Szarkowski Wrap Up.

Tuscany Teaser. Copyright.

Just a few words to wrap up the section on John Szarkowski.

Szarkowski is a former Director of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Apart from being a celebrated manager at MOMA he also was a keen photographer and scholar. He has written two books on photography: The Photographer’s Eye and Looking at Pictures. I happen to own a copy of each.

You get to look at pictures. One at the time. You get to better understand the visual language of photography. You get to read Szarkowski’s eye opening comments to many of the pictures.

I can only say this: Both books are great reads. Their content goes beyond photography, and Szarkowski’s keen sense of images and text makes them pure joy. They are books about communication.

You may start here:

Szarkowski: Introduction.

Szarkowski: The Thing Itself

Szarkowski: Vantage Point.

Szarkowski: The Detail.

Szarkowski: Time.

Szarkowski: The Frame.

Good luck with Szarkowski.

Szarkowski: The Thing Itself.

The Thing Itself. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

“More convincingly than any other kind of picture, a photograph evokes the tangible presence of reality. Its most fundamental use and its broadest acceptance has been as a substitute for the subject itself – a simpler, more permanent, more clearly version of the plain fact.

Our faith in the truth of a photograph rests on our belief that the lens is impartial, and will draw the subject as it is, neither nobler nor meaner. This faith may be naive and illusory (for though the lens draws the subject, the photographer defines it), but is persists. The photographer’s vision convinces us to the degree that the photographer hides his hand.”

Library Thing.

This is a barebones pitstop post. For more pitstop posts, please go to pitstop puzzle.

Other posts on Szarkowski: Introduction, The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, Vantage Point.

Szarkowski: Vantage Point.

Vantage Point. Copyright 2009 Knut Skjærven.

“If the photographer could not move his subject, he could move his camera. To see the subject clearly – often to see it at all – he had to abandon a normal vantage point, and shoot his picture from above, or below, or from too close, or too far away, or from the back side, inverting the order of things’ importance, or with the nominal subject of his picture half hidden.

From his photographs, he learned that the appearance of the world was richer and less simple than his mind would have guessed.

He discovered that his pictures could reveal not only the clarity but the obscurity of things, and the these mysterious and evasive images could also, in their own terms, seem ordered and meaningful”.

John Szarkowski: The Photographers Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2009.

Library Thing.

This is a barebones pitstop post. For more pitstop posts, please go to pitstop puzzle.

Other posts on Szarkowski: Introduction, The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, Vantage Point.

Szarkowski: The Detail.

Lady in Red. Copyright 2007: Knut Skjærven.

“Once he left the studio, it was impossible for the photographer to copy the painters’ schemata. He could not stage-manage the battle, like Uccello or Velásquez, bringing together elements which had been separate in space and time, nor could he rearrange the parts of his picture to construct a design that pleased him better.

From the reality before him he could only choose that part that seemed relevant and consistent, and what would fill his plate. If he could not show the battle, explain its purpose and its strategy, or distinguish its heroes from its villains, he could show what was too ordinary to paint: the empty road  scattered with cannon balls, the mud encrusted on the caisson’s wheels, the anonymous faces, the single broken figure by the wall.

Intuitively, he sought and found the significant detail. His work, incapable of narrative, turned toward symbol.”

John Szarkowski: The Photographers Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2009.

Library Thing.

This is a barebones pitstop post. For more pitstop posts, please go to pitstop puzzle.

Other posts on Szarkowski: Introduction, The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, Vantage Point.

Shameless Self Promotion

Danish Masters. Copyright: Knut Skjærven. CLICK IMAGE.

On this, the last Friday of November 2009, I shall engage in what you might call shameless self promotion. I got webwords this morning that this photograph has been shortlisted for a webguide on Copenhagen. It is shot at Statens Museum for Kunst (The Danish National Gallery) in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Hi Knut,

I am writing to let you know that one of your photos has
been short-listed for inclusion in the ninth edition of our
Schmap Copenhagen Guide, to be published mid-December 2009.

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
www.schmap.me/ewilliams

The shot was picked up on flickr at bareboneslight photostream.

Do I enjoy this image? Yes I do.There are several reasons for this.

First of all it is shot with as small, compact camera and not with my usual gear. The small pocked sized camera is a Leica D-Lux 4 and the lens as absolutely fantastic. Not even a shed of doubt about that. Look at, what shall I call it, the brightness of this picture. It is fabulous corner to corner.

