Identify”-Ing a New Way of Seeing Amateurs, Moblogs, and Practices in Mobile Imaging

HEIDI RAE COOLEY

“Identify”-ing A New Way of Seeing Amateurs, Moblogs, and Practices in Mobile Imaging

Metal filings? Ice crystals on a bathroom window? A passing Tyrannosaurus rex?

In November 2002, web designer Adam and a place via his/her MSD provide access Greenfield, coined the term ‘moblogging’.1 to not only a person’s running commentary Derived from ‘mobile’ and ‘weblog’, regarding his/her daily interactions but also, ‘moblogging’ indicated a shift, the emergence and more important to this essay, images that of a distinctive trend in weblogging (also correspond to the way s/he sees the world known as blogging), a form of electronic around him/her.4 journaling on the internet in which a person A particular moblog of interest is “Identify logs his/her thoughts and provides links to Game” located at the Textamerica website other sites to which others can respond and (identify.textamerica.com). Like the other contribute. The prefix ‘mo-’, an abbreviation moblogs hosted by Textamerica (as well as of ‘mobile’, redefined the character of other moblogs on the web), “Identify Game” blog journaling as it had been practiced posts images uploaded from MSDs and previously.2 Whereas blogging required a invites comments, or in the case of “Identify stationary point of access to the web, usually Game,” guesses, from visitors about the a desktop computer, moblogging happens images. However, the images posted to on-the-go. With mobile screenic device “Identify Game” are substantially different (MSD)—such as a camera phone or PDA with from the majority of those posted to other imaging capabilities—in hand, one can move moblogs; they demonstrate a particular about the city or other places and “post [his/ and extreme example of the imaging that her] experiences, narratively and visually, on MSDs foster. Typical images that appear on a shared message board.”3 Crucial to this ordinary moblogs are of smiles and grimaces activity is the ability to upload information of friends, family and passers-by, the leisurely from a MSD to a website, which means that reclining pet peering through lazy eyes, any place is a possible site of transmission even the orchestration and color of various of text and image. The moblogs that grow food items at a restaurant or on a local fruit out of such engagements between a person stand. These are framed images that provide Rethinking the Amateur: Acts of Media Production in the Digital Age 65 Broderick Fox, editor, Spectator 24:1 (Spring 2004) 65-79. “IDENTIFY”-ING A NEW WAY OF SEEING a context to which can be ascribed a meaning related to issues of the amateur, past amateur or interpretation: they function through their practice , and new (amateur) technologies? In legibility. As such, they are images that what ways do these images require that we are reminiscent of (although not the same revise our conceptions about documents and as) amateur tourist photos, snapped in the documentation? Finally, how might we come moment of ephemeral pleasures, to be read to understand such images as indications of a at a later time. Unlike these views of the new way of seeing? This article is envisioned everyday that appear on ordinary moblogs, as an initial response to these questions, and what appears on “Identify Game” are sundry it is an invitation for further conversation glimpses of everyday objects—images that regarding the very peculiar images that are relatively illegible. By ‘glimpses’ I mean appear on “Identify Game” and in less partial views, or what, in cinematic terms, concentrated form on other moblogs on the might be considered extreme close-ups or web. canted angles of ordinary things.5 In fact, the moblog’s invocation to post explicitly requests The Amateur and Mobile Screenic Devices such images; its description line reading, (MSDs) “Send an abstract picture of a common object and see if anyone can guess what it is.” The Since MSD imaging is a practice of presumably point of the game is to see playfully, i.e., to everyday people, it seems appropriate in image the ordinary in ways that surprise and, their contemplation and theorization, to thereby, trouble reading, as can be seen in turn to considerations of the amateur.6 In the numerous attempts made by site visitors fact, the term ‘amateur’ surfaces periodically to identify the images. In response, people in relation to discussions about MSDs and with mobile picture phones and PDAs with the images they produce. Usually such imaging capabilities regularly post images of discussions refer to the ways in which MSDs hardly recognizable items that they happen serve as devices for news reportage (e.g., upon during the course of the day. The providing real-time images of natural disasters images that have been posted thus far tend and traffic conditions), as well as the fact that to be of the unusual details of things; they are they multiply the promise of amateur video images of textures and peculiarities, surfaces as a tool for activism and ‘new surveillance’ and flaws, obscure angles and distortions. (e.g., circulating images of political What is significant about this phenomenon, upheavals; making visible what authorized as it materializes on “Identify Game,” is that it accounts might conceal); less frequently, they invites us to (re)consider established notions align MSDs with individual creativity and of and expectations for imaging, which may artistic expression and, therefore, amateur still be informed largely by assumptions that photography (e.g., capturing the red glow of privilege the aesthetics of print photography, a sunset).7 Certainly, MSD imaging practices in which legibility is fundamental. A site such may, in fact, replicate those aligned with as “Identify Game,” then, demands that we amateur video and photography, which tend engage images differently and, by extension, to involve preserving a personal, or at least approach them with their specificities in a personalized, view of some thing, event, mind. As such, it calls upon us to think about or person. However, the analogies that are the people who take and post these images constructed as a result may be misleading, for and the technologies with which they do so. these devices and the ways in which they are Likewise, it asks us to attend to the implications used do not so much reinforce former notions of such activities. Perhaps the following of amateurism as open them up. questions provide a point of departure for Historically, notions of amateurism such considerations: How might the imaging have operated in tandem with those of practices, as exhibited on “Identify Game,” be professionalism. As Patricia R. Zimmermann

