Thursday, April 18, 2013

Photography and Surveillance


This weeks readings really reiterated how powerless we all are in comparison to figures of federal authority. It’s an interesting transition from the last couple of weeks of lectures that focused on the “othering” of marginalized groups because it illustrates that everyone is rendered powerless by governmental authority to a degree.
The debate over privacy vs. “free speech” with respect to photography is interesting and arguably fundamentally irresolvable, as it is a matter of defining a degree to which privacy is more sacred than safety and that threshold will always change to match the needs of specific circumstances (usually defined by those in power, which in this case is the government). Though I do find the concept of controlling artistic expression an impingement on our right to free speech, I also question where the threshold is when it comes to individual privacy. Cheryl Sourkes webcam images illustrate the debate we had earlier in class about the offensiveness of appropriation for artistic purposes and asks us to question whether artistic originality is even possible

No comments: