Wooldridge, D., 2020.
Technology and interaction: Penelope umbrico's TVs from craigslist
| Output Type: | Chapter in a book |
| Publication: | Photography Reframed: New Visions in Contemporary Photographic Culture |
| Pagination: | pp. 3-7 |
This chapter begins with monochromatic abstraction and pixilation. The computer, in TVs from Craigslist - as in many of her projects - provides the means for the selling off of semi-obsolete or unwanted technology. Jonathan Crary's significant book 24/7, which aligns the computer within a lineage that follows from the TV, sees the private space of the home truly conflated with our ongoing activities of work and sociability. Photography, usually persuaded to act as objective depiction, must attempt to represent contemporary day-to-day, not by turning away from representation, but by constructing new realisms. TVs from Craigslist not only brings together an interplay between abstraction and representation, but also that notorious polarity, established by John Szarkowski, of the photograph as 'Window' or 'Mirror'. These two categories for photography - one representational of the world, the other self-reflective and inward looking - remain, however much they have been debunked.