.JPG)
New Bride Photograph by Dayanita Singh
Déjà vu Jack, would you please pass me a slice of immortal soul?
On the brink of annihilation by reason of obsolescence, after the outright demise of Polaroid, comes the last-gasping, floundering pantheon roll-call of photographic greats such as Kodak, Pentax, Nikon, Hasselblad, Olympus, Leica and so on; some languishing blue, yet clinging poignantly to their still-film avatars, but with nowhere else to go.
Others in the distinguished line-up, have used their famous brand names to sell out to a digital world of miniaturised, finger–snapping fast memories. But before the strains of the last post fade from hearing quite, here comes a revival!
It’s a marked thing no mistaking, another turn in the sun for the 35 m.m. film-using still-camera, back with a thump with its honour restored.
And this new interest is arising, not out of corny nostalgia or demand from the retro-freaks, but purely on the grounds of superior aesthetics. Now what exactly can you call the phenomenon- would you call it moving with or back in time?
The revival of the arcana of negative-positive dark-room developments and chemicals-leaning thereby towards the many qualities and effects it can impart; the art in its handling, the mystery, depth, atmosphere, authenticity, truth of its inherent nature, quirks, camera tricks, of film speeds, shutters and light, the development effects of exposure, paper, screens, thickness; all this and more.
In contrast, that is, to the mere near-film quality, no flash induced red-eye, but distinctly robotic digital snapshot. The province of the click as many as you please digital pictures may be soulless, but have, like bottom–feeding carps, practically displaced all the grand marques of the colour & BW photo-clicking kind. Photo artistes may mutter, aficionados may stutter, but that may be just the modern day equivalent of the green devil absinthe talking.
Pour quoi the change of heart? Perhaps, it is a belated recognition of the virtues of old fashioned still photography. Besides, it is difficult to commit to pictures that can be snapped in their thousands stretching towards infinity, constrained only by the capacity of the storage devices attendant, and the upload, download, folder, attach and send universe they tend to inhabit. It’s also the slightest bit pornographic even without the mms spreading smut, with a new convenient invasiveness all of its own.
But coming back to this revivalist context, I read a recent wisecrack in a magazine that echoes Albert Einstein’s famous remark about God and Certainty and Dice, albeit in a smarmy, self-serving and commercial kind of way. This one presumed to say: God takes pictures with a Leica, the film-roll carrying analog kind if you please; the intelligence conveyed to us mere mortals with a wonderful omniscience that can sometimes, of course, be the province of a self-confident advertiser.
This new found, if revived fondness for negative and print is similar to a renewed interest, bordering on reverence, usually reserved for the real McCoy, applied to old vinyl long-playing records replete with their sleeves, labels, scratches, stumbles, halts, hiss, all seen, not as the Neanderthal annoyances of crude technology but as so much in-built, or is it built-in, “atmosphere”. So think of the kudos earned by those prescient aesthetes who still keep their record players in working order and their album collections in their regularly dusted sleeves? Besides, they’re starting to mix in this retro-atmosphere into the new digitised world of recording to get away from the synthetic perfection of today’s techniques.
Fact is, all these transitions are not without their traumas. Years ago, Rolls Royce put in a toy gear change for drivers to play with, even as their cars ran on the then new-fangled and axiomatically silent automatics. Sometimes, it was recognised, back in the sixties or thereabouts, already a half century ago, letting go is not the only option. There’s always pretence.
What’s going to be the next U Turn on the technology trail? Whatever it is, it is good to remember that this harking back in the spirit of revision is not, at least till now, a mass sentiment. The majority are content to move on with the times without a backward glance.
But a few tend to pine over losing something more than just the bathwater even as they hold the squalling baby in their arms. These coves search. They seek. They wonder. They worry. And after all these travails, they sometimes zero in on an issue that may have escaped the notice of the many in their stampede for the exits.
These omissions, like torn off buttons on a shirt come back from the wash, may or may not provide the answers to the missing link or ingredient in the future. But to these sorts, quests of such manner make for meaningful activity. Sometimes however, later, perhaps much later, others, far more obtuse about their surroundings, find reason to be grateful to them.
Predictably, we others do not understand what the fuss is about at the time. We never do, actually, not when we first encounter such a phenomenon in the past, not now as we live and breathe, and probably not later either. Progress does cut corners on this very premise. It even presumes to educate us in new ways which are not always an advantage on all parameters.
So it is thanks to the unusuals amongst us, and sometimes an ever-suspicious, lugubrious and ponderous watch-dog or regulatory authority with vague and all encompassing powers to harass and obstruct, that keep societies as a whole from degeneracy in the face of change. All you need to do is read a little Kafka for further elucidation.
But when we talk of the next retro-vision with mass as opposed to niche support, it is probably going to involve a measure of concern about the very modern issues of pollution, global warming and the environment. But since these are relatively new concerns that have cropped up ever since we have grown deadly efficient at plundering the natural resources of this planet, there are no old ways and means to go back to.
No, to incorporate this sentiment and awareness we must build anew, but tinge and tincture our efforts with the sensibilities of an earlier, less rapacious time.
There will have to be, therefore, a technological remake of the old ways before mankind mass produced their 16 lane high-speed highways to perdition. We may not have a scenic route to take back to less toxic times, but some of the inspiration must come from a simpler era anyhow. This particularly, as many of us may be wearying of things and processes that do get better and more efficient at all apparent levels but yet manage to feel utterly soulless in their processes and content.
To capture that fragile and precious butterfly-like anima, gone AWOL amongst all our progress, future designers, geneticists, architects, legislators, journeymen all, may have to build-in “feel”.
This is easier said than done because a simulation will not suffice. To intuit what is necessary, they will have to manifest, from their genetically engineered innards, a slice of soul to deposit, not just the heartfelt, but the immortal kind, as the price of their admittance.
For what it’s worth, it will certainly make a change from the proverbial depositing of death-dealing firearms at the door as an act of good intent; because, let’s face it, by then, guns would have lost most of their power to kill anyway. Besides, suffer away for now without interference, while you still can, because it's a matter of some speculation what the future will make of germane issues such as love, meaning and death. If you can modify the body with genetics, just what kind of muscularity will it introduce to the mind?
(1,274 words)
July 25th, 2010
Guru Purnima
Gautam Mukherjee
