Uncertain Connections: Between Text and Image

Hillman, John (2014) Uncertain Connections: Between Text and Image. In: Writing Communities: People as Place, Falmouth University.

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Abstract / Summary

The unprecedented production and consumption of images and words we experience is in part, linked to advances in digital imaging and the Internet. It is also linked to the ease with which these tools enable opportunities to personally create and curate our own lives. Gary Winogrand once suggested, we photograph in order to see what something is like when it is photographed. However, we may have now entered a time when we behave for no other reason than ‘to be photographed’ or to update our social media status. It is as though, through these forms of representation, we determine who we are and where we are.

Communities are many things; they are not just geographically based groupings. They are the shared interests and values of multiple relationships: Between people, between people and things and between people and places. This paper will explore how images and words may be used as tools for community groups to engage with who they are, how they view the world and their relationships with each other and where they live. Beginning with the premise that we see ourselves through a lens of representation, how faithfully that lens projects ‘who we are’ depends on where it is focused and who has control over what it produces. The paper will therefore consider whether, in a digital democracy, creative practice can actually have any political effect in the real world or whether it is a complacent and self-serving act.

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