Digi-photo's and sentimentality follow-up

This is a follow-up to my first post on why low-res digital photography won't be sentimentalized. Here is a good article from nytimes.com about [hipsters] buying/using old typewriters: http://goo.gl/R0dd0. (Be sure to check out all pages/pics and captions - also notice the 'hipstamatic' filters on the pics.) 

Image Credit: Marcus Yam for The New York Times

I don't think such a trend will translate to low-res digital photography when holographic photography (or whatever is next) comes out to replace 2D-digital. Maybe there will be a desire for 'good old' screen-based digital imagery, but I doubt it will be for pixellated photographic images.  Again, I'm just not convinced that low resolution photography defines an era, generation, or particular "feel".  I could be wrong, and younger generations may be thinking in terms of 2-3 year (or shorter) cycles/trends while I'm thinking in terms of 5-10 (or more) years.
Also, there is a real difference in sentimentalizing something compared to being into something because its 'retro' or arcane, or even worse, ironic. If a 2001 plastic HP camera ever becomes a fetishized object, it will be due to the irony of it ever having existed in the first place. (Trust me, I will get to irony and why it must die [or at least fade] soon.)
Retro and archaic things may possess an air of beauty or idealism even by those who never experienced them first hand - think typewriters, art deco, and Renaissance Fair.  To truly sentimentalize something though, the romanticized feeling for the object, memory or time must be personal, otherwise, it is merely fetishization.

Another Critique of Judgment

Aesthetic judgment is at least partially separate from the idea of taste.

Taste refers to the reception of a stimulus, the sensation it illicits, and its immediate bodily acceptance or rejection.  Taste has to do with biology, for the most part it is "natural," if by natural we mean immediately known, consciously pondered as briefly as possible, to the point that it seems that no thought is given to such a decision.

Aesthetics, or at least what aesthetics has become, is the contemplation of what kind of sensation should be the result of any such stimulus.  It has more to do with sociology and psychology, in that aesthetic decisions are made based not only on immediate sensation, but through a filtering of the perceived personal and social implications involved with (dis)liking something. It may be that Aesthetics rests fully in the Symbolic order, while taste is more 'Real,' in a Lacanian sense.

There are times of conflation (a type of honesty, perhaps) when taste and aesthetics overlap. The easiest example to help explain this is food.  Essentially every young person likes the way sugar tastes, thus it is in good taste to have candies and confections.  At this time, taste and aesthetics coincide.  As people get older, the social and personal pressures of body image and health, and all the rules that come with it, may alter their aesthetic decisions of sweets, to the point where they no longer like them. Of course, this example can be made infinitely more complicated by slightly increasing the complexity of the situation.

Now the question remains, what is the nature of this alienation? Is there more truth in the aesthetic judgment or the taste judgment?  Is the most truth arrived at when taste and aesthetics overlap? (Is there any truth at all or just fleeting thoughts/feelings?)

{Lame conclusion: I think both are important in their own right, and the real importance is in reinstating (or implementing) the difference in these two words, so that when critiquing a work of art (or anything), one can distinguish between the guttural/emotional response and the intellectual response.}

Why do We Like Shiny Stuff?

What is it that draws us to shiny things? Its doesn't seem logical to think we began liking diamonds, gold and other polished metals and jewels because of their rarity.  It seems logical that we liked shiny things, then the more rare a particular shiny thing was, the more valuable it became... (I'll get to value some other time.)

I think that some people, then, now, and in between, who happened to ponder this question may assume that there is some sort of energy, latent or active, potential or kinetic, present in such entities.  In various cults and religions there is power given to the crystalline form, and those things which have such form.

But can we still make such statements in todays cynical, scientific age?  I think not; my best guesses derive from psychological and evolutionary theories.

I think the most logical way to explain our interest in shiny things is evolutionary (biologically or socially.) Clean, drinkable water is shiny - its surface reflects light - so it catches our eye from a distance.  It makes sense that somehow there is a genetic predisposition to shiny things, such that those animals with such a disposition are more adept at finding water - thus better adapted toward survival.  This might be testable to see if other animals (esp. other primates) have an affinity for shiny stuff.

Another explanation, that is not too different from the first, comes from a more social/psychological way of thinking. Eyes, healthy eyeballs, are shiny (that kind of 'clear' reflective shiny that clean water has.)  Further, eyes have a high priority for humans, as they are the sensory receptor that has the most advantageous distance to time ratio (the receive stimulation from the farthest away stimuli the fastest - essentially at the speed of light.) So to mate with an other that has healthy eyes is again evolutionarily proper.  