66 SPRING 2004 HEIDI RAE COOLEY

A sample round of Identify Game posted on 3/21/04 by user “jaybudder.”

RETHINKING THE AMATEUR 67 “IDENTIFY”-ING A NEW WAY OF SEEING

indicates, amateurism and professionalism into the professional sphere—but only to the are categories that function symbiotically to extent that the containment of the amateur perpetuate social relations determined by is effectively achieved. That is, the amateur capitalism.8 Within this system, the amateur, never (completely) disrupts the conventional coincident with leisure and the private, is codes that govern and perpetuate the set in opposition to the professional, aligned dominant mode of representation. with work (i.e., wage-labor) and the public. But MSDs trouble the structuring binaries The individual as amateur engages his/her that inform conventional notions of the activities during leisure time and often within amateur. Insofar as they have Multimedia the context of or in relation to the nuclear Messaging Service (MMS) capabilities that family.9 The nuclear family simultaneously allow images to be sent from mobile phone provides a place of refuge from the demands or PDA to friends and family (i.e., their and divisiveness of the public sphere and mobile phones and e-inboxes) or uploaded functions as a site of containment, whereby to moblogs, MSDs invite people to engage the freedom and expression ascribed to the in imaging at all times of the day, in and amateur as individual are re-routed. from any location whatsoever. As such, Camera in hand, the amateur records key they problematize the categorizing binaries images that will ensure ‘good’ memories, of work/play and public/private. Leisure images which, as Michelle Citron enumerates, time, a function of play and private, does include “having fun on vacation, children not operate to describe and domesticate the with animals, families that play or celebrate imaging that MSDs produce; the pretense together.”10 In the process, s/he reproduces of hobby (which emerges as an articulation expected narratives, which never pose any of play and private) no longer disguises the challenge to the expertise, rationalization and processes of socializing at work in amateur control of the professional, corporate sphere. activities. At the same time, commercial discourse Additionally, the boundary between promotes ever improving professional-quality professional and amateur is dismantled. technologies to amateurs, whose footage will Professional does not exist in direct potentially be purchased by news stations or opposition to amateur; instead, the line shown on television shows such as America’s delineating the two has been blurred. Those Funniest Home Videos. Here, the amateur is who participate in imaging with MSDs are professionalized (though not professional); hyphenated: amateur-professionals and s/he produces footage that is incorporated professional-amateurs. Now the professional

68 SPRING 2004 HEIDI RAE COOLEY

includes everyday business people such requires a return to the site of undoing, where as real estate agents, construction workers, the categories of amateur and professional salespeople of various kinds, as well as dissolve. What remains is a commonality surgeons and emergency medical technicians, of practice: the imaging that typifies MSD all of whom use MSDs for purposes of use is informed by a will or desire to clarification, demonstration, verification and document. As a result, people using MSDs consultation.11 as imaging devices produce images that The speed and ease at which image can presume a certain legibility (often fraught be exchanged—in effect distributed—is with ideological undertones regarding issues unprecedented in the history of amateur of indexicality and authenticity). That is, photographic practice, where access to there is an underlying motivation to ensure distribution has long been one of the greatest that the images are readable for others so terms of distinction between amateur and that they acquire an exchange value as proof professional media. Such development or evidence.14 As such, they perpetuate a diminishes the professional category’s claim dominant mode of representation which to expertise and specialization (at least, as depends upon framing and contextualization. the terms pertain to the domain of image In contrast, “Identify Game” points to MSD- production); it means that the category no produced images that subvert the investment longer connotes the same privilege and in legibility upon which documentation is separation it once did.12 Likewise, amateur premised.15 undergoes revision, insofar as anyone who has a MSD is always already a potential The Document and Illegibility embedded reporter for various broadcast and print news organizations and, therefore, cannot be relegated to and contained by the Documentation assumes transparency, insofar private sphere.13 as it proceeds according to the expectation Although MSDs dismantle the amateur- that the document preserves something that professional binary as it has functioned is or has been real and that the document’s with respect to representational practices of existence can make that something photography and video, we cannot dispose recognizable as such. This expectation is of the amateur altogether—especially since based on a principle of indexicality: the the term still circulates. Instead we must document is a trace of the previous actuality revise it, or recontextualize it. Doing so of something, and therefore, what it presents

