Word from the Chair: new academic year
The summer recess is behind us and the new academic year has started. I hope that you have been able to take a relaxing break from the everyday, to reconnect to your loved ones and your environment. The summer offers us the opportunity to leave our homes, to get out into the world and look at it with fresh eyes. Seeing, watching, observing and noticing different and new things, close or perhaps further away from home. The ever present smart phone offers great opportunities to catch what strikes our eyes. Early morning sun rises, funny moments with friends, beautiful flowers or the play of light on simple objects; there is always something worthwhile to preserve for posterity.
Since the invention of photography in the 1820s, a lot has been considered worthy of a photograph. We have developed a set of conventions for what can and needs to be observed and preserved. This leads to questions, such as: are we seeing what we are seeing? In the Graduation Ceremony on 1 September, the graduates looked back on their study experience and were reminded of our core ambition to try to see the world through the eyes of others. With smart phones close at hand, the number of visuals and images have enormously increased and have made the task of seeing the worlds of others easier. Moreover, the shared picture, and the prevalence of memes have elevated the seeing and the visuals to enormous heights.
At the same time, it has also ‘reduced’ our reality. Today more than ever before ‘having an experience becomes identical with taking a photograph of it’. This quote is from Susan Sontag and dates from the 1970s. In her famous series of argumentative essays On Photography, she argued that photography had become a great equalizer.* We all access the same images or the same sort of images, at that time through newspapers and television. Photography tends to foster a voyeuristic relationship with the world and it divorces us from the context of the image. Also, the photographer takes a step back out of the picture and thereby becomes an outside observer. By being offered a snapshot, how can we be sure that we are not potentially subject of manipulation or propaganda? Moreover, repeated exposure to images, as Sontag argued, can normalize in particular the pain of others. Today, the ubiquitous smart phone has become the main gateway through which we attempt to see other worlds. Sontag’s ethics of photography has received praise as well as criticism but her arguments are still very relevant today. **
We need to keep asking ourselves: are we passive consumers, voyeurs, or responsible viewers who continue to question what we are observing? How we can interpret what we are exposed to and how we can act responsibly? As smart phone image consumers we often do not see ourselves as active participants, as citizens. Moreover, the camera cannot replace looking each other in the eye.
I would like to express the hope that this 2023-2024 academic year will be filled with new or different ways of looking, fresh takes on the familiar as well as responsible engagement with the views of others, in pictures as well as in enriching personal encounters. A warm welcome our new students and welcome back everyone else: have a great start to the new academic year.
Museum tip:
The The Hague Photo Museum currently has an exhibition of female war photographers ‘Women on the Front Line’. It offers a different perspective on twentieth century war photography:
* Susan Sontag: On Photography
** Tourists in our own reality: Susan Sontag’s Photography at 50