The Power of Photography and Visual Communication in the Information Age
In September of 2006, the Pingyao International Photography Festival (PIP) will present the first ¡°Pingyao International Forum on Photography,¡± featuring Chinese, North American, Latin American, and European critics, scholars, and photographers discussing the major questions confronting photography today.
The purpose of the Forum is to seek to promote, through a high-end academic dialogue among experts, a pioneering and interactive exchange of views between the Chinese photographic community and the world photographic community. Since the beginning of the new millennium, as China was experiencing the rapid and bewildering changes of conversion to a market economy, the effects of globalization, and the digitization of imagery and transmission, little attention has been paid to the theory and critique of Chinese photography in its homeland.
Even as Chinese photography expanded at a brisk pace, neither practice nor critique kept up with contemporary photographic thinking in the rest of the world. The significance of the Forum is that the Chinese photographic community can participate in exchanges with people at the cutting edge of Western thought and practice, thereby widening vision on both sides and perhaps also widening or  reassessing practices and goals.
The Forum will invite Ms. Vicki Goldberg, who is an American critic of photographic culture with an international influence, and Mr. Robert Pledge, who is an expert in international photojournalism to be keynote speakers. They will focus on three major areas: the power of photography and visual communication, the state of photojournalism in recent years, and the intersection of photography and art. Each of the three panels will be composed of experts from China and abroad who will
engage in in-depth discussions on these topics from national and international perspectives.
Like Susan Sontag, Vicki Goldberg is a veteran writer, critic and curator with an international audience. She has written many books on photography and was given an Infinity Award for ¡¡¡¡(Robert Pledge)¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡writing by the International Center of Photography in 1997. Four of her books that have had major significance for the field will form the basis for the Forum discussions: Light Matters , 2005; American Photography: A Century of Images , 1999 (co-authored with Rob Silberman); The Power of Photography: How Photographs Changed Our Lives , 1991; Margaret Bourke-White: A Biography , 1987.)
The topics of the Forum will be based on the above four books. As the main speaker of the Forum, Ms. Goldberg will refer to the relevant history of photography and to recent developments in the United States and the West. Her remarks, and the panel discussions, will explore the evolving roles played by photography in this world of globalization and ever-changing communication technology. Ms. Goldberg's informed insights, and those of panelists from different disciplines and
countries, will doubtless be useful to the Chinese
photographic community as it copes with the challenges of this new era.
As President of the Contact Press Images and an experienced curator, Robert Pledge was the main speaker for the International Week of Press Photography in 1988 in Beijing . He will curate a photo exhibition entitled ¡°Contact 30: the Art of Photojournalism¡± in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Contact Press Images. Once again, he is going to provide the Chinese photographic community with a specific example of how to operate in the field of world photojournalism. He will be engaged in a discussion with photographers from China and abroad who are interested in the developments of world photojournalism.
The power of photography and visual communication in the information age
From its very beginnings, photography profoundly affected communication and the dissemination of information, and it has continued to do so despite, or because of, radical changes in technology and culture. History, science , and news underwent major alterations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries under the influence of the new medium, and in the twentieth, photographs and photographically derived imagery became crucial components of information and entertainment. The mere fact that some 8,000 photographs will be on view at PIP is one indication of how urgent photographic expression and communication still are to both artists and reporters and how important it is to examine the nature of photography's power -- or its weaknesses.
Discussion will center on the variety of ways that photography has influenced society and events, with specific examples from the medium's history, and will address the transformations that influence has undergone as technological progress and social shifts have continually remade the world.
It will immediately be apparent that to limit photography's roles to propaganda and entertainment, the two purposes traditionally assigned to the medium in China, denies it a good deal of its potential. Every country uses photography as entertainment and propaganda, but in most places with a history of interaction with the medium, photography's protean nature is reflected in a broad range of possibilities and functions.
The panel will address the impact of the digital revolution on analog photography and photographic imagery generally, as well as the reconfiguration of communications in several media. For some time now, pundits have been proclaiming the death of photography, but its ghost seems to be stubbornly, and extremely, active, even if transformed. If there is a crisis in photography, as others contend, it is located in a widespread distrust of the camera's reports and an unease with the narrowing gap between reality and fiction, honesty and fakery, an unease that is not confined to photography alone.
1) Photography has been a powerful tool for culture and documenting history. How should we assess the positive and negative effects of photography on society? How is its role changing in the 21st century? What are the key factors?
2) How should we assess the impacts of digital photography on photographers? Is it giving them new possibilities for expression and exploration, or is it hurting their credibility and their ability to be in-depth commentators?