RETHINKING THE AMATEUR 69 “IDENTIFY”-ING A NEW WAY OF SEEING

has authenticity and truth value. The as devices whose imaging capabilities are project of documentation depends upon this designed to “prove it,” as in the case of the privileged status of the document in order grown man who employs a Sprint phone to to inform, to prove, and to remember (from evidence the existence of the monster in his the root docere) what has been. However, closet.18 But often the mechanism of proof is this project is itself neither transparent nor coded in terms that are complicit with notions innocent, since it simultaneously functions of sharing.19 For example, in Sprint’s “You according to disciplinary processes that aim Love Him” commercial, a young woman to make proper and/or contain (from the root messages her friend, stating, “Check this out.” decere) both what is documented and those to The image she sends shows a young man, the whom the document is presented.16 recipient’s “new boyfriend,” whose mouth is Photographic images provide an obvious filled with hamburger and face smeared with example of this dual function. According ketchup. The commercial cuts to the Sprint to Roy Ascott, the photographic image logo and signature bouncing pin, at which traditionally participates in “routines of point a voiceover urges, “Share it when it seeing” in which viewers are trained to see happens.”20 The value of the camera phone, photographic reality as synonymous with according to most print advertisements and ordinary reality.17 Photographs are accepted commercials, resides in its ability to record as conveying (authentic and accurate) visual those rare because momentary happenings; information and/or proof about a depicted the spontaneity of any situation is never lost reality, which conform to accepted codes of with a camera phone in hand. photographic representation. But the objective of imaging is sending the Promotional discourses for camera phones images one records to someone. As indicated and PDAs with imaging capabilities hinge by a majority of cellular service providers on the premise that MSD images function (in the US), one images in order to share.21 as photographic documents, insofar as they In being aligned with sharing, imaging as posit imaging as evidentiary. The MSD, evidencing is coincident with interpersonal often a camera phone, provides the visual relations and community building. The call demonstration for what is being spoken, e.g., to “snap and share,” to borrow a phrase “I see what you’re saying.” A brief overview of from the Verizon Wireless website, implicitly a current marketing campaign for Sprint PCS requires that MSD users share images that are mobile phones and cellular service illustrates recognizable to others. Often these images the ways in which MSDs are constructed rehearse familiar scenes, such as birthdays

70 SPRING 2004 HEIDI RAE COOLEY

Images from medium.rarewindow.com, www.easterwood.org, and ashleyarcher.textamerica.com. and visits to amusement parks, and, as they foreclose summative narrativization such, bear a resemblance to photographs (which is proper to and property of the aligned with past traditions of amateur document). Additionally, these images tend photography.22 Ultimately, interpersonal to lack resolution; their grainy quality speaks relations, as facilitated by MSDs with imaging to a texture of experience, not the pursuit of capabilities, are synonymous with a shared demonstrating the noteworthy or depicting way of seeing, which privileges legibility. a story. (Although, this last point is fast In contrast, the images that are posted to becoming less relevant, given continuing “Identify Game” epitomize an alternative advances in technology.) It is difficult to way of seeing and imaging (in relation to) interpret these images as taking account of or one’s surroundings with their representations ordering that which is imaged; these images of the minute and the tangential, e.g., a shot seem less involved in a mode of representation of the vent holes of a Mac G3 monitor, as that, in Heideggerian terms, produces the well as a close up of a USB thumbdrive. I world as picture.23 Seemingly, neither the contend that these images that appear on images themselves nor that which they “Identify Game” provide an opportunity to represent become a function of usefulness per reconsider accepted notions of document se; in which case, they do not simply comprise and documentation. In certain respects, a standing-reserve out of which a narrative or these images might even be seen as refusing history can be configured. (or at least problematizing) what might be To the extent that these images invoke understood as their putative function as surprise, they recall other images that documents, primarily because they do not appear elsewhere on the web and under less heed photographic convention. The images contrived conditions. Because these other are without context and are fragmentary in images are not directly solicited (as are the what they represent; they defy conventions images on “Identify Game”) and yet appear of photographic composition that typically consistently (albeit sporadically) on various characterize amateur imaging. Traditional moblogs on the web, they allow us to position forms of framing and centering are not the images on “Identify Game” within a fundamental to these images, and the extreme broader context of practice. For the most close-up seems the shot distance of choice. part, other moblogs are host to predominately Additionally, blurring occurs frequently—not legible images, among which illegible images to mention a tendency toward lack of focus. crop up intermittently. For example, an image One might assert that these images incite of blurred blue, salmon, and white appears surprise in both content and form, but this between a shot from a street (presumably surprise makes recognition—legibility—of from inside an automobile) and an indoor anything in the image difficult at best. In office scene (medium.rarewindow.com); its essence, these images do not inform or explain; title reads, “Shot out of car window,” which

