The Snapchat Monteur? New Platforms for Photomontage

‘It is important to note that a photomontage need not necessarily be a montage of photos’, the Constructivist writer Sergei Tretiakov declared in 1936. ‘No’, he clarified; ‘It can be photo and text, photo and colour, photo and drawing’. In 2019, ‘photo and smartphone’ might also appear in Tretiakov’s list. The volatile image, filtered through applications and shared across shifting platforms, is far from a new phenomenon. Networks of photographic dissemination and manipulation, traceable to the medium’s origins, have long precluded the possibility of a still photograph. As digital processes abstract cutting and pasting from scissors and glue, avant-garde photomontage offers a useful model with which to regard today’s unprecedented fluidity of images.     

Sheida Soleimani,Cyborg: Photomontage in an Expanding Network

This article examines the photomontages, photo-sculptures, installations, and videos of contemporary artist Sheida Soleimani in light of earlier Dadaist practices. In particular, it focuses on similarities and differences between Soleimani’s work and that of Dada artists John Heartfield, Hannah Höch, and the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, demonstrating how Soleimani has evolved Dada photomontage and performance strategies in novel and important ways. Soleimani’s development of earlier avant-garde strategies with the help of digital technologies, I argue, proves the continuing relevance of photomontage today. In addition, it also reveals Soleimani’s interest in combining a Dadaist approach to photography, which – through photomontage – emphasizes the artist’s position as a social critic and commentator on reality, with a Surrealist attitude, one that mobilizes the indexical aspects of the photograph to disclose the uncanny and mysterious aspects of the world.     

Photomontage in the Present Perfect Continuous

In its first instance as art practice among the historical avant-garde, photomontage was considered indispensable for its claim to intervene in perceptual processes, stimulating a critical mode of apprehension that would redirect the viewer away from conventions of aesthetic experience and towards a lived reception of art with pronounced relevance to the sociopolitical landscape. The effect was understood as structural, that is, activated not so much by direct political content, but by the stark and shocking effects of juxtaposition. By this measure, one challenge to contemporary photomontage is clear: in a postindustrial and postdigital visual landscape dominated by the structural fragmentation of the attention economy, the ‘simultaneity of the radically disparate’ (as Peter Bürger put it) might no longer present as heterodoxy but rather threaten to sink into invisibility. Yet with the migration off-screen of the effects of electronic media, a new urgency around moving photomontage structures into physical, public space is rising in contemporary practices. Shannon Ebner’s multi-part project A Hudson Yard (2014–15) is emblematic of the new ways in which artists are manipulating photomontage as a form of fully sensory experience that gives the medium room to play critically in both virtual and material space. By constructing subtle interruptions of naturalised commercial space, A Hudson Yard activates a détournement of instrumentalised language, using structures of juxtaposition to divert the discursive surfaces of public space away from consumption and towards what could be called a public poesis.     

The Photomontage Activity of Postmodernism

For decades now, Douglas Crimp’s landmark 1980 essay ‘The Photographic Activity of Postmodernism’ has shaped our understanding of modernism’s aftermath, at least as it unfolded in North America and Western Europe. Less remembered, however, is the degree to which the procedures of disjunction, copying, appropriation, and outright theft that he highlighted were epitomised not just by contemporary photography, but by photomontage in particular. This article recovers the debates that led critics such as Crimp, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Christopher Phillips, Benjamin Buchloh and others to turn to photomontage as one of their principal objects of concern in what became known as the postmodern critique of photography. Why was montage tasked to perform this critical function, particularly by people around the journal October who had not otherwise devoted the balance of their writing to photography’s history? The article suggests that these men and women, along with the contemporary artists they foregrounded, manifested what Mary Anne Doane has called a ‘desire for signification’, a reaction in the late 1970s against the mute theatricality of minimalist and conceptual art. Photomontage reintroduced representation to contemporary art and to the canon of art history. But unlike the reemerging illusionism in painting that also manifested this desire, montage guarded against an uncomplicated realism by highlighting and critiquing operations of representation in a manner that painting no longer could.     

From Carnival to Satire: Photomontage as a Commentary on Photography

This article discusses two eras of manipulated photography –that of trick photography before 1914 and that of photomontage of the 1930s. The former had a carnivalesque character, while the latter highlighted political satire. Although profusely discussed in its days, trick photography was largely anonymous. By contrast, the 1930s brought about distinct personalities such as John Heartfield or the Soviet cartoonist Boris Klinch as well as prominent theorists, including Karel Teige or Günther Anders. Despite formal differences the article argues for a continuity of approaches: both periods represent steps that question photography as a medium that claims stable signification.     

Nadar’s Signatures: Caricature,Self-Portrait,Publicity

As Nadar shifted his attention from caricature to photography in the 1850s, he produced several fascinating hybrid images. Among these are experiments in photomontage and uncommon portraits that combine graphic, photographic, and autographic elements. The author shows how Nadar cultivated a number of recognisable signatures, which he reiterated and adapted for different image-types, products, and advertisements. Nadar’s investment in self-portraiture, his penchant for publicity, and his ability to work across platforms and to balance artistic ambition and commercial enterprise are explored in depth.     