Secondly, and I had no control over this, are the positions of the three girls in the frame. You can control part of that, but not all of it: one front to camera, one back to camera and one profile to camera. This is accidental. No deliberate pose here.

Thirdly, and what in my opinion really make this photo (shortlist or not), and lifts it way beyond average random shooting, is the first girl from the right hand side; the way she holds her hands makes all the difference in the world. That pose is the punctum of this shot. For me, definitely. (This is much more distinct in a larger version of the photo).

Forth and final, is the way all components overall combine in this particular shot. You need tremendous luck to pocket a shot like this. If you don’t believe me, try doing it. Maybe I’ll see you around then .

If you for one moment thought that this was a snapshot, forget it. Hopefully it will now become a schmapshot, and that is a huge difference. Particularly if that shot works as a window to the Danish Masters of Visual Arts. Those represented at The Danish National Gallery. In my ears, that idea does not sound bad at all.

Thanks Emma, I am much obliged. Have a good weekend.

Go here for Schmap Copenhagen.

KleinGeld Phenomenology: Presence and Absence.

Berlin Bear. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven

Imagine I was to travel  to Berlin for the 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Wall on  9 November 2009.  I have been considering it and have even looked on the internet  earlier today for an inexpensive fare.

Coming from Copenhagen, I can go by bus, train, car or  plane. It takes me 7 hours by bus and about the same time going by train. I prefer one of these options since you  need more than just  your camera with you. You also need to bring your soul. Slow travel works  for me!

The landscape is beautiful even at this time of the year, and you get to get off at the ferry connecting the bottom of Denmark to the top of Germany. I greatly enjoy this trip since  discovering about 2 years ago that Berlin was part of the world . I arranged an international photo session there:- The Contax G Summit. I later  became President of that forum with the privilege to do all the work. It is all great fun.

I don’t know why but I am more impressed by Berlin  than I would ever have thought I would have been for any part of Germany.  I live in the same modern hotel every time, and know my way around pretty well, by now.  I am particularly impressed that the Germans want to rebuild the Berlin Castle, Berlin Schloss, in the middle of town in its  old location.. Every time I visit I see progress.. There is something Carl Zeiss Glass about this ambition. Impressive.

This time I will be joined by Hilary Clinton, Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Head of Nato) and many more celebrities flown in from all over the world to celebrate the wall that is no more. “Tear that wall down”, Ronald Reagan said to his fiend Mr. Gorbachev. A few years later it came down.

I arrive by bus. Or by train.

Barenboim will be there to conduct the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. The French and the Russian Presidents will both be there, and of course the grand old man Mikhail Gorbachev.  Gordon Brown will be there too.

However, for the moment I am still sitting behind my Imac. It is darker outside now so I have lit the desk lamp.

Why this story?

All the incidents mentioned: seeing my iMac, visualizing Berlin Schloss, speculating about if, when and how to go there have one thing in common: They are modes of intentionality. Remember the statement that consciousness is always consciousness of something, and intentionality as the barest bone of all the barebones? If you have forgotten then go look it up.

Here is the point: within the general frame of intentionality there are different sorts of special intentionalities. No doubt that my Imac is present for me, and no doubt that the Berlin Schloss and Mr. Gorbachev both are absent. So too are the recollections of my  earlier visits to Berlin present.

It is here that one start talking about presence and absence. This is one of phenomenology’s most important contributions. With phenomenology absence get presence in science and in philosophy. And by implication in communication as well. The last thing is of interest for barebones.

It is necessary that you distinguish between filled and empty intentions. I have a filled intention in what I am doing right now. I am writing on my Mac. Visual attention is shifting from the keyboard to the screen in front of me. When, while writing, I am thinking of the train for Berlin I deal with an empty intention. When I, hopefully, mount the train in two weeks from now and show my ticket to the train staff, the train staff will be my filled intention, and my Mac back at home will be the empty intention. Or one of them.

If I go to see the progress of the construction of The Berliner Schloss, that site will be my filled intention at that moment, other things will have moved into emptiness.

Having an empty intention does not mean that that intention is gone. Not so at all. It only means that it is not in the first focus of my attention. Obviously, while I am writing these words, the empty intentions of the train and the schloss are very important to me, since if I do not plan the next steps towards traveling to Berlin, how on earth will I ever get around to the very practical job of ordering the tickets?

