This lecture considers notions of „truth‟ in the context of Fine Art and the Media, and in
particular photography. It will consider the indexical qualities associated with photography
and the rendering of „truth‟, which has led to the oft-quoted but flawed cliché that „the camera
never lies‟, which has to a large degree been undermined by the possibilities of digital
manipulation, however the lecture will show that this is in fact nothing new and has long
been possible with analogue (film) photography.
Thus the „truth‟ shown in photography has often been manipulated for a particular purpose,
and perhaps most importantly for political propaganda. Within this, it will also consider the
versions of the „truth‟ we are allowed to see in the media, i.e. what is kept hidden from us for
political reasons.
Jean Baudrillard has considered that in contemporary history, this has gone even further, or
almost been reversed to the extent that wars are not as they have been in the past, but are
in fact timed and organised in order to be viewed as media events.
Jean Baudrillard and The Gulf War did not take place
“It is a masquerade of Information: branded faces delivered over to the prostitution of the
image” Jean Baudrillard, The Gulf War Did not Take Place, 1995, p.40
„It is the de-intensified state of war, that of the right to war under the green light of the UN
and with an abundance of precautions and concessions. It is the bellicose equivalent of safe
sex: make war like love with a condom! On the Richter scale, the Gulf War would not even
reach two or three. The build up is unreal, as though the fiction of an earthquake were
created by manipulating the measuring instruments‟. Jean Baudrillard, The Gulf War Did Not
Take Place, 1995, in Poster, M. (ed.) (1988), Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings,
Cambridge, Polity Press, page 233
„Two intense images, two or perhaps three which all concern disfigured forms or costumes
which correspond to the masquerade of this war: the CNN journalists with their gas masks in
the Jerusalem studios; the drugged and beaten prisoners repenting on the screen of Iraqi
TV; and perhaps that seabird covered in oil and pointing its blind eyes to the Gulf sky. It is a
masquerade of information: branded faces delivered over to the prostitution of the image, the
image of an unintelligible distress. No images of the field of battle, but images of masks, of
blind or defeated faces, images of falsification. It is not war taking place over there but the
disfiguration of the world‟ Jean Baudrillard, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, 1995, in
Poster, M. (ed.) (1988), Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, Cambridge, Polity Press, page
241
„The claim that the Gulf War of 1990 would not take place (1991), followed by the assertion
that it did not take place, seems to defy all logic. Such statements are anticipated by the
earlier claim (1983) that the only future war would be a hyperreal and dissuasive war in
which no events would take place because there was no more space for actual warfare. The
underlying argument is that the Gulf War was a simulated war or a reproduction of a war.
Whatever its human consequences, this was, for Baudrillard, a war which consisted largely
of its self-representation in the real time of media coverage‟ Macey, D. (2000), The Penguin
Dictionary of Critical Theory, London, Penguin, page 34
Baudrillard on Simulacra and Simulations
„Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept.
Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the
generation by models of a real without origin or relativity: a hyperreal. The territory no longer
precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth it is the map that precedes the territory –
precession of simulacra‟„
Whereas representation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting it as false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum. These would be the succesive phases of the image:
1. It is the reflection of a basic reality.
2. It masks and perverts a basic reality.
3. It masks the absence of a basic reality.
4. It bears no relation to any reality whatever : it is its own pure simulacrum.‟
„In the first case, the image is a good appearance: the representation is of the order of the
sacrament. In the second, it is an evil appearance: of the order of malefice. In the third, it
plays at being an appearance: it is of the order of sorcery. In the fourth, it is no longer in the
order of appearance at all, but of simulation‟.
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulations, 1981, in Poster, M. (ed.) (1988), Jean
Baudrillard: Selected Writings, Cambridge, Polity Press
Censorship in Art
Amy Adler – The Folly of Defining ‘Serious’ Art
Adler is a Professor of Law at New York University and recognises „an irreconcilable conflict
between legal rules and artistic practice‟.
She suggests that the requirement that protected artworks have „serious artistic value‟ is the
very thing contemporary art and postmodernism itself attempt to defy
The Miller Test (1973) asks three questions to determine whether a given work should be
labelled „obscene‟, and hence denied constitutional protection:
1. Whether „the average person, applying contemporary community standards‟ would
find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
2. Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct
3. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or
scientific value
Obscenity law can be seen to have three roles to play:
1. „To protect art whilst prohibiting trash‟
2. „The dividing line between speech and non-speech‟
3. „The dividing line between prison and freedom‟
Bibliography
Aronson, E. and Pratkanis, A., 1992, Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use
and Abuse of Persuasion, New York, Henry Holt & Co.
Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulations, 1981, in Poster, M. (ed.) (1988), Jean
Baudrillard: Selected Writings, Cambridge, Polity Press
Jean Baudrillard, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, 1995, in Poster, M. (ed.)
(1988), Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, Cambridge, Polity Press
Hawthorne C. and Szanto, A. (eds.) (2003) The New Gatekeepers: Emerging
Challenges to free expression in the Arts, New York, Columbia University Arts
Journalism Program
Naas M. (2010) The Truth in Photography, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University
Press
James Beighton, December 2012
LECTURE
The camera never lies?
Uses same negative over and over. Manipulates them
in the dark room, over exposing etc.
Manipulation goes back through history.
Photography as a political propaganda
Removal of Nokolai
Digital Manipulation
Adbuster style adverts- Digital technology has allowed
people to change the context of imagery.
Manipulated to make her look better.
Is it fair game to trick people in order to sell
a product?
Hidden truths?
Is this real? Conspiracy. How much does it matter?
Used as propaganda for the left wing against the right wing Fascists
Created this faker persona in order to increase sales of photographs.
Acted out whilst the fascists were on siesta for photos.
But they heard the commotion and shot him.
Media representation of what the war is
The reality of the war
Truth in photography. Black and white documentary photography
This is the war that wasn't shown in the media.
The mile of Death
Colour brings it to life.
More fine art? beautiful image from devistation
More of a media event to the west
Somebodies experience of war
Landscape photogrpahy
Provocative
Does it say more asbout the product or the person in it.
Individual reading of it, or is everyone seeing it that way.
Was legally not allowed to show this image
Too sexual and provacative.
Became acceptable.
Syphilis connotation ?
Venus and Cupid - Incest
Deemed masterpiece in the art world - if this was in the
media their would be up roar
At the time the woman in the picture was 15 that was photographed
Teenage girls in a sexual manner - metaphors of compassion
Acceptable because its painted.
Is there a semi erotic value?
Questionable
Tierney Gearon
Kids in the bath having fun?
Valid as art?
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