RETHINKING THE AMATEUR 71 “IDENTIFY”-ING A NEW WAY OF SEEING

does little to clarify what appears within the expected of photographs proper and as image’s borders. Likewise, a swirl of sparks traditionally (re)produced by amateur punctuates a series of traditional images imaging practices. And yet, they do present of smiling friends embracing each other evidence—as photographic fragments of (ashleyarcher.textamerica.com). Or, a moments of what I call seeing-imaging. row of feet belonging to two (and a half) What this means is that they are residual pairs of bended knees interrupts a long yet concrete artifacts, which are themselves column of tourist and family images indexes, in addition to their representations (www.easterwood.org). Within the context being indexes. To attend to the documentary of their respective moblog pages, such status of such images requires reading the two illegible images constitute instances of orders of indexicality together. For not only rupture at the same time that they puzzle do the images point to the having-been-there the eye; they pierce through the otherwise of the objects/people represented but also prosaic documentation of everyday life the having-been of a particular moment and legible in the images surrounding them. manner of seeing. They gesture toward and In part, the sporadic occurrence of such make record of both the happening/existence images accounts for this disjunction.24 But of a particular engagement and the process of there is something more to these images. seeing-imaging of that engagement. In other venues, I have argued that such What I am asserting here with regard to the (what I am calling here) ‘illegible’ images process of seeing-imaging that MSDs foster produced by MSDs can be interpreted as is strikingly different than what is usually traces of various moments of encounter; attributed to amateur photographic (and that is, they might be said to be fragments of filmmaking) practices and technologies. While once on-going interactions with the world, discourses surrounding and perpetuating interactions that seem to have exceeded both amateurism define amateur images, e.g., frame (as defined by the images’ edges) and snapshots, in terms of their “naiveté in regards label (as might be provided by captions or to…formal [i.e., professional] systems of titles).25 As fragments, images such as these visual language” (among other things), they become something more than photographs: do not conceive of the practices themselves they are not merely representations that bear as a manner of seeing.26 The informal, the burden of indexicality in a traditional novice visual style of amateur photos, which photographic way and they do more than propagates an ideologically homogenized abide by the codes of realism in a manner notion of private images (both in content

72 SPRING 2004 HEIDI RAE COOLEY

and form), is understood as operating at the moblog images, those on “Identify Game” level of representation; it in no way indicates demonstrate that seeing-imaging transpires a particular practice of seeing, much less as in relation to everyday objects, mundane it might transpire via an imaging technology things—the incidental. The point of meeting such as the camera. Even when Susan Sontag between two Legos, the spiraled threads of a explains that photography “is a device for tassel, or the curvature of a copier start button experiencing” or when she asserts that all potentially foster encounter. And the “picture-taking is an event in itself,” her illegibility of the resulting images speaks to claims fall short of what I am proposing here the spontaneity of encounter, even as the call in arguing that imaging with a MSD is, in fact, for such images may imply otherwise. a part of everyday acts of seeing.27 Of course, Also important to consider are the this phenomenon has something to do with exchanges that transpire in the guessing of the fact that the portability and instantaneity each image that appears on “Identify Game.” of current imaging technologies make The various attempts to ‘identify’ what an possible the simultaneity—and integration— image pictures correspond to the degree of of imaging and seeing. The illegibility of the illegibility borne by the image. Frequently, resulting images of seeing-imaging, therefore, several guesses are required before the is not merely an aspect of a visual style but, in image is accurately identified—or at least fact, a material record of a visual process in its an approximate guess is considered close happening. enough to count as correct. In some cases, the To place the images of “Identify Game” guesses number two or three, while for more in relation to the illegible images on other obscure images more than twenty guesses moblogs is to posit a comparable process may be required (in which case, clues, though of vision and, consequently, an analogous almost as enigmatic as the image, are often form of encounter between MSD user and provided). The guesses made are generally his/her surroundings. In this way, the friendly and sometimes playful but almost images posted to “Identify Game” might always concise, and when the correct guess also be understood as indexical fragments appears, very little, if any, explanation of of particular experiences of seeing-imaging the object is provided. That is, no story (even as such engagements may not be as is generated; no one asks anything more spontaneous given the possibility that they about the image or the object. The string of might, in fact, emerge as direct responses to exchanges terminates (without denouement). the moblog’s call for images). As with other Ultimately, the pleasure is in guessing at the

