Photomedia in Modern and Contemporary Art Essay

Photomedia in Modern and Contemporary Art - Essay Example The essay "Photomedia in Modern and Contemporary Art" talks about the Photomedia in the context of Modern and Contemporary Art. In week 2 the articles analyzed were Laszlo’s Moholy-Nagy A New Instrument of Vision and Walter Benjamin’s the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Moholy-Nagy’s text provides a broad theoretical overview of the unique qualities of the photographic art. The most notable element is the indication that photography is not simply the replication of reality, but rather assumes new artistic forms of expression. This argument is very sound in that instead of focusing on abstract notions of aesthetics, it indicates that photography largely demonstrates newly perceptions on space and reality. Walter Benjamin’s the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a seminal work of art criticism and contains a number of important points. One of the most pervasive considerations is Benjamin’s contention that are in th e current milieu has lost a sense of mystique of mysticism because of mass production methods. Benjamin’s insights make considerable sense especially when considered in light of contemporary Internet or new media art forms where the very medium is transitory. While Benjamin links this insight to the need to reimagine the political context of the art object, it is perhaps more contemporary relevant in the perspective it provides on the larger structural interpretations of the art object. In these regards, one considers that art functions. not just as a plane of understanding where one judges its aesthetic qualities, but that the nature of ‘aesthetic qualities’ is also a shifting significatory pattern. Week 3 While previous readings have considered the nature of photography as an art form and the extent that the subject content bespeaks to an aesthetic form, the Photographic Conditions of Surrealism examines the nature of framing and other elements that contribute to the artistry of the photograph. In examining two pictures, the author states, â€Å"In both cases one is treated to the capture of the photographic subject by the frame, and in both, this capture has a sexual import† (‘Photographic Conditions of Surrealism,’ p.89). Even as a slight argument could be made for the sexual implications of the photographic framing techniques implemented, it seems that in large part the author has overreached in his assessment as a means of hyperbole. Still, the insight that photographic framing affects the perceptions of the specific aesthetic elements of the photograph remains a