(Kraus’s article became much too jumbled in literary theory for me by the time I reached its end, so the rest of my post may have been answered or explained to some extent within the article but I didn’t understand it enough to catch it. Basically, I may just be totally confused and have missed the points of the article, but this is me trying to make sense of what I thought it was saying.)

I don’t have a good sense of what is right and what is wrong, and I want to know what fits into these categories yet at the same time they are problematic to me. “Cindy Sherman is an artist and artists imitate reality (Universal Truth No.1), doing so through their own sensibilities, and thus adding something of themselves to it (Universal Truth No. 2)” (185). This statement, although I understand its context within the article, seems right to me. And by right, I mean it makes sense if you take out the references to universal truths and accept it as a statement for what it is, not for an example of something considered ‘not right.’ I have read the literary theorists Kraus refers to in her article and know the gist of their ideas, so I understand them, but maybe her usage of them is unclear to me. I understand the concept of the historical vs. natural that she discusses as this is an underlying facet and catalyst for theory, and I can see this quotations ‘truth’ within the example Kraus gives of the art critic buying into the myth. The confusion I have with it is its wording and what exactly is encompassed with each universal truth so I’ll break it down into its two parts and start from there.

            To me, Universal Truth No.1 refers to a non-existence of anything that can be defined as ‘reality’ so therefore no artist can imitate it. ‘Reality’ is socially constructed and therefore constitutes a history of this construct as opposed to something natural that pre-existed humankind. I agree with this, but at the same time, I would like to give the word ‘reality’ more credit than this, as its existence as a word, no matter what it may actually refer to, is a huge chunk of human consciousness. Even though ‘reality’ may not refer to anything specific because it is so subjective, I still think it can be used to represent an individual’s own set of ideas about the world in which they exist and share with others. Therefore, I find truth in the idea that artists imitate reality, mainly their own notion of reality. To go with this idea of historical vs. natural, if we are a construct of social history than what can we do but imitate it, as it has created us? If Kraus wants to get all linguistic about Cindy Sherman’s work, I find it odd that she didn’t directly clarify her statement, being understanding of the absence and deferment of the signified within language. Anyways, it seems to me as if artists can do nothing but imitate and reinterpret their own notion of reality. This is what I do. I attempt to make my ideas on my reality translatable to my audience in my own artistic work. 

            This goes into the second half of the quotation. I understand Universal Truth No. 2 to be that no artist can add something of themselves to their artwork because their artwork is essentially a product of their socially constructed lives and therefore never something individual but always a product of construct. Although I can agree with this, I still have a sense that I have some sliver of individuality in my artwork that I add to it, and this is also due to my reinterpretation and chosen representation. It’s hard for me to undermine my singular being through these ideas, which is human and constructed in itself. I’ve learned to take literary theory with a grain of salt because after all, the famous theorists must feel that they are individual in their ideas and writing even though they preach their own human construction. Kraus seems to define this truth though as relating to the myth that Sherman created her images in response to “original” film stills so that her images are a copy of their original, but done in her own interpretation. I can see this idea though as plausible and that yeah, maybe there is a ton of other stuff under the hood, but does all that hidden stuff completely disavow that she might actually be making images in a response to similar or “original” ones? I think the function of most artists is to create something out of their own interpretations of their reality that they assume has some aspect that is different or separate from what they’ve known, and consequently is in opposition and response to an original.

            So, I get a sense that Kraus is trying to explain the interpretation of Sherman’s work as separate from her but at the same time refers to her wit and intelligence in her decisions and creative choices. With this, I then want to know if we do or don’t see the “real” her within her photographs. Williamson states in her article, “…I think that this false search for the “real” her is exactly what the work is about…The attempt to find the “real” Cindy Sherman is unfulfillable, just as it is for anyone…” (173). Same as with Kraus, I want to know what Williamson evens mean by “real.” She puts it in quotations as if it isn’t necessarily referring to its socially constructed idea, but still, I want her opinion on what she considers “real” or if not, what she considers exists in place of realness. If I go along with my idea of “real” for Cindy Sherman as what she constitutes it is, then I think her realness definitely does exist within her photographs simply in the fact that she has made them. I do get though that Williamson is arguing against the idea that viewers feel like they can see the “real” her through her masquerade, meaning everything that constitutes her being as if they are her and can clarify and define it. But I mean, there’s gotta be something real within everything right? An attempt to find the real Cindy Sherman in her photographs must yield at least some ideas of her being and why not consider those real? There must exist a part of her in her images as well as examples of imitation of her reality. Right?

            Is there a difference then between her own photographs and this snapshot of her, as her?