Pieces of the Past: Early Photomontage and the Voice of History

A key dimension of photomontage is the way that its formal features – and consequent debates about the probity of making a photograph out of multiple sources – illuminate some of the fundamental problems of representation in the late nineteenth century. Among these was the question of whether an account of the past was properly presented as an unmediated transmission of fact, or demonstrably fashioned by an author: whether the tools of representation were to be submerged or emphasised. This article examines the parallels between the strategies of authorial visibility in early photomontage and the rhetorical approaches adopted by historians to modulate their presence in their texts. In particular, this study investigates the convergences of historiography and photomontage around the collapse of the Second Empire, a moment that witnessed powerful shifts in the conception of the voice of the historian as well as the production of photomontages that grappled with – and even thematised – the problem of their constructedness. An important but little-known group of photomontages by Eugène Appert, depicting the Imperial family in exile as well as the emerging Third Republic from which they fled, registers these conjunctions in their full complexity.     

A B2B flexible pricing decision support system for managing the request for quotation process under e-commerce business environment

In the era of digitalisation, e-commerce retail sites have become decisive channels for reaching millions of potential customers worldwide. Digital marketing strategies are formulated by the marketing teams in order to increase the traffic on their e-commerce sites, thereby boosting the sales of the products. With the massive amount of data available from the cloud, which were conventionally made with a high degree of intuition based on decision makers’ knowledge and experience, can now be supported with the application of artificial intelligence techniques. This paper introduces a novel approach in applying the fuzzy association rule mining approach and the fuzzy logic technique, for discovering the factors influencing the pricing decision of products launched in e-commerce retail site, and in formulating flexible, dynamic pricing strategies for each product launched in an e-commerce site. A pricing decision support system for B2B e-commerce retail businesses, namely Smart-Quo, is developed and implemented in a Hong Kong-based B2B e-commerce retail company. A six-month pilot run reveals a significant improvement in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness in making pricing decisions on each product. The case study demonstrates the feasibility and potential benefits of applying artificial intelligence techniques in marketing management in today’s digital age.     

China in the World: On Photography,Montages, and the Magic Lantern

Two examples of photographic montages from the first half of the twentieth century, one by the Modern Sketch Society in the magazine Shidai manhua and the other by the photographer Lang Jingshan, craft images of the modern Chinese nation. Although dramatically different, both images rely on assemblage formats and the photographic fragment in order to present a vision of a new China within a larger global context. This article proposes a nineteenth-century precursor to these photomontages in the form of an 1885 Shanghai magic lantern show as presented in the pages of the pictorial magazine Dianshizhai huabao. Originating as a lecture on world travel by the Chinese pastor and educator Yen Yung Kiung, the lecture was reconstituted into a lithographic series by the famous illustrator Wu Youru. Intended simultaneously as entertainment, as an educational and charity event, and as a series of lithographic and photographic images, the heterogeneous components of Yen and Wu’s travelogue bring together a complex but coordinated vision of the nation. Like a photomontage in its constant juxtaposition of pictorial pieces, this transmedial ‘Tour round the world’ strives to offer a particular view of China and its place in the modern world.     

Internet adoption and usage patterns in rural Mexico

The aim of this paper is to identify the socioeconomic and demographic factors that stimulate Internet adoption and use among Mexico's rural population. Using an econometric model to deal with potential selection bias problems, and information from Mexico's National Survey on Availability and Use of Information Technologies in Households (ENDUTIH), our results suggest that the probability of using the Internet is higher for people who have digital skills and for women. Internet usage patterns differ by age, educational level, employment type, and geographic location. Young people are more likely to take part in online activities for entertainment purposes, while people of working age go online for information, communication, and e-commerce-related activities. These findings provide evidence on the existing digital divide in terms of Internet penetration and usage in Mexico's rural sector, which is in the early stages of Internet diffusion.     

Digital innovations-driven business model regeneration: A process model

The traditional ways of doing business have changed dramatically with the emergence of new digital technologies. Firms can stay competitive using the benefits of digital technologies, such as the Internet of Things, social computing, Cloud computing, cyber-physical systems, big data and analytics, wireless networks, artificial intelligence, robotics, simulation, etc. The spread of the coronavirus disease in 2019 (COVID-19) all over the world has created a better understanding of the importance of organizations’ ability to keep up with digital innovations. Therefore, the regeneration of business models is becoming an increasingly crucial factor for survival in the digital age. This study develops a process model for digital innovations-driven business model regeneration based on the design science research approach. For this purpose, the existing models and cases in the business model innovation (BMI) literature are examined and the empirical data are collected using semi-structured interviews to complement and validate this knowledge. The collected data are then analyzed and a digital innovations-driven business model regeneration method is developed. The proposed model is demonstrated with a real case. This study extends the BMI literature. The proposed process model can be used by strategic managers to analyze the impacts of potential digital innovations on their current business models and regenerate their business model. Therefore, it can help companies to be able to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors or sustain their business against technological developments.     

