Social Media and Photography - some impressions
I really enjoyed the conference at the London College of Communication on Saturday around the theme of Social Media and Photography. It was well-attended by students and also a number of lecturers and professional photographers.
Here is a quick summary of my impressions of each session:
Lucy Soutter - opened with how she was enticed into social media by Facebook because the platform feels truly social, allowing you to see friends’ pictures and get a daily sense of what everyone you know is up to. She then discussed social media in the context of Gutenberg, communications and Marshall Mcluhan.
Alan Sekers - showed how Microsoft was developing PhotoSynth to create 3D renditions of the real world, using tagged photographs from Flickr.com. By searching all photos tagged Notre Dame on Flickr, for example, the developers could piece together different views of the world-famous site from different angles in order to create a 3D version online. Apparently, the BBC did a similar trial project but sent out one photographer to take photos of a manor house but it was evident that this very controlled project lacked the dynamism and life of the more collaborative world-wide multi-user project.
Paul Tebbs - examined the Flickr site of Miss Aniela, which starts off as a typical “what I did in my holidays” style site and has evolved to more self-conscious, arty type self-portraits. This started a debate of whether having 2 million visitors makes her work “art” and why there was no critical response on her site - and I think by “critical” they were referencing “critical art theory” rather than “yo, your site sucks” type of criticism.
Yang-May Ooi - I asked: in an online world where content is freely available and freely distributed, what value could be gained by creative artists and those working in the creative industries? I think that beyond financial value, there are other values that you can gain online if you can engage creatively using social media - these other values, like kudos, fun and creativity, can add to whatever work / product you are creating offline by increasing your exposure to a very wide audience, in particular, if you can bring people together through a sense of community and peer-to-peer engagement.
Roger Hargreaves - showed a selection of photos from Flickr as a curated exhibition of Americana. Those amateur photos blown up onto a huge screen looked like pictures in an art gallery and showed moments into American private lives. They had a haunting and strange beauty that drew you into these lives, part documentary/ photo-journalism and part intimate portraits. This prompted a debate on whether these photos could be art if they were not self-consciously referencing previous artists/ photographers before them.
Craig Smith - talked about the incident of the whale that came up the Thames earlier this year which was splashed across the BBC news pages online. The BBC, on their website, called for people to submit their photos of the whale and the public duly complied and flocked to the Thames in droves to take photos of the whale. Their presence along the river then became news in itself and the BBC then featured news items and photos of the people taking photos of the whale. His thesis was that photography is a social media in itself by being a media that can call people to action.
These notes are from memory and no doubt filtered through my non-academic appreciation of the issues. If any of the speakers happen to be reading this and would like to draw out in more detail the central theme of their talks, I would love it if you added a comment - or emailed me your remarks. In particular, if I’ve not quite summarised accurately what you said, please do let me know!
All in all, I found the day very interesting and it certainly made me think about the way I view images online and offline. It was also a privilege to have the chance to hear academics - students and lecturers - engage with each other at that thoughtful and intellectual level that is increasingly rare outside of colleges and universities.
Some photos from the day are on my ZenGuide Flickr account, for those delegates/ speakers who’d like to download them for their own albums. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get very close to the stage so the pics are not great and we didn’t manage to take pics of all the speakers as some of them found the flash photography distracting.
lccsm
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Thu, October 11th, 2007 - Author
Yang-May Ooi - Category
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October 12th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
That’s a very helpful overview, YM.
It strikes me that one of the key threads of discussion throughout the day (which you refer to above) was this question of “criticality”. In the Q&A at the end, Anne Williams reminded our photography students that a questioning, analytical (i.e. “critical”) approach is one of the most important things that we teach at the LCC. It was striking the difference between the optimistic affirmative stance of the microsoft TED video we saw (which might even be dubbed technoutopianism–the belief that technological advances are inherently positive), and the caution, concern, and even pessimism expressed by some of the speakers. To contextualise this, I would say that it is one of the key roles of the university to provide a conscience for culture and industry, to interrogate developments that may otherwise be exploited for purely commercial benefit and/or social control. If we don’t do it, who will?
It strikes me that a contrasting thread in the day was a kind of joy, wonder and amazement at some of the new forms and interactions made possible by social media.
October 13th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Thanks, Lucy, for that discussion on critical analysis. The TED presentation definitely falls into the category of “Look, new technology: this is what it can do - cool!” and you’re right that there is a place for “Hmm, but what about XXX?”. Academics and critical thinkers are good at that analytical thinking. I tend towards, “Here are the pros and here are the cons - what’s the practical way forward?”