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)
The ‘when’ of a photograph can be as important as the ‘what’, sometimes more important. Photographs are often regarded as a window onto space, but just as significantly show a point in time. That time influences or even determines meaning.
The Claim
Standing in a narrow plane aisle, presidential candidate Joe Biden leans over to talk with his press secretary Remi Yamamoto. It’s the midst of the pandemic but neither person wears a mask. On November 1, 2020, Richard Grennell, former acting Director of National Intelligence, posts the photo under the head “Washington, DC phony!” He pairs it with an image of Biden outside wearing a mask. “@JoeBiden doesn’t wear a mask on a plane – but wears one OUTSIDE!?” Two hours later, the photograph is picked up by hard right radio host Mark Levin—“Biden wears a mask outside but not on a plane. Fraud.”—then shared by 13,600 others.
The Lie
The photograph is straightforward and unaltered. But Biden does not wear a mask because the image predates the coronavirus pandemic. The photograph has been timeshifted. The image was made by Biden campaign photographer Adam Schultz. His caption: “Yamamoto and Biden huddle on a flight to South Carolina in November 2019.” In that pre-pandemic year, the first Covid-19 case in North America is two months away (though election lies are already at full flow).