The movement from empty intention to filled intention is one of fulfillment. There are two ways to fulfillment. There is graded or cumulative fulfillment, and there is additive fulfillment. Robert Sokolowski on graded or cumulative fulfillment: “The one leads through many intermediaries, of different kinds, and finally reaches intuition”. On additive fulfillment: “It is simply additive, providing more and more profiles on the thing in question”.

What’s in it for communication?

To be continued …

——————-

Quotations from Robert Sokolowski: Introduction to Phenomenology”, Cambridge University Press 2000, New York.

[contact-form]

KleinGeld Phenomenology: Sides, Aspects and Profiles.

Breaking News. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

Here is yet another cluster of notions that needs to be mentioned as important for phenomenological understanding and activity. Since I am still in front of my imac, I will continue describing it. No reason to make this more complicated.

What do I see? Well, as of right now I see the front of the screen, the display or whatever you may choose to call it. The window of the imac.

Further more: The imac is placed on the top of a table in front of a window. It blocks some of the light from entering the room. If I crawl under the table and look up I will not see anything of my imac,  apart from cables attached to it. It does not really matter because I know it is there. If I, however,  get up on the table and look down on the screen from above, I can see it, but this time from another perspective than when I was sitting a little while ago. As I gaze on it from above it looks like a thin piece of metal. I cannot see the glass in front, but I make a note that the metal frame is about 2,5 cm thick. The imacs carry no rucksack these days. And no suitcase either.

I can look at the screen from all the sides of it, and I can image that it looks “the same” from beneath. I am pretty sure about this.

I make a summary note here: My imac screen has 6 different sides. But these sides differs as I view them. They do not look the same from above, from the sides of the screen, from in front, from the back. As I move around I get different aspects of the screen. While the sides are 6 in number, the aspects cannot be numbered. There are simply too many.

Then again: When I, at any moment, view a particular side of the screen though an aspect of it, I get the screen’s profile. The profile is what I have in view here and now, in this very moment. I am now back on my chair writing, and what is see is the screen in profile. In fact everything that I see (not only the imac) , and observe, is always a profile of the thing, the subject, the theme in question. This is the way the world works for me, and so does is work for you. No escaping here.

Phenomenology then, works with three layers of content in viewing my screen : 1) the sides of it, 2) the aspects involved in viewing, and the profile that is the actual here end now grasp of it.

Remember that we talked about pieces and moments in a recent post?  Sides, aspects and profiles, what are they? Hardly pieces because they cannot be taken apart: They are moments, you are quite right. They are nonindependent parts.

What’s in it for communication?

I will ask the same questions as in the recent post. What’s in it for communication? What’s in it for barebones? What’s in it for advertising, for instance? What’s in it for photography? You don’t want to do the mistake of treating a side for an aspect or for a profile when you address people, do you? Or vice versa, do you?

Before, however, we get to know the full implications of this, let us gather a bit more Geld. Small Coins. We don’t want to spend the money yet.

Stay tuned for more change to come your way.

KleinGeld Phenomenology: Pieces and Moments.

Pieces and Moments. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

It is extremely important that you get this. You need to know of, and be able to distinguish between, pieces and moments.

Let’s take look at my iMac since it is right in front of me. It is my machine for writing and viewing at this very moment. As it is every moment that I sit here at my desk.

I perceive my Mac as a whole. My Mac is the  screen, the mouse, the cable connectiong the mouse to the keyboard, the internal and external hard drives, the USB ports on the back of the screen and the ports at both ends of the keyboard, the cable that connects the keyboard to the USB port at the back of the screen. All of this and many more things are what I refer to as my Mac.

I could go one.

It is not hard for me recognize that what I call my Mac is s composite of many different things. Some can be split up and taken apart and others cannot. For instance I can unplug the keyboard, take it onto another room and study the keyboard for it own sake. I can do the same with the Mac mouse. They are still parts of my Mac even when split.

When I take the screen with me and study it another room that piece becomes a new whole and takes on a life of its own. Parts of the screen are now the screen itself, the foot that is stands on, the glass that I look at, et cetera. Parts are the cable ports on the back side.

