One of the differences between painting and photography has historically been their concept of time

Photography has often been about a moment captured, frozen for eternity, a record of having been there : the presidents shooting, the lion pouncing upon its prey, the sun breaking through the clouds, the anguish of an individual's life's turning point ..... what ever the moment, the moment of time captured was essentially the moment of witness, of being there, then, exactly when that occurred, snapping its passage into a photography.

Painting developed more with a moment of time being the moment of viewing, when the painting was seen, what occurred during that shared moment , whether the first time or after a series of return views, it was the moment of being in each others presence (the viewer and viewed) that counts. Its more about the moment of reflection concerning the image, then the moment of its creation - contrary to photography's seemingly capture of history.

This distinction has worked in paintings favour to allow the viewer to understand that their suspension of reality which occurs when considering the art work, is temporary and voluntary. There's often formal cues to this, we've had to go to special buildings where the art hangs, there is often a frame, a signature of a person on the work, .... we know this is another's view or comment of reality. Whereas with photography, we've come to consider its visuals as a record of history. Of a moment captured. Reality has been frozen across time, not suspended and replaced with another as in painting. We believe the photograph, taking it to be our reality's history. We find its imagery every where in our daily lives. More then a window frame, it has become our way of knowing our reality.

In art, without the suspension of reality being voluntary or temporary, much is placed at risk. Especially in the digital age, where photography is one of the first arts to have morphed into digital imagery, our understanding of who we are, has been displaced by what we believe we are. From fashion photography and aneorexia, to news photography and political propaganda, the results have been consistent: we mess up our social norms when our arts are not a temporary and voluntary suspension of reality, a way to know of our world, but instead become what we assume is our world.

We can introduce laws to prevent “excessive” airbrushing so people don't aspire to be like make believe fashion model images, as in Europe. We can create fascinating  algorithims in order to have comparable scales of just how far an image has been manipulated from its source.... but the danger for us isn't that something has been changed or by how much. We cherish artists whose imaginations allow us to see horizons beyond our norm, it is not the schism between an image and our reality that should be of concern. It's our assumption that the image is our reality, something which art has never been. We need especially so in the digital ages to maintain arts realm as a realm of temporary and voluntary suspension of reality. We need to know we've supsended our reality so that we may return to our reality. Otherwise totalitarianism, delusion and addiction are our piege.

We grow up and learn to understand that fairy tales and Santa Claus are just that, stories and tales that reveal to us paradigmatic lessons of how to live our lives. To keep or ignore their lessons as they fit our lives. Whether play, sports, humour, literature or any entertainment we need to exercise our human capacity to jump between “realities'. If we don't actively “jump”, we won't know to find our return to this reality.

Our cues to seeing these differences must be imbued within ourselves. Just as humour already teaches and tests us.  This capacity to discover and know the differences is a human trait,  We need to continually exercise it.

The danger is not the distance that those realities are apart, or distorted, but that we can each recognize that they are two distinct ways of knowing of the world, and not a record of our historical reality. Photography is but the first digital art, others will follow with even greater difficulties of recognizing their distinction from this our reality. Augmented reality isn't a science fiction dream,  It's here, now.   We need something more fundamental then just algorithms and laws to know when we've stepped outside of our actual reality..

© GAMcCullough      2011