RETHINKING THE AMATEUR 73 “IDENTIFY”-ING A NEW WAY OF SEEING

image itself, not in any related narrative. But representation, I do not propose to deny these the playful banter reveals something more: images all documentary status or value. While for example, that an unrecognized object can it is possible that they are not documents in a simultaneously seem a helmet, an earring, a traditional sense, it seems that the images that hair clip, a fishing lure, a brush, a cap, the back appear on “Identify Game,” as well as those side of a chair and an ear—and yet be none that remain after potentially less contrived of these.28 The images on “Identify Game” moments of seeing-imaging, are likely to emphasize the disjunction between the image, participate in constructing history in some what it pictures and how it is seen. They do way—that they, as by-products, preserve so by performing a hyperbolized illegibility, something of a past that might produce which ultimately underscores the relative historical understanding.29 illegibility of all photographic documents (or Perhaps, it becomes a matter of attending perhaps all documents). We can never really to the minute details that are recognizable, say what any document actually (re)presents, e.g., textures, expressions, incongruities, since recognition always presupposes literacy etc. that comprise the everyday, and reading in the discourses that govern legibility: to be those visual details with and against any able to read a document, visual or written, is accompanying text (be it title/label, personal to be literate in the codes that constitute it. If reflection, or visitor response). Perhaps, it this is the case, then it might be that “Identify becomes a matter of identifying patterns Game” provides training in a new way of and/or tendencies that recur across images seeing, at the same time that it calls into accumulating on moblog pages as well as in question the dominant mode of seeing, which image files to which MSD images are saved. is perpetuated by conventional photographic But it is also a matter of acknowledging that documents, including those associated with these images are traces of a particular mode amateurism. of seeing heretofore not fostered by other amateur imaging technologies. As such, they Evidence of a New Way of Seeing might be said to be records of a particular experience of space and a corresponding sense of the world, as Erwin Panofsky and While the images of “Identify Game” speak others have explained with respect to the to the possibility of calling into question modern perspectival mode of seeing that the assumptions accorded to documentary emerged in Western Europe during the practices as they pertain to photographic Renaissance (and which has persisted as the

74 SPRING 2004 HEIDI RAE COOLEY

dominant and colonizing mode of vision in or narrativize events and scenes—which the Anglo-West).30 themselves comply with predetermined, For Panosfky, modern perspective socially constructed assumptions regarding transforms psychophysiological space into what is proper to an ‘event’ or a ‘scene’, geometric space, which reduces the texture and which are usually sustained through and substance of reality to homogeneous discourses organizing practices ascribed to and abstract functionality; it coincides with amateurs. We frame and pose our subjects, a mathematical and supposedly objective, so that the subsequent images correspond rational seeing.31 Seeing engendered by this to traditional photographic (and often systematic construction of space propels commercial) representations. This is precisely positivistic accounts and representations of what (potentially) changes in the seeing- the world. Such practices of seeing function imaging fostered by MSDs, as evidenced by according to calculation and quantifiability. the images posted to “Identify Game” and Panofsky makes clear that perspectival seeing other moblogs. is not inherent to human perception of space, The images that accumulate and circulate which he supposes to be heterogeneous and as a result of seeing-imaging with MSDs rooted in the phenomenological. Rather, as register a shift in mode of perception. The Panofsky explains, our modern vision has images that appear on moblogs, including undergone “habituation—further reinforced “Identify Game,” counter the systematic, by looking at photographs”—and I would rectilinear organization of space that informs argue, by taking photographs.32 and corresponds to a modern perspectival Our way of seeing, having grown seeing, which disregards and, consequently, accustomed to linear perspective, adheres relegates to the status of invisible that which to normalized cues or patterns, which is minute, peripheral and/or coincidental.33 standardize our observations and abstract us This is not to say that modern perspective is from our seeing. As such, we attend to but do suffering a definitive decline. Rather, I mean not engage our surroundings—due in part to to suggest that the images produced with varying degrees of haste and/or preoccupation MSDs potentially provide evidence of an (facilitated by processes of standardization in alternative way of seeing. other areas of our existence). We resort to Mizuko Ito acknowledges just such a shift. words such as “objective” and “logical”—and According to Ito, camera phones invite a “normal”—to describe this relationship to “persistent alertness.”34 This “new kind of the world. We snap images that chronicle personal awareness,” as Ito qualifies, results