Adhesion between bitumen and aggregate: implementation of spectroscopic ellipsometry characterisation and estimation of Hamaker’s constant

Refractive indices of seven bitumen samples and three aggregates (typical components in flexible asphalt pavement) were determined by ellipsometry in order to predict dispersive bitumen–aggregate adhesion and dispersive bitumen–bitumen cohesion using Hamaker’s constant. Hamaker’s constant according to Lifshitz was introduced to the asphalt field by two of the authors to describe and estimate van der Waal’s interaction and bitumen–aggregate adhesion. Lifshitz used the refractive index to estimate the dispersive non-polar van der Waal’s interaction component of adhesion, the predominant component in adhesion between minerals and bituminous binder. The impact of an intervening thin medium such as air or water on the adhesion can be estimated using Hamaker’s coefficient, which in turn can be related to stripping potential. The bitumen binders studied were delivered as a paving grade 70/100 according to EN 12591:2009 and came from different bitumen suppliers. The three aggregates studied were two types of granite and one diabase. It is concluded from the measurement of refractive indices and calculations of the dispersive component of Hamaker’s constant that there was a larger spread in refractive index among the three aggregate samples studied than among the seven bitumen samples.     

Elastic continuum theories of lattice defects: a review

The presently available elastic continuum theories of lattice defects are reviewed. After introducing a few elementary concepts and the basic equations of elasticity the Eshelby’s theory of misfitting inclusions and inhomogeneities is outlined. Kovács’ result that any lattice defect can be described by a surface distribution of elastic dipoles is described. The generalization of the isotropic continuum approach to anisotropic models and to Eringen’s isotropic but non-local model is discussed. Kröner’s theroy (where a defect is viewed as a lack of strain compatibility in the medium) and the elastic field equations (formulated in a way analogous to Maxwell’s field equations of magnetostatics) are described. The concept of the dislocation density tensor is introduced and the utility of higher-order dislocation density correlation tensors is discussed. The beautiful theory of the affine differential geometry of stationary lattice defects developed by Kondo and Kröner is outlined. Kosevich’s attempt to include dynamics in the elastic field equations is described. Wadati’s quantum field theory of extended objects is mentioned qualitatively. Some potential areas of research are identified.     

基于兰达纳米数字印刷机新技术的探讨

通过对兰达数字印刷机的纳米油墨、印刷机结构、印刷工艺等新技术的探讨,发现将纳米技术与现代印刷工艺相结合所生产出的纳米数字印刷机,可有效弥补目前数字印刷机的缺陷,符合市场未来的发展需求。     

应变式力传感器动态特性研究及动态补偿

通过测试传感器的固有频率和冲击响应,对不同结构的应变式力传感器的动态特性进行了研究。当力传感器动态特性不理想时,根据零极点配置法设计了动态补偿数字滤波器,对力传感器进行动态补偿,使之适用于动态测量。实验表明:柱式力传感器的动态特性优于S形力传感器。通过对S形传感器进行动态补偿,拓宽了力传感器的工作频带,提高了力传感器的动态性能,减小了动态误差。     

PSNR在网目调数字图像质量评价中的应用研究

详细论证了峰值信噪比(PSNR)在网目调数字图像质量评价中的缺陷,并对PSNR算法进行了改进,提出了分块的峰值信噪比(BPSNR,Block PSNR)这一方法,降低了PSNR对图像阶调分布的依赖性,提高了评价结果与视觉感受的一致性。实验证明,这一方法可以用于网目调数字图像的质量评价。     

LATENT IMAGES ON THE CAMERA’S WALL: Forensic aesthetics as photography

This paper examines the “algorithmic turn” in light of the “forensic turn” and seeks to consider the relevance of Forensic Architecture’s work for the theory of photography. First, I will analyze the role of photography as testimony in light of the concept of “forensic aesthetics,” and argue that with it, the role of photography as evidence is less related to its visible dimensions and more to its being a material trace—an invisible latent image that needs to be developed and animated. Second, I will diagnose the implication of the concept of “forensic aesthetics” in one of the agency’s first research projects: an investigation of US drone warfare in Pakistan from 2011 and argue that the concern that arose with the emergence of digital photography from a “post-photographic” era—in which the effect of digital technologies was perceived as the virtualization of the world—takes a material twist with forensic aesthetics. It is precisely the digitization of photography that enables it to maintain its indexical power, even at the cost of losing its limits as a medium.     

BLESSED BE THE PHOTOGRAPH

Almost since its inception the photograph has functioned as a lens that appears to open the past while simultaneously marking the boundary between the past and the living present. In fact, Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida specifically explored how this condition of photography operates on viewers, creating the experience of an anterior-future tense. This essay offers a close reading of Barthes’s notion of the role of the “punctum” and the analysis of it that the “post-photography” debates of the late 1980s produced in order to explore how images (analogue and digital alike) trigger “immaterial signals” that convey affective qualities. Through an in-depth analysis of affect the essay further demonstrates how images have the potential to create non-narrative and illogical associations with the embodied memories of viewers.