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Re: lying with pixels



Please do not misunderstand the tone of my response (to this and others
in this thread):

How unbelievably and chillingly naive are these responses!

First, yes, still photography was manipulated very soon after it had
become popular (Doyle's "Fairy Ring" photos come to mind, as well as
other examples cited), but consider: photography's veracity was
considered to be superior to the notion of sending artists out to render
scenes for the burgeoning news industry. Artistic license is one thing,
calculated manipulation for corporate or political purposes is quite
another.

The manipulation of film (which could be considered as simply the
manipulation of multiple still images) took a bit longer, but it
happened soon enough.

What is significant is NOT that we are being told of the manipulation of
video, but that it can be done IN REAL TIME. Yes, it requires
preparation, but any really good deceit does. "Archiving originals" does
nothing in this regard. This is why the "CNN effect" is such an
important part of story...how many of us remember the "Cold Fusion"
incident? It was nowhere near as sophisticated as what this technology
offers.

Second (and this is the chilling part), the fact that the New York Times
is saying, "Oh, my goodness, you can do that?" means that it's too late
to be worrying about the deception. The horse hasn't just left the barn,
the horse is in the next state. It simply means that it is now truly
mainstream. The "media" can no longer be trusted to watchdog themselves
over the abuse of this ability, they themselves are subject to economic
pressures that preclude anythoughts as to the morality(?) of such
actions. This at a time when the "trust" of the media has been at an all
time low.

Trusted systems? Hmmm. Where's Max Headroom when we REALLY need him?
Will FTFP (Face To Face Protocol) become the only "trusted system?" Will
there be a means of "authenticating" a news feed from a remote site (or
a studio, for that matter) when you know that the manipulation can be
done in real time? Imagine the mayhem possible  if one highjacked the
feed, ran it through a desktop system, and sent it on as as the
"authentic" feed...The "Wag The Dog" scenario is all too plausible,
possible, and probable.

Art imitating Life imitating Art, indeed.

Susan Knoer wrote:
>
> Cal Lee wrote:
>
> > "Seeing is no longer believing. The image you see on the evening news
> > could well be a fake¯a fabrication of fast new video-manipulation
> > technology."
>
>   Hmm...old news.  Brady photographed a dead soldier form one side and called him Confederate and from the other side of the field and called him Union.   Hearst staged Pancho Villa's raids for film crews.  I have a lovely wedding portrait of my grandparents, done after he died  with faces from pictures from before they ever met.  Claudette Colbert always had her neck airbrushed in, and old Playboys airbrushed things out.  Hitler never did the two-step dance you see in clips, it was manipulated film.  Lange's "Migrant Mother", the most famous photo of the Depression, had the subject's thumb removed.  And who ever saw FDR in a wheelchair?  And of course the Edited OJ cover.
>   "The camera never lies" only applies to wrinkles and blemishes (unless you have an airbrush).  Computers just do it a little better  (though I've yet to see believable computer animation...but maybe it's the Turing Test, and I wouldn't know sufficiently good animation).  But we're not as skeptical of images as of words; I suppose we've all manipulated the latter but not many the former.
>   But a good justification for archiving originals!  I've seen a few of the undoctored Stalinist photos, so someone archived the originals somewhere.
>
>  PS- is Lawyerwannabes Inc the holding company for Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe (PSC)?
>
> Susan Knoer
> Reference Assistant
> Special Collections
> University of Louisville
> Louisville, KY 40292
> 502/852-6752
> 502/852-8734 FAX
> susan.marie@louisville.edu
>

--
Dennis Moser, MILS, Web Librarian / dennism@library.tmc.edu
John P. McGovern Historical Collections & Research Center
HAM-TMC Library / 1133 M. D. Anderson Blvd, Houston, TX 77030-2809
"That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the
time."
"On Liberty," 1869, John Stuart Mill

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