RETHINKING THE AMATEUR 75 “IDENTIFY”-ING A NEW WAY OF SEEING

in images of the serendipitous.35 She cites After all, the moblog’s description line, insofar a December 2002 IPSe Marketing survey, as it solicits abstract images, always makes which reported that camera phone users’ apparent the fact that the images may not images were of “things that they happened be remnants of a process of seeing-imaging. upon that were interesting” (emphasis Yet I am inclined to think that whether or mine).36 What is crucial to notice is the not they, themselves, are remnants, the apparent absence of intentionality belonging “Identify Game” images, in their illegibility, to imaging with MSDs. ‘Persistent alertness’, call attention to the prospect of another way then, is not an intentional mode of seeing; of seeing. And since similar images appear it is not goal-oriented; it does not strive to elsewhere on the web in dispersed fashion, frame a subject according to the protocols the case can be made that “Identify Game” of photographic convention: hence, it does becomes a site of possibility for considering not produce images that conform to an (and perhaps practicing) this new mode of appropriate form of amateur imaging. While perception. This claim acquires validity in ‘persistent alertness’ might involve a greater light of the fact that the site administrator attentiveness, attentiveness is not principally admits to having been “inspired by a couple motivated by a particular intent to record of images that I could not identify in other images. This is not to preclude any intention people’s moblogs.”38 Perhaps then, the “fun” underlying the purchase of such imaging of the game is to activate vision through devices or certain acts of imaging; it is to illegibility. suggest that intentionality does not figure Recently, Reiter’s Camera Phone Report centrally, and perhaps not consciously, in cited several predictions made by InfoTrends moments of imaging. Simply stated, one does Research Group in its 2004 Worldwide not think or plan before one images; imaging Camera Phone and Photo Messaging Forecast. is spontaneous—and coincident with one’s Among the predictions listed was this one: encounter with what one images.37 “Camera phones this year will generate 29 But the images posted to “Identify Game” billion digital images.”39 To be sure, much must also come under question here. For of the discussion that will surround these while they seem to exemplify the spontaneity proliferating images will address issues of of ‘persistent alertness’, it is difficult to public and private, particularly with regard determine the extent to which they are the to violations of privacy (e.g., ‘up-skirting’, result of ‘happening upon’, i.e., to what extent MSDs in gyms, etc.), as well as questions they are not, in fact, planned and framed. around the possibilities for social activism

76 SPRING 2004 HEIDI RAE COOLEY

(e.g., moblogging from the site of a protest, coincides with moments of awareness out picture-messaging to news stations images of which illegible images materialize and, inappropriate uses of power by authorities). by extension, we might begin to recognize Such discussions will be continuations of the sorts of statements such images might current discussions. However, other topics make. In other words, we cannot simply and may gain visibility, even predominance. For nonchalantly accept the images produced in example, processes of seeing-imaging with MSDs as Howard Rheingold has spoken of a more of the same. Rather, we must consider need for a new “species of literacy” so that their potential as evidence of a new mode of people will know “how to use these tools” seeing, because in the end, to see differently is so as not to become passive consumers of to challenge older modes of perception—those ‘disinfotainment’ but active producers of perpetuating the legitimacy of legibility, with social intelligence.40 But this new literacy must which traditions of amateur photography also heed the visual specificities of the images and filmmaking (willingly or not) have been produced by MSDs with imaging capabilities. complicit for so long. Certainly not all seeing To overlook the distinctions between MSD that transpires with MSD in hand can be said images, e.g., by categorizing images writ to participate in a new way of seeing. But the large as information, is to misinterpret what possibility exists. What remains to be seen literacy might entail, for it assumes that all is how and to what extent this new mode of images are equally legible—or that they all seeing will be mobilized. operate according to codes of legibility. The fact is that illegibility is a hallmark I would like to thank Rachel Thompson and Nicole of a number of MSD images proliferating Woods for responding to the early drafts of this article on the internet and in e-inboxes, etc., and and Daniel Herbert for his comments regarding issues of indexicality. Also, I would like to extend therefore, we must take account of those my appreciation to Broderick Fox for his constructive instances in which illegibilities surface and criticism throughout the writing of this article and circulate. In doing so, we might begin to Anne Friedberg for her continued encouragement of my notice instances in which seeing-imaging scholarship.

Heidi Rae Cooley is a Ph.D. candidate in the Critical Studies Division of the School of Cinema- Television at the University of Southern California. She recently received her M.A. in Visual Studies from the University of California, Irvine.

