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29 Aug 08

"Image Disembodiment?", by Bernard Languillier

Found via ...? Kazys Varnelis?, Geoff at BLDGBLOG? (can't place it, but at some smart blog I read), an essay by Bernard Languillier about how the digital process is changing our relationship with printed images. It's a to-read-later piece for me right now - haven't had time to read it thoughtfully yet, but it promises some compelling insights (something a bit better than Emily Gould's recent piece in MIT's Technology Review, "It's not a revolution if nobody loses," which ostensibly bases itself on Walter Benjamin's pivotal essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction").

www.luminous-landscape.com/...disembodiment.shtml - Preview

embodiment disembodiment photography imagery digital_pictures printing bernard_languillier

many of us still feel the need
to somehow return our images to the physical world they originated from
by printing them
the death of Paper.
9 more annotations...
- Photographers will be able to create
  their images in the very environment in which their customers will in the
  end view the photograph. Standards will be defined that specify how a virtual
  fine print should be created for ultimate viewing I various possible customers
  configurations.
  - - intriguing (scary?) idea: that photographers / artists / producers would in future create work with consumer totally in mind -- puts a whole new (digital) spin on patronage. In Renaissance, patrons demanded artworks suited to specific settings/ purposes, but not perhaps as micro-managed as this...? - on 2008-09-15
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- Beyond technology though, this evolution
  will only be possible because of a much deeper change in the way people
  relate with time, stability and dependence
- I see a clear trend in which people have been taught to accept
  various aspects of their lives to be less permanent than they were in the
  past. This will reduce the need for images that have to be here to stay,
  in other words reduce the need for archival quality in photograph embodiments.
- Another key enabler will be changes in the
  way people deal with the concept of property.
- The paradigm of property
  started to vanish with software licenses in which owners became life long
  borrowers. The concept evolved with the notion of software as a service
  where the usage of software itself becomes the good being owned.
- Property becomes an instantaneous item that vanishes as time
  passes by
- I believe that a virtual fine art market
  would further accelerate and multiply creative opportunities by letting
  remote players unleash forms of artistic collaboration we are only starting
  to imagine. It does for sure extend far beyond photography.
- This along with the need to deal with more
  IT aspects as part of the fine art selling process will result in new business
  opportunities for federated online art dealership.
- This could threaten
  the survival of smaller producers. Will a few get visibility and survive
  while others cannot afford to invest in the tools and define a distribution
  network? The way shareware software is sold today provides interesting
  hints regarding suitable go to market approaches in such a context.