Parts, however, does not only come as pieces like the a screen, the mouse, the cable, the USB port and the like. Parts can also come as moments, and moments are of a different breed than pieces. A moment is the color of the keyboard, or its extension, or its weight, or its feel, or its temperature, or its mass.

If pieces have the ability to take on a life of their own not so with moments. You don’t take the color away from the mac mouse to study it in another room. The mouse comes with. So does temperature and mass.

It is necessary that you distinguish first and foremost between wholes and parts. And you need recognize that parts can be or two sorts: pieces and moments. The former  can be dismantled and becomes themselves then wholes consisting of parts. The latter cannot be dismantled and will never become wholes for and in themselves.

Pieces are independent parts. Moments are nonindependent parts. That is the phrases Robert Sokolowski uses about them. Read more.

The difference is huge and of major importance.

I hear you say: Why are you telling me this? I have known this all along. Everyone knows the difference between pieces and moments even if they might have other words for it. And I will tend to agree with you. If this is what phenomenology has offer that is not much, is it?

First of all it is not what phenomenology has to offer, it is only part of what it has to offer. I tiny little part. Don’t forget we are doing kleingeld stuff in the posts. Not the big bills.

But I will say this: we have forgotten to live by this. And so has science and so has modern life. One of science’s biggest problems is how to connect man and world. We have, some say, the consciousness inside our body and we have the world outside our body, how do they connect? Big, big problem for many clever people, but only if you start our wrongly. If you consider consciousness and world as pieces you will have problems connecting them. If you consider them as moments, you don’t. Consciousness never left the world.

When I reflect, it is not something inside that tries to connect to something outside. The two poles are already part of the reflection process. When I dream, it is not something inside that tries to connect to something outside. The two poles are already part of the dream process. When I speak, it is not something inside that tries to connect to something outside. The two poles are already part of the speaking process. And so forth.

What’s in it for communication?

What’s  in it for communication? What’s in it for barebones? What’s in it for advertising, for instance? What’s in it for photography? Well, you don’t want to do the mistake of treating a piece as a moment, or a moment as a piece when you address people, do you? Before, however, we get to know the full implications of this, let us gather a bit more Geld. Small Coins. Change, if you must.

Here are a couple of questions that you may consider in the mean time: Are pieces and moments so different that we need to speak of them, treat them, in different languages? With the use of a different words, symbols or pictures, for instance? Please think about it.

Pieces and moment are not a pieces of phenomenology, they are moments of it. Now you know.

KleinGeld Phenomenology: Introduction. (Like in Eating Elephants).

Shadowing By Bones. Copyright 2009. Knut Skjærven

It has been my idea, for some time now, to take a closed look at phenomenology. I suggested that in a post loaded not so long ago. I called that post Phenomenology: The Larger Picture. There I promised a post on presence and absence, as that pair is one of the fundamentals of phenomenology. That post will come in this section.

I have hereby suggested that I am starting a new barebones section.

I have no idea at the moment of how many posts there will go to conclude this section. As I indicated, in a former post, we are breaking new ground here so we will have to see how much kleingeld we will be able to gather along the way.

Why kleingeld? I am sure that you wonder about this strange German word now in the caption of a post written in English (well, I do my best). Klein means small, and Geld means money or coins. So what we have here then is SmallMoney or SmallCoins Phenomenology.

And that is just what it is: SmallCoins Phenomenology, or KleinGeld Phenomenology. The phrase actually stems from Edmund Husserl (remember the father of phenomenology).  I think it is from his Göttingen period (I will have to look that up). He was greeted by his students by the large scale and the large view of his emerging phenomenology, responding to them with the following remark. “Not so fast gentlemen, KleinGeld, KleinGeld”. Like in eating elephants: you need to take one bite at the time. So that is how this section is going to proceed: one bite at the time.

I let you in on what sources that I going to use. I have already told you how impressed I am with Robert Sokolowski’s “Introduction to Phenomenology” first published in 2000. It is in terms of actuality way beyond what I have ever seen in this area. In fact it is very Husserlian, not written like a phone book but as a letter of introduction. I like that. Go get that book.

I am going to use that book as inspiration. And I am going to use his Sokolowski’s “Husserlian Meditations” from 1974 as well (yes that old).  The last one is a much heavier work to get through. But it links me to the original passages in Hussel’s original texts.

