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January 30, 2011
In his review of Tate Modern's Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera Gerry Badger says that he was neither was neither shocked nor provoked. He explains:
No wonder I found Exposed a little tame. Out on the Web lurk sickening images of sexual practices and violence that are probably too graphic to show in any museum, which prompts another question. And that first wall label makes another interesting point – has this proliferation of electronic imagery anaesthetised us in another way, not only inuring us to all kinds of voyeurism, but bringing us to a situation where we meekly allow cameras to watch every move we make, 24/7?
He adds that the issue that hangs over Exposed, just outside the galleries, like the seven-eighths of an iceberg that lies underwater – the ubiquity, and incredible proliferation of photographic images in our society thanks (if that is the right word) to the internet. Not just in terms of numbers, but in terms of the almost total lack of control regarding their content.
We become voyeurs in the new media landscape in which we all live that is defined the Internet. The implication is that are numb and indifferent to suffering. The anxiety is expressed in terms of the proliferation of images, the lack of control over their content, and the inevitable dulling of our moral senses.
This kind of photographic criticism with its roots in Sontag's On Photography misses out on the democratic interpretation of images. This is where the viewer is no longer the passive, grateful student, the photographer no longer the all-knowing, all-seeing teacher who chooses which decisive moments will live or die. in this post modern culture the photographer is no longer a voice of authority, with univocal images created from above.
So we have to say goodbye to the notion of the creator of images as a modernist demi-god.
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