Assignment 4 planning (part 4) - thoughts on objectivity

Objectivity, ethics and understanding – ongoing thoughts, ideas and ramblings....

Documentary

Accepting that the term "documentary" can be applied to just about everything – The Indian Evidence Act 1872 (passed during the time of the British Raj) states “any substance on which matter has been expressed or described can be considered a document, provided that the purpose of such expression or description is to record the matter”, this act is still in use today and (with support from other acts) covers the use of electronic media to ‘record matter’.

The oldest English law I've found dates back to 1960, however, the current legislation is the Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 and pretty much follows the same route as the IEA.

In other words, as long as the photographer’s intent was to document the situation (record matter) then whatever was captured is officially a document. The next and most important clause is that the ‘record’ is only acceptable as long as it was made without the intention to deceive! Therefore, a personal record of events – to the best of my knowledge – is perfectly acceptable as long as the intention is not to deceive.

  

Near documentary

This goes back to the blurring of boundaries between genres and the need for artists and curators to define art in what have now become woefully inadequate pigeonholes. I find it difficult to believe that prefacing the documentary genre with 'near' provides any additional credibility. I would even go as far as to suggest it moves documentary - as a whole - further away from a robust and trust-worthy practice and a significant step closer to digital art.

Jeff Wall, Tom Hunter, Cindy Sherman, Mohamed Bourouissa, plus many more, are considered to be ‘near' documentarians because they recreate real situations (that have happened or could happen) or re-produce famous historic art – re-stage it - and capture it in camera. 

Reconstruction is a standard methodology used by the police during an investigation; this reconstruction is often recorded and used as reference material. If reconstruction can be used and recognised in criminology, I see no reason why it should not be used by photographers and accepted as documentary. I question the need for the prefix ‘near’ as long as the methodology of reconstruction is clear and there is no intent to deceive.

However, re-producing famous works of art, for me this is much more of a grey area. Painting is art, especially portraits, and it is understood that the artist captured on canvass only what he wanted to capture and what he deemed 'suitable' to optimise the composition. Therefore, it cannot be considered a document. Thus, any re-production of the work of art can only 'document' the art and not the 'scene' behind the art.

Objectivity

What would ‘true’ objectivity look like? Would all images of 'something' look the same? Could there actually be a single way to see something? As humans, we are undoubtedly pack animals, but at the same time thrive on being individuals - this is why the concept of "assimilation” is so terrifying.

ASIDE: I am less certain of this view point with the younger generation. Their continual connection to their friends, acquaintances and the world in general via social media and the web makes this an interesting topic for debate.

In order for us to maintain our individualism we require input from different sources so that we can sort, select and discard, enabling us to form new opinions as circumstances change. I believe, this element of our psyche means that if we were presented with only one view point, (after a time) we would reject it completely and search for alternatives.

When we are depicting a situation, why is it so important to take, to achieve, to provide an objective view?

Objective - not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

Subjective - based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

Referring to the definitions above I would suggest this it is virtually impossible to represent any situation from a completely non-emotional and unbiased point-of-view; even when dealing only in facts, what is left out is just as telling as what is included. Is our search for objectivity, actually a search for truth? Going back to the start of this post, is our obsession for objectivity, just a need to know that we are not being deceived?

We know that images are not objective, but are determined by the photographer’s cultural background, beliefs, intentions and preconceptions; does this mean we must assume that they are a lie and that by default the photographer’s intention is to deceive?

I do not believe we can turn art or documentary or journalism into a simple binary condition - right or wrong; if we do, we lose our ability to discern and make decisions for ourselves. Assuming we finally manage to achieve objectivity, what happens next? How do we ensure the audience approaches the ‘situation’ from a non-emotional and unbiased point-of-view?

Objectivity versus subjectivity

How do we go about selecting the images we take? As Miranda Gavin stated in her interview (Chapter 1, Exercise 1) "[all] topics have been covered before, so people are having to look at new ways to show them". In other words we need a new perspective, thus objectivity is out! To be in with a chance of publication, photographers are looking at existing 'art' making subjective judgements as to what's good and what's not and then further applying their own slant (knowledge, experience and prejudices) on the images they want to take before even leaving the house.

At the same time, the world - people, places, politics - is constantly changing, is constantly in flux. Each new experience changes (or not) our own point-of-view, similarly it changes (or not) other peoples point-of-view and therefore how we behave and interact towards each other. So, just because the topics have been covered before doesn't mean that they will have the same impact the next time around.

Accepting objectivity is out, how do we openly communicate our subjectivity to our audience and ensure we do not deceive them?

Ethics next..