Part 19 (1/2)
For as long as visual experience was confined to one's li tribes, the visual could not serve as auniverse of existence Language resulted from the need to surpass the lienerate choices The only viable alternative adopted was the abstract ie of the phonetic convention, which was easier to carry from one world to another, as, for instance, the Phoenicians did Each alphabet is a condensed visual testie and its concrete practical s the written language back to its oral life, but in a tamed version Whether the Sumerian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, Latin, or Slavic alphabet, the letters are not neutral signs for abstract phonetic language They sunition; they are related to anthropologic experience and to cognitive processes of abstracting The s, of letters and combinations of letters and numbers, of shapes, symmetry, etc are all present With alphabets and numbers the abstract nature of visual representation took over the phonetic quality of language The concreteness of pictorial representation, along with the encoded elements (what is the experience behind a letter? a nu?), sie literate (or illiterate) person This is part of the broader process of acculturation-that is, breaking through experiences of language Experts in alphabets show us the levels at which the inificant in themselves Nevertheless, their alphabetic literacy is as relevant to writing as ood description of the various kinds of wheels is relevant to theand the use of autoes results froencies of huy In previous chapters, solobal scale of our activity and existence; 2
the diversityto this globality; 3
the dynaly mediated, human interaction; 4
the need to optih levels of efficiency; 5
the need to overcoe; 6
the non-linear, non-sequential, open nature of huh the new scale of humankind
The list is open-ended The uuments should be construed as a blank and non-critical endorsees We know that we cannot pursue theoretic work exclusively with ie) cannot be reached with ies are factual, situational, and unstable They also convey a false sense of democracy Moreover, they materialize the shi+ft fro a literacy-based deter, embodied, for instance, by the market or by the new means and methods of human interaction However, until we learn all there is to know about the potential of in, chances are that we shall not understand their participation in thinking and in other traditionally non-ies are very powerful agents for activities involving human emotions and instincts They shy away froes is different fro huery has a protean character Ies not only represent; they actually shape, fornitive processes of association are better supported visually than in language Through iiven the identity which they cannot experience at the abstract level of acculturation through language The world of avatars, dynaraphic representations of a person in the virtual universe of networks, is one of concreteness The individuals literally reue with others
Within a given culture, ies relate to each other In the multitude of cultures within which people identify theainst the background of globality, the experience of iration Distinctions carry the identifiers of the encultured huration is probably best exee of teleconnections and tele-viewing, of Internet and World Wide Web interactions
The characteristics of iiven here so far need to be related to the perspective of changes brought about by iies Otherwise, we could hardly coes that make literacy useless, or better yet, that result in the need for complementary partial literacies
The mechanical eye and the electronic eye
The photo ca are products of the civilization of literacy in anticipation of the civilization of illiteracy The metaphor of the eye, manifest in the optics of the lens and the mechanics of the camera, could not entirely support new human perceptions of reality without the participation of literacy Caround of literacy and literacy-based space representations The entire discussion of the possibilities and liun shortly after the first photographic i on in our day-is an exercise in analytical practice
Soht; others asThey doubted whether there was room for creativity in its use, but never questioned its documentary quality: shorthand for descriptions difficult, but still possible, in writing The wider the fra the caraphy proved This applies to photography in journalism and science, as well as in personal and faes started to substitute for words, and literacy progressively gave way to iery in a variety of new human experiences related to space, movement, and aspects of life otherwise not visible
Testih the photographic caer, richer, and more authentic than the words one could write about the saraphs of the Paris sewer system-the latter a subject of ht-exe could capture the visible without changing it into words or obscure diagra was an interpreted representation, not only in the sense of selection-what to draw-but also in defining a perspective and endowing the i way to go before the same interpretive quality was achieved, and even then, in view of the y, it was quite difficult to define as added to as photographed, and why
Today's cameras-from the disposables to the fully auto we have to know to operate them There is no need to be aware of the eye e with the advent of electronic photography-and even less of what diaphrag to photography and the practical experience of autoer atravel, fanificance Thus photographic iuistic descriptions and becaht sound, a camera turns into an extension of our eyes (actually, only one), easier to use than language, and probably e all set for the generation of visual sentences If scientific use of photography were not available, a great deal of effort would be necessary to verbally describe what ies from outer space, from the powerful electronic microscope, or from under the earth and under water, reveal to us In Leonardo da Vinci's tiination!
The camera has a built-in space concept, probably e has This concept is asserted and eeometry of the lens and is reflected in soes They are, mainly, two- dimensional reductions of our three-diht, fily and , but primarily by physical properties of the lens used Once our spatial concept i was e the lens, to le, zoom) to functions related to visual experiences
We were also able to introduce an element of time control that helped to capture dynaht about by Polaroid's concept of almost instant delivery of prints It is with this concept-coraphic representation into one and, in initial develop copies-that we reached a new phase in the relation between literacy and photography As we know, the traditional camera came with the implicit machine-focused conversation: What can I do with it? The Polaroid concept changed this to a different query: What can it do for e of emphasis corresponds to a different experience with the raphy from some of the constraints of the systeraphic knowledge and the selection raphers, persons who constitute their identity in a new practical experience ”What can it do?” refers to knowledge embodied in the hardware The advertisee: ”Hold the picture in your hand while you still hold the memory in your heart” As opposed to a written record, an instant ie is meant for a short ti
A oes electronic, and in particular, digital Both elees in the input on the result, and the quality aspect of digital vs analog-are reflected in digital photography I insist on this because of the new condition of the ie it entails and our relation to the real, and printing es could not be used with the sa, and could not be transmitted the way the voice is When we found ways to have voice travel at speeds faster than that of sound, by electronetic waves used in telephone or radio transe, but at the sae of soraphy accoes
A written report froh not to trans the event reported Connected to a network, an electronic cae prepared for printing
The understanding of the iital co before the computer was invented, requires a much lower social investment than literacy The coe to transenerate an electronic sie shop, we get colorful prints and the shi+ny CD-ROM froe can be recalled on a video screen or further processed on our coe as testie as pretext for new experiences-mediu, andsituations- transactions, exchange of information, conflicts-better than words can They are free of the extra burden words bear and allow for global and detailed local interpretation Electronic processing of digital photography supports coes in view of unprecedented hu such functions The raphic ca flat Unfortunately, but by no accident, this es on the coether by the conventions of raphy can be networked and endoith dynaraphy h, in respect to its incipient literate phase, is that we can build 3D cameras, that is, technical beasts with two eyes (and if need be, with er liies of representation
Who is afraid of a loco in the direction of the spectatorspictures were first shown to the public Movee, captured on fil the borderline between reality and the newly established convention of cineraphic expression In the movies of the silent era, the literacy-based realise- actually an illustration of the script-successfully co the sound of dialogue The experience of literacy and that of writing ned with close attention to visual details, could be understood without the presence of the word, because of the shared background of language The convention of cinee on which the projection of es takes place Humor was the preferred structure, since the mechanical reproduction of y and lack of sound, a coue Everyone was looking forward to the day when ie and sound would be synchronized, when color uraphic human experience, an experience doe as a synchronizing device, while the mechanics of cameras and projectors took care of the optical illusion