The ubiquity of the image

Dancing around my head I have Gramsci’s quote from Romain Rolland, which may well sum up the tone of our latest comments: ‘Pessimism of the intelligence, optimism of the will.’ Perhaps we could end this line of discourse here, then, and set off in new directions.

Note how terms like ‘illiteracy’, ‘education’, ‘training’, ‘schooling’ and ‘students’ have run through various interventions. This brings us to a key issue, which is that of teaching and raising awareness. All three of us have been more or less intensively involved in teaching and popularizing. This being so, two points. First, it is not enough to criticize the present state of image culture: we also need to be critical of ourselves, because we are to some extent active agents of this culture and thus responsible for the current situation. We can analyse what portion of the blame we ought to bear -probably not much, given the mesh of powers and circumstances- but I don’t think it is intellectually acceptable to present ourselves as mere outsiders, as aloof external observers. Second, we ought to turn the argument round: we are in a privileged position to intervene in the state of affairs, or at least in its future, because one of our duties is precisely to help shape the spirit of photographers and publics - that is to say, both the producers of images and the consumers of images.

Traditionally, educational methodologies have been structured differently depending on whom they set out to address. It seemed logical to do this, not only because the conceptual mechanisms of writing or reading were different, but because an active attitude was expected of some and an essentially passive attitude of others. This is no longer the case, but I nevertheless have the impression that the programmes pursued by schools and exhibitions, specialists publications and canonical criticism continue to insist on the routine of that obsolete dichotomy. Nowadays we are all producers and consumers at the same time, and the lack of differentiation of these roles calls for a radically new educational agenda.

A brief article by Alasdair Foster, director of the ACP (Australian Centre for Photography) in Sydney, puts this forward very graphically (http://www.zonezero.com/editorial/editorial.html). Foster compares the reforms currently taking place in the world of the image with the Protestant Reformation that shook Christianity in the 16th century. In the Catholic Church the ministry of the faith is the preserve of an oligarchy of ‘professionals’ (members of the clergy, the priestly class); in contrast, Luther and his followers set out to ‘deprofessionalize’ the ministry, liberalizing the interpretation of the holy scriptures according to personal conscience. A Protestant pastor may be an expert, but his or her knowledge is meant to be at the service of the community without exercising exclusive authority over it, so that a lay person can also deliver a sermon to the congregation. In the world of art, of photography and visual communication in general this is also happening. The hierarchical separation between professionals and public is tending to diminish, even disappear altogether, with the result that their positions are becoming interchangeable. The image is ubiquitous today because we all make or deal with photographs, we all generate and receive graphic information, irrespective of the meaning that we invest it with. How, then, do we address this new reality in terms of a coherent pedagogy?

Etiquetes: pedagogy, popularizing, responsability

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