presentation went well, I actually managed to finish in time (5 minutes) and get through most stuff. I felt as through I covered quite a few projects which had inspired me, and a lot of these were independent research, and were multi-media, so felt this was good, as it covered a wide basis of ideas. I also backed this up with several theorists, most of which were independent- i used quite a few also. However, I also feel that I didn't do as well as I could have. For one thing, as i was nervous and wanted to get it finished, I rushed what I was saying. I felt that i spoke very very fast and might not have been understood. I also felt that my presentation did not go into depth enough in how theorists and projects linked. This was partly because of the time limit, but it was also partly because I tried to fit huge amounts in. I need to hone down my ideas so I have time to explain them properly and link the presentation. However, I did feel that the overall presentation worked in giving a brief start to what my idea might be.

this is my essay:

“Photography is never neutral” (Tagg, 1998, 63) and this makes it a “highly complex” issue. When we take a photo, as objective as is intended, it will always “represent the view of someone.” (Sontang, 2003, 16) To further this, if no photo can be objective, then when we take a photo, we are accessing pre-determined ideologies based on culture and hegemony, and will take photos in a certain way, the way we expect them- or society expects them- to look. Foucault argues that photography is an “expansion of the state”, and that documentary photography is a “means of evidence” with an “authority to arrest, picture and transform daily life.” (Tagg, 1998, 65) If we are to believe that a photo is ‘true’, and if we are to photograph something as culture determines us to, this suggests that we only document things in the way that society dictates, which is a worrying idea.

These issues of who controls representation and the complexities of representation are central to my proposal. Initially, I was inspired by photography projects like “The 100”(Knight, 2012-3) and “Beautiful Horizons”,(2012) which gave cameras to a selection of people, and let them document themselves. In the latter project, the group of people who were given cameras were street children from Rio, a group of people who have been continually represented in a victimized and bad light by western photographers. The project, which spanned 17 years, gave the children a voice and chance to create their own reality. This could be seen to be a “purer” or more “truthful” account of reality than somebody imposing their view onto the street children.

However, as the project progressed, I also became aware of further fields of investigation that the project could lead to. As Zuckerman suggests, the internet and cheap technology are the “great leveller”- we all have the chance to recreate our realities and share them online, and get others to engage in them. Interactive Medias, such as online documentaries and found photography, suggest communities can use technology to make their own realities. The online Hawaiian documentary, “Kupuna” (Hasen, 2012) for example, made by the Hawaiians in an online, interactive format to “document their fading history”- shows a community using technology to create an online space to keep their history alive; this suggests that representation is evolving for the better with new technology. However, I was also at the same time struck by similar projects- Miska Henner’s found photography and Juliet Ferguson’s “Stolen Images”, (2011) which suggested that online photography and internet sharing was “an expansion of state”- the culmination of a “surveillance society” or “society of control”,(Deleuze, 1992, 105) in which society is constantly watched, and how we engage with the world and understand representations is based on which company has most power or  money; suggesting that the internet is controlled by dominant hegemonies- therefore, interactive media was only serving the ideologies of a few. These two contrasts of online representation interested me.

From this research, I decided to make a project to challenge these ideas. I propose to give disposable cameras to a group of people-preferably people who are traditionally voiceless- and let them represent themselves. I have been in contact with several such groups- for instance a young people’s homeless charity and local school. I would then like to collect the photos taken and create an interactive online documentary, which can be accessed by all. To further this, they would also be displayed in a gallery at the degree show- though the structure of the gallery and online website will depend on the group of people. If I am to choose homeless people, I would create an online documentary narrative with interview and sound elements, and I wouldn’t show any work in the gallery, it would be in the street, where it could be accessible by everyone. If, however, I choose children as a group, then the online space will be more like a mood board for each child, with found imagery suggesting notable spaces and objects alongside the photos-to try and represent childhood’s sensory reality- and then in a gallery setting, will have the photos only allowed to be seen down a telescope, (or similar) suggesting a voyeuristic approach onto someone else’s reality. Each display of the chosen group would reflect their idea of their own reality and the photos they have chosen; space is important to each group of people, and I would build a gallery or web-doc to reflect this.

With this project, I hope to not only give some people the chance to create their own reality and representation, but also to see how people use this power, to see if they create a reality which surprises the hegemonic norms and “appropriates the real.” This would be done by the participants using photography to create their world from their own perspective, and by using the internet to re-create it and engage with a community. I hope by using this interactive technique, the project will advocate a space where people have taken control of their own representation, instead of being represented by the hegemonic media controllers through which much photography is produced.