Narcissus, Carravaggio (circa 1597-1599)

In addition, the eyes have the ability to return a gaze - to set in motion our socially interactive self. {This can and will be given more thought.}  Finally, and to be fully synthative, the eye can see its own reflection in water (or other shiny surfaces.)  This subject creating/affirming gaze was given paramount importance by Jacques Lacan in his Mirror Phase. I will definitely return to these ideas on later posts, in relation to Lacan, the story of Narcissus, Michel Foucault, Lewis Carroll, and possibly others.

Stop being Creative!

For at least as long as Modernism (whatever that is) has been around, the idea of a creative individual has held an important role in culture (and in effect, society.)
There are numerous writings on the importance of the creative individual and 'genius'- Kant's Critique of Pure Judgment and the various writings of Clement Greenberg. In the latter half of the Twentieth Century people began to downplay or outright deny individuality (individual subjectivity), genius, and the creative act - Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, etc. I have addressed this at length in my essay Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. I will not go into it too far, but to briefly recap, either everything is unoriginal because it is only a combination of other preexisting things, or everything is original because each unit/section of space-time is singular. In either case originality is meaningless (in terms of value.) Also, that creativity is reduced to the combination of preexisting ideas or things, so it,too is devalued. In reference to the common Kantian definition of genius, a lack of originality and creativity means the unavailability of genius.
So, if these three things are inconsequential, to what can we attribute the value of the Art Act? Only exactly what it is; synthesis.
One of the most important philosophical acts (esp in Continental Philosophy) is dialectical movement - the synthesizing of a thesis with its antithesis to come to a more clear (truthful) understanding of the situation (dilemma) at hand. As I allude to in Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, what we think of as a creative act is a dialectical act, which is ever so similar to the evolutionary act - the very basis of 'Nature'.
This leads me to believe that a very basic and common definition of Art holds true: Art is an act of replicating Nature. {I can't figure out if that is Modern, Postmodern, or something else - but it does seem a bit conservative in may ways.}
Well what does all this mean? That is the most important question.
Meaning is a funny thing to define, but here is a short sweet one: meaning is the purpose {circular, I know} given to a pattern such that its future is determined by its past. For example, the meaning of life is to create life...
Synthesis is a way to create meaning out of (usually) incongruous things/ideas. It literally combines two things that each could be true (have reliable meaning) into another thing that seems more true - like laying two patterns over each other to create a third, more intricate or more simple pattern. This third pattern is thought of as 'new' or 'valuable' due to the uncanniness, inevitability, or seemingly unlikeliness of its existence - all of which is relative to the subject observing such patterns and synthesis.
So if newness and originality are only relative and inconsequential, what do we do about "creativity"? It is just a word, so we could change its definition, but that is unlikely, so I propose we begin using a different word to describe the Art Act: synthesis (instead of creation). And to avoid the confusion that would arise from calling and artist synthetic, we should call him/her Synthative.

Why pixellation in digital photography will not be sentimentalized

We are already seeing the admiration of things past, sentimentality, for things like early web design/graphics and the 4 bit and 8 bit video and computer graphics of the past, but have yet to really see any similar attachment to low quality photography. Why is there little or no sentimental aesthetic value to a pixellated photo (640x480 or lower)?
My guess would be that the turn over rate of the technology of digital cameras is so fast, that there is not enough time for a "generation" to experience one level of sophistication long enough to claim it as its own.
Generation Y has an attachment to Nintendo and Sega Genesis level graphics, as they were the realization of our dreams of owning an arcade quality gaming system in our home. Thus, Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog hold a dear place in our hearts. The older in the generation wax poetic about Atari or Commodore 2600, while the younger end hold the 8 bit era as dear as a "wubby" or first Winnie the Pooh doll.
The only way that I can see low quality images given sway is if there are enough people who have images saved from early cell phone/camera phones - which I seriously doubt.
As much of our existence becomes screen-based, the very low quality of a 1.3 megapixel camera is still enough to give a clear image on-screen. The lack of quality of early (and present) digital imagery does not come from a lack of pixels, but from insufficient quality in the lenses and other mechanical light capturing devices.
Although there may be a time when people think it is low res images that they reminisce about, it will actually only be for low quality optics and the memory of a simpler time when quality didn't matter (to the sentimentalizing individual).
On an adjacent note, I do think there will be a real sentimental attachment to pixellated video because of the long run that non-hd digital camcorders, webcams and Youtube have had (and are still having.)

Welcome to Imcompletely Wrong

Imcompletely Wrong is a blog where I shell out ideas as they come to me.  The majority of posts will be sing the songs of Fine Art and critical theory, but will often hit random notes. The ideas will be conveyed as incomplete thoughts; complete only in the sense that I have run out of time, come to a logical absurdity, or a(n il)logical stopping point. They may be either completely or incompletely wrong, but just as "Imcompletely"  is spelled 91.7% correct, these ideas will have some variation of truth and non-truth in their content. 
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