Ontological Status Of An Image

PHO­TOG­RA­PHY — CON­TAINER OF LIGHT.

Each photo-frame could be described as a con­tainer of light, as a light trap or empty space open to con­dense the light into the matrix of the binary dif­fer­ences, basis for the onto­ge­n­e­sis of the mean­ing and sense. Meaning-sense is a prin­ci­pal ele­ment of real­ity, a nec­es­sary con­di­tion of the exis­tence. Although hyper pro­duc­tion of media kitsch forces us to con­ceive the images as reality-representational, this is a highly vul­ner­a­ble stand­point. Why? Every sin­gle photo is not a fin­ished, lim­ited prod­uct, which would merely reflect sur­round­ing real­ity, but rather a dynamic entity which exists at the cross­ing between the pho­tog­ra­pher and the viewer. More­over it takes rise as a sum of very dif­fer­ent dimen­sions: phys­i­cal, phys­i­o­log­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, cul­tural, polit­i­cal and seman­tic. Onto­ge­n­e­sis of every sin­gle photo sup­po­si­tions the exis­tence of a sen­si­tive sur­face which can catch and imprison light, but not in a bal­anced man­ner. Every frame, except the one being absolutely white or dark, has dif­fer­ent lev­els of light attrac­tive­ness, which means that every frame con­fronts us with a dif­fer­ent level of light quan­tity and quality.

ORI­GIN OF THE MEANING-SENSE

In every frame — square, rec­tan­gu­lar or oval, there are count­less num­ber of points which at the same time attract or reflect light and pro­vide the ori­gin of meaning-sense.The per­cep­tion of the quan­tity and qual­ity of light rests on phys­i­o­log­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties to sense the light. But to inter­pret qual­ity and quan­tity of light is some­thing absolutely dif­fer­ent. For some beings it is prob­a­bly a mere strat­egy of a sur­vival, but for the humans it is a mat­ter of psy­cho­log­i­cal, seman­tic and polit­i­cal pro­duc­tion of the real­ity. Inside human per­cep­tion light is not a sim­ple phys­i­cal phe­nom­e­non, but a basis for the incar­na­tion of the chain of sig­ni­fiers, lin­guis­tic wefts which syn­the­size form­less real­ity into the mean­ing­ful totality.Spinoza, one of the biggest minds in the his­tory of the West­ern phi­los­o­phy said, Omnis deter­mi­na­tio nega­tio est, Every deter­mi­na­tion is nega­tion. This law pro­vides us with the insight that iden­tity, pri­mary lin­guis­tic ele­ment, demands exis­tence of rudi­men­tary binary matrix. Only trough the rudi­men­tary oppo­si­tions of affir­ma­tion and nega­tion (black and white, empti­ness and full­ness) things can achieve an onto­log­i­cal sta­tus, a min­i­mum trace of existence.

ONTOL­OGY OF AN IMAGE, AES­THETIC JUDGE­MENTS AND AUTHORSHIP

Dig­i­tal era offers us extra­or­di­nary priv­i­lege, since through the game of pix­els we can gain insight into the rela­tion­ship between what Lacan called Real, Imag­i­nary and Sym­bolic. Although real­ity seems extremely com­plex, basic oppo­si­tion between white and black pix­els gives us evi­dence that every­thing, includ­ing time and mul­ti­di­men­sional space, rests on sim­ple oppo­si­tion between deter­mi­na­tion and nega­tion. In the matrix of binary oppo­si­tions all the dimen­sions of an image, from phys­i­cal to seman­tic, coin­cide. Basic binary oppo­si­tion is a nec­es­sary onto­log­i­cal con­di­tion. Prob­lem­atic onto­log­i­cal sta­tus of an image calls into ques­tion all the aes­thetic judg­ments and photo com­pe­ti­tions. Besides hyper pro­duc­tion of images we can lately notice a hyper­in­fla­tion of photo salons and con­tests. It is highly symp­to­matic, we could say ide­o­log­i­cally con­di­tioned, to pro­claim a photo good or bad. Because pho­tog­ra­phy is a dynamic entity it is never fixed as a sta­tic work of art, no mat­ter what pho­to­graphic rules say. Nei­ther a pho­tog­ra­pher has a priv­i­lege to call him or her­self an author or owner of a photo. If we exam­ine onto­log­i­cal sta­tus of an image closely, we see that a pho­tog­ra­pher with his cam­era only col­lects the light in the rec­tan­gu­lar, square or oval con­tainer. Of course he or she always has an inten­tion to impart the spe­cific meaning-sense to the quan­tity and qual­ity of the cap­tured light. But sin­gle sig­ni­fy­ing chain which would cor­re­spond to the spe­cific quan­tity and qual­ity of light and which would give us solid, objec­tive foun­da­tions to our aes­thetic judg­ments does not exist. That means that every viewer with his own inter­pre­ta­tion of the qual­ity and quan­tity of light caught in frame equally coop­er­ates in the pro­duc­tion of a photo, although just by look­ing at it.