Photographic Conversations at MOPA: Deborah Klochko and Andy Grundberg

A conversation is worth having about San Diego's Museum of Photographic Arts' (MOPA) new Center for Visual Learning. 

Deborah Klochko and Andy Grundberg

Deborah Klochko, the museum's director, and Andy Grundberg, currently a professor at the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, D.C. have likely engaged in that discussion over time, and now have shared that conversation with the wider public (October 30, 2014).  

Here's the concept:  Given the impact of the internet, of software editing programs and new camera technology (including the advances in cell phone cameras), as well as the sheer flood of captured images that may not even be printed, what would be a fruitful way for institutional participation and mediating this new world of photography. The Klochko/Grundberg conversation provided a looking glass into this possibility.

The following are several of the topics from that conversation together with my own reflections. Any misstatements are those of this author and for those I offer my apology in advance.

Transitions in Style and Technology
Grundberg identified two major transitions in photography over the last 50 years. First came the shift away from 'traditional' imagery: from the Paul Strands to the Cindy Shermans. Second came digital technology. Analog photography retains a historical place and may spark a retro fascination; however, the ubiquity of digital photography is so profound that we may forget its presence.

Digital editing tools, like Photoshop, began with algorithms trading on the expertise of photographers such as Ansel Adams. However, from my perspective, as one who has survived the successive improvements of these editing tools, the possibilities now far exceed what photographers could do in the darkroom. Digital painting became possible, along with transforming shapes, presets and filters and numerous lighting adjustments were added as well as stacking more than 50 layers in what might be called a vertical silo that could apply a variety of blend modes and montaging of elements across these layers. Digital editing tools may use photographs as resources but paradigm is quite different from the chemical darkroom or even the early digital darkrooms. Even my writing what can be done in such editing tools may read like a foreign language to those not immersed in this manner of image making.

Corporate and Government Uses of Camera Technology (e.g. war, facial recognition software, CCTV)
Grundberg explained his concern with private and public sector uses of new camera technology, whether with Google or the NSA. There is that rumbling about the loss of privacy when faced with novel marketing techniques and/or the intrusion into our daily lives in order to protect the public weal. Grundberg concluded his presentation with examples of  how government was using new camera technology. Cities in England and Scotland have employed massive use of CCTV technology (outdoor cameras to cast a watchful eye over what happens on city streets). Snaps at Abu Ghraib by U.S. soldiers made their way on to posters in Iran to images from drones being placed on the internet as if they were Instagram images, but called Dronestagrams.

October 11, 2014: A drone strike in the Khyber region killed four people, including Sheikh Imran Ali Siddiqu, 
a senior figure in the newly created al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) 
at Tirah Valley, Khyber Agency.   10:50 am  •  13 October 2014 

Yes, these are interesting instances of government use of new camera technology, but the discussion would have been more useful if Grundberg included other uses, especially where the public needs to be alerted to the distortion of 'reality':  for example, the fired Reuters photographer with his visual reportage of the war in Lebanon; he had used software editing  to invent more bombings than had actually occurred; also, the current exploitation of social media by fanatical ISIS propagandists with their posting of videos of beheadings of U.S. and British journalists and aid workers. Such would have made for a more robust presentation of the uses and abuses of camera technology. All of these instances, and more, are important to a discussion of visual literacy. 

A Center for Visual Learning
Given the transitions taking place in photography, the question becomes 'So what is to be done?' 

Klochko remarked that - from an individual's creative perspective - the artist should continue making new work since there are no guarantees to being noticed. 

From an institutional perspective, such as a museum dedicated to this outsized cultural phenomenon, there is an opportunity to create a platform for interpretation - a center for visual learning as it were. Klochko said that the content for such a center is largely present in what is currently available at MOPA; however, as I understood the drift of her remarks, that to be successful, the center's activity needs creative leadership in making it tangible and relatable.

One difficulty that Klochko acknowledged from MOPA's Teen Engagement program was that many teenagers did not feel the need to exhibit their work on museum walls; rather, their interest was posting their work to YouTube.  Other museums have experimented with a variety of ways to capture an audience; others have studied the competing pull of cultural events and places (from TV, movies, museums, performing arts, online, etc.). So, an important piece of what the Center is an ongoing conversation and a persuasive framework for the variety of communities snapping those millions of images and the much smaller set who are crafting images with aesthetic impact.

We  might all ask:  If there is a rush to the internet, whether with selfies or usies or cameras that post instantly to Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr and the like, how important is visual literacy? If one stands in the middle of a river of images .  .  .  It is a difficult thought to imagine.

I appreciate the importance of visual learning in the class that I teach in anthropology - visual ethnography often provides more of an impact than text alone.  Outside my teaching, and part of my digital art interest (much of which is sourced from photography), the structure and vibrancy and immediacy of an image is compelling. Learning from others, experimenting, and finding my own way of seeing forms my personal challenge - whether as a dinosaur interested in a Paul Strandian look or as an interstellar being who is unfortunately trapped inside a human being. The challenge is moving the image outside my mind and into social discourse. 

Klochko's direction is an important one for institutions to grapple with the revolution going on in photography (at least in the technology and communication of images). For others, like the teenagers and young adults who are fascinated with YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, a Center for Visual Learning remains a question mark. For others, like myself, the Center may become part of a multi-centered conversation, one part of which is listening in on conversations such as the Grundberg/Klochko one and then expanding upon it with fellow artists, students, gallery owners, and the general public

Read a complementary artblog concerning a small business response to transitions in technology:  Master printer and the evolution of fine artprinting: Mark O'Donnell and Pixel2Editions

An opportunity for students to ask questions