I will tag posts in this section properly so that it is easy for you to find the posts later. Tags will be “KleinGeld Phenomenology” and/or “SmallCoins Phenomenology”.

Most important for those who work within the communication areas is that “I will shadow” the genuine KleinGeld subjects to the communication area. I will make suggestions of how to use the small coins experiences when doing and undoing pieces of communication. You being an advertiser, text writer, visual designer, copywriter, elephant eater, photographer,  Visit Denmark Employee (remember the Danish mother seeking …)  or other.

Oh, one last thing. This KleinGeld Section will probably be the most important and original on this blog. It is going change your way of thinking and of working with communication. Simple as that.

Only left to say then this Saturday in Copenhagen, Denmark: Welcome to the section KleinGeld Phenomenology. No, I have not forgotten Thandie Part II.

Have a good day.

…………………………

Page pointing to all the posts in this section.

gosh, is that all there is to it?

Emotional Emilia. All rights reserved. Posted with permission.

Gosh, is that really true? Is it that easy?

I have been told that it would be a good idea to restructure the entrance to barebones communicattion. And that is just what I will try to do in this post.

The barebones communication universe consists a number of posts that are linked to a number of themes and/or resources. Often held together by a single tag. This is still going to be the basic structure, but for reasons of a more clear understanding of this structure, and the ease of navigating in it, I will introduce a slightly different way to keep things together on the blog.

And to create a new overview. This overview will also be reflected in the blog pages. I need to fix that.

Here are the different babebones sections that we will refer to in the future. Sections consists again of a number of barebones modules, that are constituted by a number of barebones blog posts.

Barebones Sections:

Barebones Basics:

Barebones Basics consists of a number a research areas that are of high value for communication. Each of these research areas are barebones modules consisting of inspirations from among other things

gestalt psychology, hermeneutics, naturalism, phenomenology and semiology (semiotics)

I may introduce other basics as the blog progresses. You will get a good understanding of these different areas if you just google them for more information.

Barebones Enhanced:

Barebones Individuals consists, so far, of the two modules: barebones pitstops and barebones notebook. These again consists of a number of barebones posts.

The idea of barebones enhanced it that you need to work with barebones on your own. Here are two clues of how you can do that: pitstops (basically open “questions” and ideas of new combinations of things), and notebooks (more structured and closed “questions” that you can work with.

Or combinations of both. Is it important that you don’t see barebones communication as a point of termination, but as a platform of beginnings.

Barebones Creatics:

Creativity is imperative to communication.

Particularly if you have the intention of being heard, which is increasingly difficult. Think of the 200 million profiles on facebook chatting away in public space, and the same number of proper blogs worldwide. If that number will do it?

The ability to do things in a different way, and in new combinations of ideas, is very, very important. You can grow your ability for creative thinking by knowing and using creative techniques. That is what barebones creatics is all about.

Barebones Specific: Advertising:

I have singled out a barebones modul which main concern is advertising. There is no particular reason for this other than I have a history “in advertising”, and therefore some knowledge of that area.

That sections consists of a number of moduls held together by the CET System.

Barebones Advertising is concerns with the efficiency of communication. It, therefore, has much larger implications than those of mere advertising. Please be aware of that simple fact.

Barebones Specific: Photography:

Barebones Photography is concerned with the visuality of communication. It, therefore, has much larger implication than those of mere photography. Visuality has particularly to do with connotations.

For photographs and their use in barebones based communication, you will find plenty of information and principal handling on this blog. Start to reflect the twist the picture above makes on this blogpost. Right .

For many more pictures you could go to the barebones light’s photostream at flickr. “barebones light” simply means that I have been less critical with what is loaded.

Barebones Grid:

Please also note that the different barebones sections do not exist in isolation. It is only in theory, and in introductions like this, that it is meaningsful to speak of them as separate parts. In the real world they are not.

Let’s say that you are working on a piece of advertising for a client, you need not only read and understand Barebones Specific: Advertising. You will need to read and understand the other barebones sections as well.

The reason for this it that advertising is only a part of the larger communication area. I may have some special characteristics, but it brings along content from other barebones sections as well. Think, for instance, of the importance photography (read: visual communication) plays in advertising.

A separate post on Barebones Grid is in the making.

If you are curious who the little girl in the photo is, her last name is Skjærven. Posted with permission from her parents.