     Jones’ article was a little hard for me to understand completely, but there was one point she made that really stuck out for me and made me consider my relationship to images of people. On p. 148 (in the reader) she states, “…we project ourselves into  the screen, becoming the person …whose image we engage or making her over in our own…image.” I’ve noticed over the course of my life (and I have considered this many times before) that after watching films I sometimes leave the theater or the living room with a weird sense that I am the main character I have been watching, or have taken on aspects of his/her personality. I almost feel as if I have participated in a life, that is my own, through them, and that somehow we are the same person. I wonder if other people get this same sort of sense, which I’m guessing they might. This feeling can linger for days, where I may think about actions of mine differently as if I were acting them through the mindset of that character, even though the action may not have changed at all. I don’t recognize this identification often, but when I do, I feel lost within it, as if I’m still stuck in the world created by the film. I think this is the reason why I have such an interest in image and in making films; I am reaching for the desire to eventually transfer myself completely into that world of my multiple selves. This realization is new for me as I think about this now, and it makes perfect sense when I remember the fact that I so desperately wanted to be an actor or a singer as a child, wanting to actually become that part of me that was created by the projection of myself onto images of people. I had only thought of these ideas before in relation to moving images, but it rings true for still images as well. Every time that I look at an image of another person, I relate to it by thinking of how I might feel if I were the person depicted. It opens a big door for me to realize this fact. I honestly feel that I get a strange sense of being a specific person or people in the situation in which they are depicted as if it were a picture of me. I can even feel my facial expression change so slightly to resemble that of the person in the frame; which must be the case with most people. This seems to be related to the mirror, literally. Because we have the ability to constantly see ourselves in mirrors, it is only natural that recognizable images of other human beings exist subconsciously to us as mirrors of ourselves. Going back to my first blog post about the overwhelming amount of digital images, and my uneasy with photographs of my friends, it makes sense to me. The other does not exist in the way that I previously thought; the term “other” refers to the double of ourselves, not something separate. This is why I dislike pictures of myself so much, unless they don’t look like me in the way that I see me. They don’t look like me in the way that I see myself in the mirror, and this bothers me to a great extent. The only pictures I have liked of myself are the ones that look the most like me as I see myself in the mirror or that look nothing like me. I took a drawing class one summer and had to create a self-portrait. This picture I drew I copied directly from what I saw in the mirror. I photographed this self-portrait and it is one of the few images I have of myself that I think actually looks like me, even though it is not a photograph in itself. 

        I have two selves, the self I know through the mirror and the self that everyone else sees, and pictures of myself remind me of this duality, making me uneasy. Because I in a sense perform what the person in the picture is performing, it gives me the uncanny feeling that I think Barthes was discussing when I try to perform what I was performing in a picture of myself. There is a recognition there that I’m reinterpreting my actions instead of reliving them. I think Jones gets at this idea in the paragraph surrounding her quote above.

            Carlson states, “Performance is always performance for someone” even when the audience may be the self. My performance in photographs is for someone (that is not myself because I am not physically taking the picture) but I feel doubled when I look at them because I become part of the audience that is not myself, and therefore am forced to consider myself as not myself. I imagine this must subconsciously affect everyone. This is why I feel better with an image of myself in the mirror that is not actually a photograph. It is an account of myself actually performing for myself alone, with no device mediating, such as a camera. 

 

I agree for the most part with Kurtz’s article but there’s one line of his that seems too decisive and less thought out for me: “It is as if Hershman, by using digital tools rather than inventing her own, has become a mainstream digital image maker” (123). When I read it, I felt the words of one of my undergraduate video teachers echo in my head about the use of digital effects in Final Cut pro; something to the tune of “only use them if you have a very specific purpose for it, that’s aware of itself.” Basically, kids had fun with the sepia tone, or the scratched film filter, or the fancy wipes for cuts, and many video projects were splattered with these effects. The problem was that they were using it just because it was there, not because they had set out in their project intending to do it. The effects were mainly just a way to gloss over the bad material they had put so little effort into in the first place. So seeing these projects, I understood, and consequently began to abhor the silly effects and filters in Final Cut. It wasn’t until I had taken a class on image manipulation that I realized part of the reason why these digital effects existed; because if used right, they can actually look good, and can be something of your own creation. It then became not a cop-out to use digital tools that you hadn’t created yourself, but it was your invention in how you chose to intricately layer them or manipulate their functions within the program. Image manipulation produces art that is aware of the fact that it’s manipulated and it then becomes how the manipulation was used, not whether or not you can hide it. So to agree with Kurtz, it is separate from “straight” photography, but I think it knows this for the most part, and it’s not trying to hide it. It becomes a process of working with a new set of tools, rather than using ones that are not yours. Did Hershman use tools that were created by her for her previous images? I find it interesting that Kurtz first mentions in the beginning of the article that she is not a photographer because of the mixed media she has within her work, and then goes on to say that she is still not a photographer, but in the sense that she has lost something. “…digital tools therefore compel us to imagine images that are not manipulated photography – not photography at all.” If the act of taking a picture with a digital camera is not considered photography, then his statement makes sense to me. 

 

            An example of a crappy digital effect (which I wouldn’t mind the doing away of) attempting to gloss over poor picture quality:

Although I would agree that this is a digital tool that's been slapped on, it's still a photograph to me.