NOTES

1 Joi Ito, Joi Ito’s Radio Outline, 2003, http://radio.weblogs.com/0114939/outlines/moblog.html# (2 March 2004). Moblogging is distinct from photoblogging, in which images taken with a camera and downloaded to a computer are uploaded to an electronic noteboard. In both cases, i.e., moblog and photoblog, visitors are able to comment on and/ or respond to the images posted. Additionally, moblogging differs from text- and picture-messaging, both of which involve sending messages directly from one mobile phone to another. 2 Adam Greenfield, “Moblogging,” V-2 Organization, 5 November 2002, www.v-2.org/displayArticle.php?article_ num=59 (2 March 2004). In this article, Greenfield initially describes moblogging as “what happens when you fuse digital cameras and text-entry functionality with a way to publish it to the Web.” He qualified his definition in a speech given at The First International Moblogging Conference held in Tokyo in July 2003. In his speech, “Whatever Happened to Serendipity? Or, Life in a Thoroughly Moblogged Land,” he explains, “I think moblogs are what happen at the intersection of people, place and information.” See “Whatever Happened to Serendipity?” 3 July 2003, V-2 Organization, www.v-2.org/displayArticle.php?article_num=501 (2 March 2004). The website for the conference also defines moblogging: “Moblogging is a blanket term that covers a variety of related practices. At its simplest, moblogging (from ‘mobile web logging’) is merely the use of a phone or other mobile device to publish content to the World Wide Web, whether that content be text, images, media files, or some combination of the above.” In some cases, RETHINKING THE AMATEUR 77 “IDENTIFY”-ING A NEW WAY OF SEEING moblogged entries can be “tagged” with the coordinates for the location from which the message is posted. See Studies and Observations Group, IMC: First International Moblogging Conference, 2003, http://www.marginwalker.org/1imc/ index.html (5 March 2004). On a related note, Howard Rheingold is quick to point out that other moblog practitioner- enthusiasts prefer a pronunciation of ‘moblogging’ that alludes to Smart Mobs, which emphasizes the potential for collective action that Rheingold discusses in his book, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. I find this an important connection, albeit one that will remain only tangential to the discussion here. See Howard Rheingold, “Moblogs Seen as Crystal Ball for a New Era in Online Journalism,” Online Journalism Review, 9 July 2003, http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ technology/1057780670.php (4 March 2004). 3 Greenfield, “Moblogging as, um, CRM Enhancement,” V-2 Organization, 27 November 2002, www.v-2.org/displayA rticle.php?article_num=185 (2 March 2004). 4 For example, in “Phoning in Photos for Posterity” by Elisa Batista and Kari L. Dean, interviewee Diego Salinas explains, regarding images of the August 2003 New York City blackout that he posted to a moblog, “It was the wonderment of it all. They [friends] could live through my eyes” (my emphasis). As suggested by “through my eyes,” the significance of the images seems as much a matter of his particular experience of seeing as it is the fact that they document an historic event. In other words, the five or six images that Salinas posted to his moblog do not merely present pictures of what he saw; they are understood as providing access to his very process of seeing. See Wired News, 19 August 2003, http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,60082,00.html (2 March 2004). 5 This is not to say that such images of the everyday do not appear on more typical moblogs. In fact, many such images do appear but more sporadically, as will be discussed later in this article. 6 The decreasing cost to purchase and operate MSDs, camera phones in particular, make it possible for many people to participate in mobile imaging. Currently in the US it is possible to obtain a free camera phone (when one signs up for cellular service) and monthly fees start at approximately $30.00. This is not to say that all people have access, it is to say that many do. As such, almost anyone can be a reporter, an activist, and/or a photographer. 7 See Xeni Jardin, “Everyone’s Posting Instant Photos on the Web. Get Ready for Your Close-up,” Wired Magazine 11, no.7 (July 2003), http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/start.html?pg=2 (4 March 2004). Also see Justin Hall, “From Weblog to Moblog,” The Feature, 21 November 2002, http://www.thefeature.com/print?articleid=24815 (2 March 2004). 8 Patricia R. Zimmermann, Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 6. Ultimately, Zimmermann argues that amateur film, not merely an inferior film practice, is “a historical process of social control over representation” (xv). She explains within this history, the concept of the amateur has undergone significant transformation: “from a participation in entrepreneurial myths to a popularization of professional equipment as consumer items and, finally to a professionalization of leisure time” (xii). While her principle object is film, her discussion is appropriate to other representational media. 9 Zimmermann, Reel Families, 145. 10 Michel Citron, Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 7. 11 See Alan A. Reiter, “Why Will Camera Phones Be Revolutionary?” Reiter’s Camera Phone Report, 31 October 2003, http: //www.wirelessmoment.com/value_proposition_camera_phones/index.htm (18 March 2004). 12 Zimmermann explains that historically the amateur-professional binary often worked as a mechanism of privilege because only certain people had access to equipment, etc. See Reel Families, 3. 13 See Jardin, “Everyone’s Posting Instant Photos.” She asserts that the proliferation of MSDs will increase the number of news events that will be covered by “accidental phone-media diarists.” Ultimately, she concludes, “The world will be one big reality show.” 14 As recently as 12 March, 2004, a news station in Pennsylvania listed specifications for camera phone images of breaking news events. These specifications strive to ensure that images submitted conform to particular standards of legibility. They request that camera phone users use the highest resolution, avoid using their digital zoom, hold their phone steady, take outdoor images (for better light), as well as provide details regarding when and where the image is taken. See Reiter, Reiter’s Camera Phone Report, 12 March 2004, http://www.wirelessmoment.com/2004/week11/ index.html (12 March 2004). 15 Certainly, video artists and abstract art photographers upset standardized modes of representation; however, they have done so in ways that reinforce the amateur-professional binary. 16 Roy Ascott, “Photography at the Interface,” in Electronic Culture: Technology and Visual Representation, edited by Timothy Druckery (New York: Aperture, 1996), 168. Philip Rosen identifies a similar etymology; however, he adds that the account of the real, which the document makes possible (as well as authentic), proceeds according to “coherent sequenciation,” that is narrative. See Philip Rosen Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 238. 17 Ascott, “Photography at the Interface,” 168. 18 See the Sprint website (www.sprintpcs.com). 19 Similarly, Mizuko Ito has discussed camera phones in terms of “folk journalism among peers,” in which “Things that are personally newsworthy are shared” (26). See Xeni Jardin, “Mining the Mobile Mindset,” On Magazine, December 2003, http://www.ericsson.com/about/publications/onmagazine (12 March 2004). 20 Sprint website. 21 In addition to the Sprint example that emphasizes the importance of sharing, the Verizon Wireless website states, 78 SPRING 2004 HEIDI RAE COOLEY

