I was really compelled by what Benjamin said about captions: "At the same time picture magazines begin to put up signposts for him, right ones or wrong ones, no matter. For the first time, captions have become obligatory. And it is clear that they have an altogether different character than the title of a painting" (1239).
So instead of providing something for a viewer to consider, as the title of a painting would, captions tell the viewer what to see. There is no room for initial interpretation when a caption accompanies a picture. It's just another form of reproduction, but in this case it's the reproduction of thoughts. Someone writes a caption of what they see in a picture and then passes this same thought to the masses. Reproduced thought on reproduced art.
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Atget also says that photographs demand a "...specific kind of approach; free-floating contemplation is not appropriate to them," as they, "stir the viewer" (1239). Heaven forbid we are stirred!
ReplyDeleteBenjamin's comments on captions reminded me of the last presidential administration (although many others use similar techniques) where press conferences and speeches were routinely given in front of staging with repeated words (the ostensible intent of the presentation) or multiple American flags. The most obvious example is the "Mission Accomplished" banner that flanked Bush during a speech given to update us on the status of military conflict abroad.
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