At this little liberal arts school, I've been able to take classes in a variety of fields, and I realized that in my humanities classes I often end up defending science and technology. Here I go again.
According to this chapter, art and technology were viewed as separate when photography was developed (a true enough statement of the cultural views of the time). However, people, especially large groups of people, often don't understand very much. Before talking about technology (and thus the scientific research that enables it), let's talk about tools. Tools are just simple external objects that extend our senses or our ability to do things, things like spears, pencils, and eyeglasses. People usually aren't afraid of these because they are relatively simple and operate in the same spacial and temporal references that we do. In the case of the artist, their tools may include a paint brush and canvas, and I think that we can agree that the tools of art are inseparable from its ability to be created.
Paint brushes are simple. Cameras are complicated, which is the only real difference between tools and technology. A good indication of technology is that no one person would be able to build it. Technology is often viewed as separate and something other beyond that of paintbrushes because people don't really know how they work.
Even though camera's are more mechanical, that does not invalidate its artistic possibilities. No one is arguing that making haiku is not a creative process because it follows a rigid formula. Photography may be more bound to reality than other types of art, but just like a haiku, it manages to be art within its boundaries. Not only that, but the boundaries and limitations may even make it more artistic, because it may take more creative energy to create art with a less-flexible medium.
Q: Is viewing a photograph purely a subjective experience, or are some photos objectively better than others?
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