W.J.T Mitchell - "Word and Image"/Curtis Film:
I would describe the relationship between words and image in the Adam Curtis video "It Felt Like a Kirss" as a mutual connection. The words that were presented within the video was like a guider for the reader/watchers. While the images were provided as a stimulus for our brains to have a clearer idea of what Adam Curtis was trying to achieve with his film. After watching this film and reading the article, it made me realized that we are easily labeling everything in our modern society.
Reading Responses:
Trevor Paglen and Errol Morris:
The way that these two authors/photographers are addressing photographs is really interesting. I do agree that photographs do not show the truth or false about anything and that they are like cave paintings. However, I do not agree with photographs not providing a narrative. All types of images do have the potential to show some form of story telling. Photographs are a representation of a particular moment in time for either a person, group, or society. Another way we could think of photographs is that some photographs will be more significant to one person but it may not be as significant to another.
Errol Morris - What's in a Name?:
From the reading of Errol Morris's What's in a Name? I believe that the four ways that identities have been historically constructed as verifiable is through Melville's self-report, The Bertillon system, fingerprints, and photographs. The reason I believe these are the four ways is because they all co-exist in today's modern society for any form of identification. Melville's self-report gave way to descriptive language of identifying someone. The Bertillon system allowed for measurements of the person. The fingerprints was a system that allowed for a more precise identification to distinguished one from another. And finally photographs provided the visual aid to show what the person had looked like. This really shows that anything can become a form of identification for someone. But more particularly images are the key to a basic form of identification. However, there is a down side to images as a form of identification because over a period of time a person's facial recognition can change. I believe that we have made so much progress over the years in creating a pretty good system to identify people.
Mushon Zer - Disinformation Visualization:
The way that I see Mushon's analysis of infographics and how it is related to the Errol Morris's discussion of photographs and truth is that we are presented with lies all the time. However, this type of lie comes from the truth. In the reading of Disinformation Visualization, Mushon had talked about how "We don't spread visual lies by presenting false data... We lie by misrepresenting the data to tell the very specific story we're interested in telling." This is very similar to the concept of Errol Morris's address towards photography and questioning if it has any truth to it. The connection that I am trying to state is that in photography or any kind of media there is always alteration or manipulation to express one's view point in order to achieve their goal.
One Place After Another:
I believe that identity and site merge to form what we think of as "place" would be through how we associate certain areas with certain traits. A good example would be the south side of Chicago vs. the north side of Chicago. The south being more associated with a lower income community while the north is more of the middle to higher income community. The concept of assumption and labeling is how modern day society is functioning. Racism still exists thus results in us giving a community (site) an identity which then forms this notion of "place". However, another way you could look at this is that identity and site merge to form the concept of "place," is when an individual or community makes significant changes or some form of impact to make the "place" more memorable.
Trevor Paglen's "Seeing Machines" and Ed Lake's "The Machine Gaze":
I feel like both articles argue for this idea of how the things we have perceived before the time of photography is now completely different with the integration of technology. As the generations progressed photography equipment and cameras have developed quite significantly thus results in better images and photographs. I feel like the true message that they are trying to aim for is that since technology has advanced and the images that we produced are higher quality "are we still missing things within the meaning of these photos like we did before?" Another thing is that any picture has it's own unique meaning and I personally see that you really can't tie an author to it because pictures are always bound to change from one person to the next.
Quiet Fires of all Degrees Kristin Schimik:
I feel like the way she describes the concept of scale is rather interesting because she goes into certain concepts such as the periodic table to justify her ideas in a way. She talks about the chemical compounds. The she had talked about the coal burning plants being from one location to the other has very different surroundings and the type of coal that is used seems to be different as well.