3) With the rapid development of information and communication technologies, the World Wide Web is becoming a new phenomenon of information and communication. What will happen to print media as a result? What are the new possibilities for communication brought about by the Web? Are they being realized?
4) The World Wide Web has given rise to the phenomenon of sending images by individuals via email, hand-held device and blog. How has the phenomenon of sending images by individuals via these means created a new environment for communications? What are social and cultural significances of this unprecedented communication of images?
5) The scale of communication in the information age has brought about the globalization of mass communication. What could be social and cultural consequences of this phenomenon? Does this bring new understandings among cultures or more confusion?
2. Contact Press Images and photojournalism since the end of the Cold War
Founded in 1976, nine months after the end of the war in Vietnam , Contact Press Images has remained for the last three decades among the world's preeminent photographic agencies, representing such illustrious practitioners as David Burnett, Alon Reininger, Annie Leibovitz and Don McCullin.
Using the examples of how Contact Press Images operates and how celebrated photographers work, this topic aims to understand and analyze the status and development of world photojournalism since the end of the Cold War. As a point of reference, it is meant to determine the difference between documentary photography and photojournalism and help Chinese photojournalists know better how to explore and dig deeper into a photographic theme in such a rapidly transforming society as China and how to integrate themselves into the mainstream of world photojournalism.
The discussion will also center on the role and function of photography within the printed media today and society at large and evaluate how they arebeing shaped by the ever evolving digital technologies and massive economic ¡°globalization¡±.
1) Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, mainstream media has turned more of its attention to covering celebrity news and entertainment, paying less attention to the  stories related to ¡°human conditions¡±. How are photojournalists able to cope with this new reality?
2) As information and communication technologies develop very fast, methods of communication have been greatly diversified, resulting in a deep crisis for the print medium and a great pressure on photojournalists. Under such circumstances, how can photojournalists deal with these issues?
3) With the revolution of digital photography in full swing, how can the market for press photography expand? How can a picture agency be managed for it to cope with the ever more competitive world market of ¡°infotaiment¡± imagery?
4) Since more photojournalists are involved inlarge documentary projects, could the genre become themainstay of photojournalism? producing
¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ (Vicki
Goldberg)
5) In order to attract readers' attention and expand communication, more subjective styles have been accepted by mainstream media in the USA , which have traditionally made claim to objectivity. What does this trend indicate?
3. The art of photography and photography as art
Photography is an essential a part of the art world in the West today. There are more than 100 galleries that exhibit photographs in New York alone £¬ but young people are not always aware that for most of its history the medium was not considered an art at all. The keynote speaker will briefly discuss the history of the controversy over whether photography was an art or merely a mechanical craft. In many respects, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, America played a major part in photography's climb up the art ladder to a prize position in museums and private collections. Early in the
last century, Alfred Stieglitz spearheaded the medium's struggle to achieve status and respect, but it was many decades before museums and a large public
fully accepted his evaluation. The contribution painters and other artists made to a shift in attitude in the 1960s and the establishment of a market for photography in the 1970s will be discussed, as will the current diversity of practices among photographic artists. A couple of widely known photographers will speak about their own work in depth, and scholars and editors will share their thoughts about the contemporary scene.
In light of the fact that salon photography is the mainstay of Chinese photography and considered the ultimate expression of photographic art, and that more and more conceptual artists in China are using photography as their medium, this part of the program will explore the wide potential for artistic expression in photography beyond traditional pretty photos. The cultural significance of photography's invasion of the art world, the astonishing run-up in prices and the commercialization of art photography will all be topics for discussion.
1) The revolution of digital photography has generated structural changes and impacts on contemporary art. Photographic images are now being used more by contemporary artists as a major element in their arts. What effects has this phenomenon brought to the contemporary art scene?
2) The mass media in the information age, in tandem with globalization, are making use of digital technology to promote consumerism and to commercialize art, reinforced by globalization. Is this an irresistible cultural trend?
3) Contemporary art in the world has become more diversified. The traditional aesthetic consensus and established standards of appreciation are also losing ground. What do you think of the confusion created by this ¡°pluralization¡± of contemporary art?
4) In recent years, more attention is being shifted to the contemporary photographic art in Europe where photography was invented than to the United States which has been regarded as the center of world photography in the 20 th century. Why has this phenomenon taken place?
5) Photography was only able to establish itself as a separate category of art in the 20 th century. With the development of digital photographic revolution, by borrowing more photographic images for their creation of art than ever before, contemporary artists have confused this separate category photographers have worked so hard to establish. Do you think that photography would still able to maintain its independent position as a separate category of art? Could it be reduced to being a popular tool for contemporary art? |
