In a previous post, [1] I finished with a quote from a New Yorker article by Craig Mod, in which he suggested some different types of data that might be gathered and ‘pinned’ to the ‘back’ of a digital photograph. Amongst the data he suggested we might collect were “location, weather, even radiation levels […] social status and state of mind”, in other words data drawn from sensors and from social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. [2] I made the point then that there is a huge difference between data taken from a sensor and data from taken from Facebook, the first is reliant on measuring some kind of physical quality; the second, the expressions of people. I stand by that point, but now I want to examine the two in a little more detail. Continue reading
Craig Mod
Digital Indexicality beyond Photography
I’ve hopefully by now established that the index is a sign with a physical connection to its referent, which might, but may very well but not necessarily also share with it a visual likeness. In my last post, I touched on process as being a key component of indexicality – that it is the process by which something comes into being that makes it indexical or not. If a chemical photograph can be considered an index by virtue of its method of production forcing it to correspond ‘point by point to nature’ [1] can this not also apply to digital media? Continue reading