Discussion Questions for 3-2-10

Part 1:

1. If an index is the connection piece between a real object and the symbol we use to represent it in language, do the meanings of pronouns become ambiguous if the index does not reference one thing? Does this ambiguity add confusion or interest?

2. In Duchamp’s works "Tu m’" and "Rrose Se`lavy and I" is it the play on words that makes the piece interesting or the graphic interpretation of the play on words?

3. Andre Bazin describes painting as an "inferior way of making likeness" and an "ersatz of the process of reproduction" and says the photograph is always a reproduction of a model. Is this true of all photography?
Follow up: With new digital photography and editing techniques, do you think Bazin would still stick to his original statement that photographs are always just reproductions?

4. Explain the "verbal doubling" in Duchamp's With my Tongue in My Cheek

Part 2

5. What is your understanding of this statement? (Page 5 (216 in actual text)) “Paintings are understood, instead, as shifters, empty signs (like the word this) that are filled with meaning only when physically juxtaposed with an external referent, or object.”

6. How do indices relate to mapping?

7. In the sense of mapping versus tracing is photography a form of mapping or tracing?

8. In comparison of a traditional dancer and a photograph, why does Krauss call the photograph a message without a code?

9. Consider cinematography: Why were the first silent movies successful as a narrative while photos have a need to link text and image through a caption?

-Dave and Wekeana