Out of the CavePlato's allegory of the cave was the first reading assignment in my freshman philosophy course. Sontag's "In Plato's Cave", was the first essay I ever read about photography; recommended by my Beginning Photography instructor. These texts represent for me, some fifteen years later, my introduction into both the life of the mind and image-making as philosophy in action. These authors served as cornerstones, their ideas were pivotal in my development as a person, and as an artist. But just recently I have come to realize they have also become, subtly, liabilities.
A few years ago, with a small grant, I was able to purchase a modest computer system. I was ready to be a soldier in the digital revolution. For about the first six months I just sat in front of it. Literally, I didn't have a clue. When I did start to work, I did what most everyone else seems to do. It went something like this: scan in a picture of a figure (what I work with most often), use the "lasso" tool to select the head, then copy and paste three or four more heads somewhere else in the image. Reverse it, flip it, erase some, do a little more cutting and pasting, add a few more heads and maybe some extra limbs. Viola! A dozen or so Photoshop filters was all the content I needed. I had this digital stuff licked. There was just one problem, when my little 8 1/2 x 11 masterpiece came out of the printer I realized I'd given birth to a monster; an ugly, puny little wisp of a thing. It was like dreaming you're behind the wheel of a Lexus, the one with the rich leather seats and the great CD player, only to suddenly wake up behind the wheel of a Ford Pinto. Was I kidding myself? Could artists really do anything of value with computers, or was I looking for the Mona Lisa on the back of a cereal box?
But like most artists, I'm tenacious, so I continued not only to work, but also to educate myself in the language and culture of digital computing. Almost on the periphery of this activity, I began to hear about something called the Internet, a growing network of computers around the world that were all connected. I was only mildly interested. But I'll always remember the day when a student showed me something called NCSA Mosaic, which had just been released by the university where I teach. Notice I said a student showed me, because I'll get back to this later.
NCSA Mosaic, the early precursor to what today we know as Netscape, was one of the more incredible things I had ever seen a computer do. That first day, we downloaded images from the Vatican Collection, which were stored on a computer in Washington D.C., in a matter of seconds. And I particularly remember being amazed at viewing images residing on a computer in Switzerland. This whole session lasted all of thirty minutes, but in that time my thinking about computer technology underwent a fundamental shift and my head was reeling.
I had found what was, for me, the missing element in the computer equation. This was the concept of computers, and therefore users, who could talk to one another. Essentially, I had finally stumbled on a use for my computer; something that a computer did better than any other tool. Up to this point, I think I was trying to transform my computer into a camera and darkroom; and nothing more. Beyond this, I just wanted to carry on business as usual. So what I was ending up with was bad digital imitations of photography. I don't think I even want to use the term "digital photography" anymore, because I believe it embodies an idea that has worked against photographers attempting to embrace digital tools.
Even though it once served as a useful analogy, photography really isn't "drawing with light". And it isn't anything like painting, but it took early practitioners a bit of time to realize this; and once realized it took longer still to construct an identity and language of its own. Digital tools engender a similar state of confusion. And just like the 19th century photography enthusiasts, early digital artists seem to have embraced a tool without a vocabulary of its own. Just as photography appropriated the language of painting in the 19th century, we are witnessing the late 20th century appropriation, by many contemporary electronic imagemakers, of the language of photography. For the most part, this is done unconsciously and unknowingly. Ironically, one would expect photographers to be rather savvy about this danger, given the historical beginnings of their own medium. But photographers are, after all, human. And people are constantly blinded by hidden assumptions and habitual ways of thinking. I know I am.
But the Internet and the Web demanded that I begin to think outside the comfortable framework I had constructed over a period of many years. The quotes by Plato and Sontag that begin this writing, point to the first and most fundamental challenge that working on the Internet posed. Namely, the fact that my finished product would never be something I could hold in my hands. Unlike the prisoners in Plato's cave, my visions were not tied to physical objects. The cave wall was now a computer monitor. But the signal on the screen, although as transient and elusive as a shadow, now existed on its own. And the assumption that Sontag makes, that the photographic image is also an object, seems rather poignant to me now, and serves as a reminder of how far I have strayed from home. I have stumbled from the cave, and fallen into the Web.