Pat Mimoto’s pumpkin, South Hall, Halloween 2011

updated 9/11

Mitchell, W. J. T. 2005. What do pictures want? the lives and loves of images.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  Intro; Ch. 1, Vital Signs.  Read pp. 2-12 (book page #s); read the rest if you want. Dropbox.

Barthes, R., 2003 [1984]. Extracts from Camera Lucida. in: Wells, L., (Ed.), The Photography Reader. Routledge, London, 19-30. Someone conveniently  (and no doubt in violation of copyright) has put this online. This is a classic.  Better scan now in Dropbox.  9/11/12

Sontag, Susan. May 23, 2004. Regarding The Torture Of Others. New York Times Magazine. We’re not interested in what she says about the war (well not for this class), but in what she says about photos.

Power of video:

Fresh Air, Advocate Fights ‘Ambient Despair’ In Assisted Living The entire interview is interesting, but for our purposes the relevant part starts at 8:42

Optional:

Sontag, Susan. 1977. On Photography.  New York: Picador USA; Farrar, Straus and Giroux.   If you’re interested in photography, you must read this!  Also:  Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the pain of others.  New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.  She changed her mind about whether repeated viewing of images of suffering inures us against compassion.

Mitchell, W. J. T. 1996. What Do Pictures “Really” Want? October 77  71-82.This is the conclusion to the book.

If you’re anxious to know what pictures want, here is the last paragraph of the 2nd article/book conclusion:

What pictures want, then, is not to be interpreted, decoded, worshiped, smashed, exposed, demystified, or to enthrall their beholders. They may not even want to be granted subjectivity or personhood by well-meaning commentators who think that humanness is the greatest compliment they could pay to pictures. The desires of pictures may be inhuman or nonhuman, better modeled by figures of animals, machines, or cyborgs, or by even more basic images-what Erasmus Darwin called “the loves of plants.” What pictures want in the last instance, then, is simply to be asked what they want, with the understanding that the answer may well be, nothing at all.