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)
A certain level of cute short-circuits rational thought. We abandon discernment. We forgo acumen. We jettison evaluation. We bow down to cute.
The Claim
The photograph shows a baby platypus. Nestled into a human hand, the tiny creature is undeniably, endearingly cute. The photograph has been widely shared online. Platypus, of course, are famously strange. They have a ducklike bill but also have fur. They produce the milk of a mammal, but lay eggs like a bird or reptile. When the first specimens were shipped from eastern Australia to England in 1798, scientists suspected a taxidermist’s hoax.
The Lie
The photograph shows a sculpture by Serbian artist Vladimir Matić-Kuriljov. “Probably the cutest thing I ever made,” he says. It resembles a baby platypus, sometimes called a “platypup” or “puggle,” only vaguely. A graduate of the University of Arts in Belgrade, Matić-Kuriljov made the miniature of “Super Sculpy” polymer clay finished with fast-drying acrylic polymer paint. The overlay of cute (and gullibility) is applied by individual viewers.
