Home » special topics and responses » To Morgan’s “Lyotard… I think I dig him”

Getting to Know Elena

Elena, 2 months

Morgan, this idea has gotten me thinking about the ways that people use computers to construct (non-academic) knowledge. Before meeting my soon-to-be sister-in-law’s new baby, I had received dozens of emails with links to online photo albums containing pictures of her new baby. Without having met her child, these pictures were the only way I could be introduced to the new addition to their family. These pictures froze images of her sleeping, eating, crying, laughing, and playing, pictures of her in the bathtub and getting her clothes changed, pictures of her with her mom, dad, grandparents, dogs, friends, aunts and uncles, pictures of her clean and dirty, pictures of her sitting up, lying down, on her stomach, on her back, and thousands of other ones. By the time I finally did meet her, I felt like I already knew her! To what degree can images, and the transmission of those images, be responsible for making me feel like I know her? (For me, this calls up the discussions we had about the avatars.)

And, a scary thought: does this relate in some way to the Grand Canyon/Stonehenge experience? How does my seeing her before seeing her impact or alter the way I am now able to see her? To know her?

In this case, even with multitudes of pictures, and stories, and accounts, she is even more precious in person than she ever was in pictures.

Submitted by Morgan S. on Fri, 2007-02-23 20:20.
Morgan S.'s blog

Construction Through Visual Genres
mark p's picture
Submitted by mark p on Sat, 2007-02-24 09:52.

Very interesting insights Morgan. I find it interesting how the kinds of photos you're recieving appear to fall under a certain genre. The sleeping photo, the eating photo, the dirty face photo. Hell, who doesn't have the embarrassing picture of themselves as a baby somewhere-- buck naked, bare bottom up on a blanket? So not only is your experience of the new family member in someway being constructed through photos and technology, it is also being constructed through seemingly deep cultural genres of family presentation. I'm not saying this is a bad thing (and in this age of distance, thank god we have the tech we do to not miss these moments all together!) but it does make me wonder how these visual genres develop in the first place. Are we limited by our expectations of these visual genres and what would be our reaction to the subject if these photos were to defy those expectations?


How do we break with visual genre expectations?
Morgan S.'s picture
Submitted by Morgan S. on Sat, 2007-02-24 12:42.

Mark, I’m interested. In what form would you see photos that defy expectations in the way you are suggesting? I agree that photos such as these do fall under a certain genre, and yes, we all seem to be plagued by the embarrassing baby photos that are inevitably brought out the first time you bring home Mr. Right to meet mom and dad.

And when photographers stray from these norms—I’m thinking about Sally Mann—they are criticized. Mann has been the subject of very public criticism for capturing images of children, namely her own, when they are dirty, crying, and naked—in states that most people would rather her give guidance, assistance, and comfort.

I’m wondering how photos could defy visual genre expectations and still be seen as valid, and beautiful, and artful?


Disrupt This
mark p's picture
Submitted by mark p on Tue, 2007-02-27 10:46.

Well, I think your own post answers the question to a certain extent: someone (like Mann) has to recognize that the genres exist and then consciously put something in the public that purposefully challenges them. And of course, they risk being criticized in the process. Again, I'm not sure that in a family setting the genres necessarily need to be broken. They serve purposes and do set up a certain sort of community and shared experience. What would be helpful is directly confronting our reactions to the distruptions of our genre expectations in our daily lives (as opposed to within postmodern novels that only a small section of the population actually reads). At the very least, a conscious awareness of why the distrubtions bother or alert us could make us value even more the comfortable expectations we've come to enjoy . . . sheesh, aren't you suppose to get more cynical with age? What's wrong with me?


Traditions aren't inherently bad
Adryan's picture
Submitted by Adryan on Thu, 2007-03-01 11:14.

Babies need to be cute. that's just the way it is. It works.
Babies in pictures are nothe same as other family members in pictures. But, whether we're talking about children or the quite elderly, the Aristotilian ethical education must make care an aesthetic.

Persoanlly, I don't think babies are cute and it puzzles me that this is such a hegemonic structure.