Lesson Five Notes.

Critical Studies Lesson Five: Repititions.

Dialog between representations and the real, hyper reality; everything is constructed as a code, a simulation is everything reduced to text or language?

John Berger painting and reproduction. Drawing upon Benjamin’s analysis of photographic reproduction Berger considers how the status of paintings is transformed by mechanical reproduction. The original is transformed by its reproduction, it is no longer valued for what it shows but for its rarity which is confirmed by the price. Work enters into a relationship with reproductions of it, defined by how it is contrasted with them. Inflated prices of the original.

The Counterfeit: The industrial simulacrum, the structural code. A simulacrum is a representation that is not necessarily tied to an object in the world. Used by Plato to describe the copy of a copy that is cut off from the object it represents threatens the relationship of reference between sign and object. The counterfeit emerges through the breakdown of feudal society and the emergence of bourgeoisie society. Free production brings a proliferation of signs which also only appear to be referential.

The industrial simulacrum: Industry transforms natural world, signs are produced simultaneous on a giant scale. They originate through mechanical production. They function as commodities in an economy. The law of equivalence (monetary value) permits the obliteration of reference Benjamin shows that the reproduction absorbs the process of production.

The Code: Industrial production anticipates models from which proceed all forms according to variation between their parts. Modulation super side’s economic equivalence. Object and operations of a code that served as a vehicle for exchanges of meaning and value. Reality collapses into hyper reality the code permeates all aspects of life.

Bernd and Hilla Becher Objective matter of fact images, showing what the towers are, they are after a UN coded image; you look at them as a mass. One level it’s all about the code, other all about the object/image.

Dan Graham deskilled photography, removed all traces of manual process or subjective decision making from the photographic process. Took himself out of the frame by using instant cameras, limits the choice he has, limited decisions on lighting and settings.

Ed Ruscha 26 gas stations, all the buildings along sun set strip, repetitive structures of his books.

Thomas Demand dealing with a world of simulacrum. The images tell a dark story, creating tension between the fabricated and the real, he begins with a pre-existing photograph of actual locations culled from the mass media and wants to represent a certain distance between us and the event that happened which is true to life during this media consumed society.