FLATNESS
As I’ve been thinking about the difference between flat screen photographs and spatial photographs I remember that over the long history of Western art we have seen and depicted the world around us on flat surfaces in very different ways. And if we include African art and different forms of Asian art and art from ancient South America there are even more striking differences.
As I’ve been thinking about this I remember that the earliest cave paintings were of flat animals on a flat wall. Egyptian paintings usually looked at people from the side showing them from the side in outline with one eye and a proturding nose, without any attempt at realism, with their bodies seen from the side but flattened as well. More important people were large and less important people small. Indian miniature paintings which came out of the Persian tradition have faces flat and from the side with the clothing exquisitely drawn but not realistic, more like old style paper cutouts for paper figures.
Some critics feel that Vermeer had a spatial device that showed him the exact perspective of figures in a painting. Medieval painting didn’t attempt that. This gives a feeling of realism, but the paintings are still on a flat surface.
It seems fairly clear that we conventionalize the way we look at and respond to the world through flat paintings. It could be that technology is just pushing some of us to see and respond to the world in a new way. It is not better or worse, simply different, more like sculpture than painting or traditional photography.
REPRODUCTIONS
As a boy in the 1950’s I was entranced by paintings in books produced by Skira. I couldn’t see the paintings in faraway museums that I would never visit. Printed books were the only way enjoy great paintings.
But it turns out the reproductions of paintings in Skira art books were not nearly as well reproduced as they became later and by 2000 printed reproductions of paintings in books were much sharper and clearer with better color reproduction. Now I can reproduce a great painting on my own excellent Epson printer.
For all of human history the only way to enjoy a great painting was to see it in a church or a museum. There were no good reproductions.
Now I can get excellent digital reproductions on large screen Meural screen on my wall.
The point I am trying to make is that what we are used to doing is continually changing and that not only is the way of making art changing but the ways of reproducing art is changing. Last year Susie and I attended a New York City Guggenheim Museum exhibit of Sarah Sze’s art work which is half digital and half traditional art.
So spatial video and spatial photographs are simply a new way of responding to the world around us, a way that I am just discovering. Now that we can see in a virtual way and respond in a virtual way these new conventions may take over.
But I don’t know what the conventions are. I know what the elements of my photographing and the kinds of photography that touches me are: subject that touches me, Good light, good background, sharp focus, good composition and so on. But I don’t know what the elements of a spatial photograph are. It could be that is is the spacing between close and far that is most important, certainly the direction of the light source will matter in a different way, it could be that movement will matter. I simply don’t know.
One thing that I am guessing matters the most is my feelings about the subject. I have the feeling that spatial photograph will have its greatest impact by enhancing your emotional connection to the subject. It will be a way to remember grandchildren and family gatherings and shared events, anything in which our emotional connection is what is most important. Somehow I think composition will be hard to manage in 3D and that sharpness and the other elements of a standard flat photograph will matter less.
But I don’t know. I still feel lost as you probably do if you have tried to follow my stumbling along.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 