Nostalgia without the Referent: The Photographic Image Now

Authors : Koray DEĞİRMENCİ

Pages : 61-75

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Publication Date : 2014-12-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :This article rests on the assumption that photography operates inherently through a notion of nostalgia, which in turn depends on what Roland Barthes calls the “adherence of the referent.” The author focuses on the ontology of digital images with respect to their relation to the “referent” and claims that the nostalgia once immanent to the photograph has been fundamentally changed by the so-called digital turn in photography. The aesthetics of digital images confirm the existence of this new “mode” of nostalgia: while the digital images marry perfection and tactlessness with a desire to behold everything possible, they also, somewhat paradoxically, operate through “texture” and “defect” to generate analog-like images. I will argue that these two different but interrelated forms of representation correspond to two distinct realms: a postmodern ironic nostalgia that consciously withers its object and, via inspiration from Lev Manovich insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(2006);, solidification and glorification of the “photographic.”
Keywords : Fotoğraf, gönderge, nostalji, dijital imgeler, bellek

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