Page 72 - Studio International - July August 1975

Camera Art

Les Levine

The expression 'the camera never lies'
is a lie. Anyone who has ever looked
through a camera would realize that what
the camera sees is by no means the same
as what the eye sees. With the eye you can
look at all that is before you, whereas the
camera only frames a small part of it. It's
as though you are looking at the world
through your eyes and as soon as you put
the camera to your eye you are defining
which part of it you really want to see.
The artist in taking a photograph has
framed its contents with the lens of the
camera, creating a context by deciding
what should be in the frame and what t. Sean Shannon
should not. So what is inside the frame is plays with toy
art and what is outside is life. Or it is like tommy-gun made by
his father while
taking a lens and putting it over the exact interned. From
spot of the world you want to examine. 'The Troubles; An
It's as though the camera were a new Artist's Document
form of magnifying glass. of Ulster', Finch
Paintings or drawings require framing College Museum of
to set them apart from the rest of the Art, December
environment, to make it clear where the 1972 — January 1973
context of art begins and ends. The
camera is an automatic framing device. while a 50-year-old painter may be more appalled by the cost of living. The camera
Photographs do not require framing, mature in terms of actual experience artist, the vidicon generation, looks at the
because a mind-set frame is already time, he is less mature than a 25-year-old shirt he is wearing, the colour of his tie,
implied by the picture itself. camera artist in terms of technological the texture of his face and comes up with
Paintings and drawings are extensions development time. Put more simply the the aggregation: this texture and that
of the hand. The camera is the extension camera artist is a product of this time and image in that form is saying, 'I am
of the eye. In Camera Art the mind this generation. The painter is a product appalled at the cost of living.' What has
is the tool, whereas in painting and of a previous time with all its been said for the camera artist lies
drawing the hand is the tool. Camera obsolescences. Camera artists are born in somewhere in between the
Art is a post-craft discipline. In a time of computer technology, video phenomenology of striped silk ties, blue
painting and drawing the physical skills tapes, automatic cameras, etc., and accept serge suits and the cost of living.
of the artist enhance the visual them as part of the natural environment. The context for Camera Art, then, is
experience. In camera art such skills The painter calls such things 'new the brain itself and whatever previous
don't exist. technology, a stranger coming into town experimental developments the brain has
The painter and sculptor create to upset artistic order.' been able to accumulate. The brain is
images through a variety of physical- New technology has changed our an anti-intellectual organ. It merely
making processes, which are all an method of counting time and space, of intellectualizes as a preamble to
extension of the industrial world, by seeing and feeling. Time must now be perception. Perception allows the brain
brushing, pouring, moulding, shaping, measured in terms of psycho-technical repose. Intellectualization forces the brain
etc. The camera artist creates his images advances or more logically counted in to work. And the brain only does this task
merely by seeing through a number of generations of generative systems as of work so that it can obtain the repose of
post-industrial devices, such as still opposed to actual or calendar years. How perception. The brain shows no
cameras, vidicons, etc. The painter often many years would it take an unassisted preferences to information sources. The
goes through a series of processes to individual to reach the same level of brain couldn't care less where its
create an image. The camera artist merely perception as it takes another individual information is coming from.
processes images. aided by a computer ? Advances in the The camera artist's context is his
The relationship between artist and artificial intelligence field are more metapsychology and his own
finished product in painting requires that accurate ways to gauge aesthetic phenomenal relationship to time and
the artist place his entire body in between development within the perceptive mind. space. Wherever the camera artist finds
the product and his mind. In Camera For the most part camera artists are his brain responding to some kind of
Art the only thing in between the product attempting to use the phenomenology of feedback from the environment or
and the artist is a lens. Camera Art is an 'perception architecture' (the way the wherever his perception is activated, is
art of ideas. The body has been removed mind works) as the context for their art. where the camera artist makes his work.
so that the mind may reach the surface The pre-camera artist will watch a Camera Art for the most part is a post-
more expressly. person make a statement on TV and studio art. Anywhere the camera artist is
All of the previous formal aesthetic judge the statement on the basis of how becomes his studio.
problems have been absorbed by new clearly the statement is formed in For most camera artists, perception
technology. In technologies, later language. The camera artist listens to the probably lies in the area of speed-reading,
developments are invested with all statement, collates it to the texture from the semiology of any given cybernetic
previous experience, making the previous which it is transmitted to come up with reflex. The camera artist attempts to read
experience unnecessary and redundant. an aggregate mind-set. That is to say, the language of the space he finds
Those who are born into later if President Ford says he's appalled by himself in and acts upon it accordingly,
technologies develop from that the cost of living, the pre-camera artist in other cases to define the difference
technological point onwards. Therefore, assumes that he's telling them that he is between information and knowledge.
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