Dr.+A+Wk+09

Wk 09: Starting to work on the VSP. Here is what I have so far . ..

 * The idea: Saw the article “[|Tibetan Exile Sets Self Afire In Protest Act]” by Sruthi Gottipati and Rick Gladstone in Tues. March 27th NYT. It was accompanied by the photograph.
 * Where: Found the article and photograph online and the blog: [|http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/]  where the photograph was also posted.
 * The critics1: Recalled Susan Sontag saying: “There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera” (7). This is a definite ratcheting up of persuasion which is inherently rhetorical and audience based. Aggression has no particular object except that its own will be done. When you act aggressively you foist yourself on others and make your will a prerogative and not a question. Persuasion opens the world to choice while aggression leaves no room for choice. It’s my way of the highway.
 * Reflection: You can’t easily refuse when I ask to take your picture. What sort of argument might you use? My hair’s not done. I haven’t any make-up on. I feel a certain way--angry, bored, sleepy, sickly, peevish--that will not show me at my best. But I succumb to your pleading because for some reason the moment must be preserved.
 * The critics2: There too from Sontag: “As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure” (9). Need to think about this in terms of the story I want to tell or retell.
 * Search: Looked in Google Images for other photographs by Manish Swarup, the Associated Press photographer. Saw other images of the same burning man plus images of Tibetans including the Dali Lama. Copied some of them to my desktop. Took the color shot that appeared on the web and put it in Picasa and made it B&W so it looked like the image they used in the paper. Then I uploaded them all into Prezi.
 * Prezi: At first I situated them randomly and created a path from what I considered the beginning (the burning man in the distance) to the end where he is on the ground being put out by those in the crowd. Then I reconsidered this plan and instead put the photographs of the burning man around the others of Tibetans and reconfigured the path to go from the outside to the inside and back and forth in this way. I thought of Eisentein’s montage method in this regard.
 * =====What’s next: I am not satisfied with the “story” yet as I’ve constructed it in Prezi. I want to investigate Sontag’s idea of the camera and aggression. Also, the initial image of the photographer to the left of the burning man in the original photo needs critical attention as does the NYT’s editorial decision to post the photograph (in B&W) on page A4 of the paper. Also, there are the comments to the blog where a person was offended [ Gulfres from Houston:The NYTimes should not put these images on the web without some warning as to their graphic and disturbing nature.] by happening on to the images. =====
 * My point: I want to try to argue for Sontag's idea of the camera as an instrument of aggression. Right now I've just presented the story (of the Tibetan man) but want to say why his story is important. My audience is that person on the blog site and those like her who complained about the intrusiveness of violent images into the day to day. I want to identify with her and by way of this identification understand my own aversion to violent images. I want to tell a story of coming to understand the aggressive nature of photography. And is it good or bad? That's at least what I'm going for at this point.