It’s funny how things work. I saw this post from another student who is a year in front of me and clicked the link only to see this:
But as I had not seen this site before I took a little wonder around it and found this interesting fact: 243,055.5 photos uploaded every minute. There were loads of other facts too but just think that if this fact is true (and it is corroborated here) then what does this mean for photography as art? Is photography like pop music with the majority not getting widely known and most of which does get wide airplay getting forgotten quickly and only a tiny proportion of such music having any sort of longevity outside of special interest groups?
Such numbers would suggest a ubiquity of digital imagery but I don’t think that is the case. Indeed disability is a subject visually represented very narrowly. Do a test for yourself: Google the terms “disability” and “disabled” and see what comes up. I bet you got lots of very similar looking symbols and imagery didn’t you?
It seems to me that disability is still overwhelmingly defined as impairment – the physiological deficit – and so represented in the person rather offering any recognition of the barriers created by the physical and social environments. Why is this so? The law recognises the disability is caused by a non recognition of impairment in the design of the built environment, in organisations policies and practices and in people’s attitudes so why is this not reflected in photography? I mean we even get removed from some images!
It’s weird that there can be just so much re-presentation and yet some areas almost totally ignored. Today’s image speaks to that theme. The end result put me in mind of glitch art that we had spoken about at this week’s tutorial.
