Control Freaks

Main points from Jeff Wall:

1. Water/Liquid intelligence = nature, natural forms, liquid chemicals in photography, primordial, prehistoric
2. Camera/Optical intelligence= dry, mechanical, scientific, cool

taking those a step further to my own interpretation and thinking about what we've read from Wall's lover, Michael Fried:

3. Water = chance, unexpected, emotion, punctum, physical
4. Camera = objective, representation, indexicality, abstract

5. Wall talks about the move from liquid to digital and that photo without liquid is neither good nor bad just that it is expanding the "famously cool nature" of photography. I think he means that the object/scientific side of photography is proliferated by the digital age and that removing the liquid of the medium takes it out of historical context.
6. Apparently the liquid studies us? He lost me there, maybe because I've never seen Solaris.

Here are the natural forms Wall talks about in Liquid Intelligence:


One thing I've always found interesting with photographers is that is seems like there are a lot of control freaks. Jeff Wall explains liquid in photography and that "it has to be controlled exactly...or the picture is ruined." This sense of control is heightened in the digital age, in which images are becoming more controlled and more perfect. When I see a photo series in which the photographer has built sculptures and sets, I think it takes this controlled nature of photography to the next level, as with Lori Nix and Thomas Demand, because the photographer has created and manipulated every part of the image, nothing has been left to chance. I was also thinking about this in relation to the Ritchin reading last week. The more control we have, the more power we have, the more sense of entitlement we have..s.

Control Room, Lori Nix

Bathroom, Thomas Demand

I can think of 5 projects in my Seminar class that are directly about control. But really, I guess if anyone is using photography they are a control freak.

Walls tangent at the end of the first paragraph got me thinking, are natural forms beautiful to us only in relation to the mechanical and man made? If we had never seen anything man made, would the natural be beautiful? I would venture to say no, because I think beauty is relational. But at the same time, symmetry is inherently pleasing to humans, so perhaps.