FAUXTOGRAPHY
Lying with Photographs:An Analytical Framework
UCR ARTS: California Museum of Photography
Curated by Douglas McCulloh
Lies are ever-present in human affairs, a tidal flow that rises and falls. Recently, lies have been at flood stage and photographs are central to the surge.
Statements, strings of words, are readily seen as assertions, claims. Photographs, on the other hand, are presumed to be a form of evidence. In Susan Sontag’s phrase, we assume photographs are “directly stenciled off the real.” Consequently, photographs, even dubious ones, carry credence in a way that words do not. Moreover, writes theorist Lev Manovich, “the reason we think that computer graphics technology has succeeded in faking reality is that we, over the course of the last hundred and fifty years, have come to accept the image of photography and film as reality.” For these main reasons and scores of lesser ones, photographs are ideal vehicles for lies. (Read More)
Additional Notes:
Sources for the Specimens
Mongrels and Crossbreeds
On the Nature of Lies
Marvels and Magical Beliefs
Precursors
On Abundance
1. Manipulated (Read More)
1.1 Fog and Pestilence
1.2 Don’t Believe Your Lion Eyes
1.3 Wriggling, Writhing, and ‘Rithmatic’
1.4 The Case of the Body Double
1.5 Failed Photoshop’s Peak Point
1.6 Face Reality
1.7 ‘Triple-washed & Sanitized’
2. Manufactured (Read More)
2.1 Cross Purposes
2.2 Political Theater
2.3 Asleep at the Real
2.4 Expect the Wurst
2.5 Black and White
2.6 The Real Thing. Perhaps.
2.7 Elongated
2.8 In Space They Can’t Hear You Lie
2.9 Cute Overload
2.10 Dead Real
3. Recontextualized (Read More)
3.1 Blue-eyed Boy
3.2 A Glowing Future
3.3 Blowing Smoke
3.4 This Many Pictures...
3.5 Targeted
3.6 Costume Drama
3.7 Fish Story
3.8 Extracting the Truth
3.9 Secrets Serviced
3.10 Against the Wall
3.11 Commemoration
4. Timeshifted (Read More)
4.1 All the Rage
4.2 Catnip
4.3 Time Travel
4.4 Masquerade
4.5 Beach Pathology
5. Extracted (Read More)
5.1 Chapter and Verse
5.2 Whitewashing
5.3 The Case of the Melting Cars
5.4 Deadly Serious
5.5 Striking
5.6 Smell a Rat
6. Mirrored (Read More)
6.1 Orange Appeal
6.2 Crouching Panther, Hidden
Photoshop
6.3 Fool’s Gold
7. Denied (Read More)
7.1 Kidding
7.2 Pregnant with Meaning
7.3 A Lot to Learn
7.4 Out to Sea
7.5 Vial Lies
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