The Photographic Activity of Postmodernism

This essay was so much easier to understand than the Jeff Wall essay! The overall idea of postmodernism is still a bit fuzzy to me, but there were many parts of this essay that did make sense. I was fascinated by the different definitions of "presence" as well as the idea of the absense of the subject of the photo. It seems odd to me that someone would take a picture of someone else's photograph and call it their own work, or a work of postmodernism. It reminds me of the works by Duchamp (I think) that drew on the Mona Lisa. It was basically still the Mona Lisa with minor changes, and it becomes someone else's work. It seems wrong to me. But the idea that the subject of the photo is no longer there and that was the photographer's inspiration is a confusing/interesting point. Crimp talks about how when we see a duplication we want to see the original, and when we see the original we want to see the subject, but if we did it would be completely different, in different context, and therefore would fail to contain the authenticity we are searching for. Therefore when we see these representations they really are a new presentation of the original. That was my interpretation of that part of the essay, anyway, so it may not be accurate.

Crimp spoke a lot of Benjamin's essay, which was helpful also in understanding the work we read so long ago. Hearing Crimp's opinions and explanations was a nice supplement to our previous knowledge of the piece. Crimp further went into how Benjamin really likes copies, and how some photographs develop an aura of their own, something I whole-heartedly agree with. He says the aura develops from the subjects in the photographs--due to the long exposure time of the photo and the relationship between the photographer and the subject. Crimp goes on to say, however, that in the past few decades the depletion of the aura "...has been accelerated and intensified..." (87). This is due to the commercialization and mechanical reproduction of art. I didn't understand some of his "photography-as-art" comments which followed.