Before going in to work, cont'd pt2

Flickr
shared memories
fictionalized narratives
empathy
presentation through editing
some ideas associated with web 2.0 culture

Fictionalized narratives-

One of the interesting things to me about Flickr is the anonymity. In other mediums such as Youtube, there can be celebrity or recognition of a character that is being presented to you. In flickr there is so much plurality among users and images that the focus is not so much on the creator but rather on the content of the image. The subject is perceiving what you are seeing on the screen and evaluating it (can be ranked amongst many criterion, creativity, wonder, captivity, etc) as an image.
The images on flickr have layers of access to "truth" into what we are actually seeing. The more you can confirm about one or various scenes the more you can assert the validity of what you believe is going on (fictionalized) versus what actually did or what the photographer was trying to present. Based upon the amount of information you are given you try to draw a conclusion as to how to evaluate or process that information. An example of this is the presentation of one single image, many related images in the album, any other albums belonging to the user (in your mind the persona behind these scenes, the proprietor), and any other information including titles, username, activity on flickr, etc. All of these add to information that goes beyond the information given by the image you are looking at, a need to acquire information.

I initially thought of feeling empathy for certain typical scenes and on a varying level, any image we see (this could be a tool to analyze and process what we're seeing, a mirror to see missed aspects of what might be going on), but I think there is a few more issues to consider. I am not sure on the final word on what "empathy" is and even after looking in merriam-webster and on wikipedia what I see empathy as is the recognition of (mainly bodily) emotions through visual cues and the ability to compare self and the depicted event as three entities (you, me, you b/c me).
But in flickr I see a difference. Most times I consider empathy there is the sense that even though I am juxtaposing something I am automatically processing with what I inherently know or have experienced (implicit) there is a sense that I cannot "truthfully" determine the most logical explanation of what is going on due to certain factors I am unsure about. I spend 20 seconds identifying in basic generalized aspects of the photo (progressively becoming more acute until conflicts arise and I eventually settle on some temporal conclusion) but there is a rift between what this image was as a life occurrence in time and space, and what I allow myself to create out of the 2d image in front of me. I encounter the image as primarily mine to do as I please based upon how the proprietor (the person who uploaded this particular image, even a famous or borrowed one, has done it on their account and this is different from seeing it in Art in America or anywhere but here and now) yet I have no responsibility to adhere to any obligation that this is somebody else's life, the act of looking void of what the scene actually was, I am able to empathize based upon MY desired understanding of what is, has or even will happen. This is where the "documentation" aspect of photography is lost and since there is no base to locate these image(s) beyond the user's collection of photos I create to understand. It is possible here that the feeling I am left with of a light and airy uncertainty is the lack of substance with which to attach this image and context to a real occurrence other than my own.

Okay I am going to stop here and finish up the last two points later and maybe post an article about how we are able to understand things through perception, even when the things we are are perceiving are not material. Night.

Before going in to work.

Okay so my last major endeavor in art was going through all the photos I could find that either (a) had myself in the picture or (b) I had taken the picture itself...somehow related to me/myself, but no incredibly important.
I selected about 50+ picture I thought I might be able to find on Flickr.com either b/c the subject matter was common (little kid eating corn on the cob- ended up using that one) or I selected ones that while uncommon, they had easily identifiable "tags" associated with the picture (redhead + aviators, or rabbit + hotair + balloon, etc). I was able to find about 20 pictures that almost mirrored my own photomemories.


For this semester I want to continue the flickr culture and all that it has to offer. Some things I've noticed are shared memories, fictionalized narratives, empathy, presentation through editing, and some ideas associated with web 2.0 culture.

My current technique for finding interesting photos on flickr is to constantly refresh the "most recent page" which can have anywhere from 800-5,000 new "uploads" in the past minute. This, in my opinion, is the most randomized and varied sampling. With the exception of time and date (flickr is world wide and different types of people could possibly upload at set times) I can get a nice range of subject matter. Although whether 2am on a tuesday or 3pm on a saturday (now) there are universals that are documented in snapshots.
These "shared memories" are intensely personal to the owner who participated in that experience, documented by the photograph. A note on experience the actual event depicted is that although we can empathize with a person and imagine based upon our experience what it must have been like to be there at that moment, no amount of accompanying narrative (text, titling, or a grouping of photos...would video matter?) can close the gap that actually owning the memory that the photo represents bridges. This also goes viceversa when we try to connect to others by setting up various cues to present or display a desired emotion or scene.

This brings me to my next point of fictionalized narratives in that because we are not the proprietors of the memory of the actual event, we use associative cues to create our own narratives to what we see, with the lacking information being fictionalized for our own interpretation.
Okay off to work, but will edit or continue from here later...

Created a blog mainly as a way to, while surfing the net, be able to write down thoughts I wanted to use later without opening a new document in word. Too much trouble for a random thought.

Okay so I am trying to gather some loose concepts (very rough draft) for an area to work in when the new semester kicks in, and this will be my thoughtlist for the time being.

Let me stop right here and introduce myself if anyone will be reading this (haven't thought that far ahead yet):
I am 22 yo and currently live in Champaign-Urbana and I am about to start my supersenior year in college as an art student. My major is sculpture but I try everything from photo, to electronics, to performance. First idea in the next post...