“Always have your camera phone with you to snap and share the fun” (www.verizonwireless.com). Likewise, the Cingular website reads, “Capture and share moments as they happen” (www.cingular.com). And T-Mobile declares, “T-Mobile camera and video phones help you to capture the fun moments in your life and share them as they happen” (www.t-mobile.com). 22 Although it might seem that imaging with MSDs is not so different from the photographs gathered in family photo albums, there is a principle distinction to be made. While conventional family(-related) photographs function to (re)constitute the family through its presenting itself as the proper family, image sharing implicates MSD users in the continuous process of imaging which is then interpreted as serving the interests of relationships. In other words, image sharing is not about containment (e.g., of the nuclear family unit) but a more complete participation in the circulation of images. So, even as a number of MSD images may look like amateur photographs in their choreographing a scene, it seems to me that there is a different disciplinary mechanism at work. 23 The world becomes picture through representing, a process that produces legibility. Representing, a verb that means “to set out before oneself and to set forth in relation to oneself” (132), objectifies the world, ultimately making it visible to/for oneself; it serves as a means of mastering the world. See Martin Heidegger, “The Age of the World Picture” in The Question of Technology and Other Essays, translated and with introduction by William Lovitt (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1977), 129 and 132. 24 Two related points are worth mentioning here. First, it is possible to interpret these images as interrupting a sort of photo album-esque narrative/schema that might otherwise be exerted through the sequences of more legible images. Second, it might also be that these images refract a certain illegibility back onto the more legible images, thereby destabilizing the individual narratives they might represent. 25 I have presented these ideas in different but related papers (to be) given at Visible Evidence XI in December 2003 and The Life of Mobile Data in April 2004. 26 Patricia R. Zimmermann, “The Amateur, the Avant-garde, and Ideologies of Art,” The Journal of Film and Video 38, no. 3-4 (Summer-Fall 1986): 66. In her article, Zimmermann discusses avant-garde qua amateur filmmaking practices in terms that might be interpreted as comprising a different way of seeing, i.e., through “visual experimentation” (76). In the 1920s, such experimentation included “unusual camera angels, moving lights, extreme close-ups for distortion, multiple images, distorting lenses, and use of flashbacks not ordinarily connected logically to the previous scene” (75), while in the post-1950s years it has materialized as a spontaneous and untampered practice (81). But even as these practices might demonstrate a different manner of seeing, they only do so in a marginalized and limited way—at the fringes of more conventional system of amateur practice. 27 Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Picador USA), 10 and 11. 28 See the entry posted on 20 February, 2004, http://identify.textamerica.com/?r=417192. 29 Needless to say, their rate of proliferation and their potential ephemerality may be obstacles to accomplishing any sort of reliable history. 30 For example, Norman Bryson, Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 87- 131; Martin Jay, “Scopic Regimes of Modernity,” in Vision and Visuality, edited by Hal Foster (Seattle: Bay Press, 1988), 3-23; W.J.T. Mitchell, “The Pictorial Turn,” in Picture Theory (Chicago: University Press of Chicago, 1994), 11-34; and Michael Baxandall, “The Period Eye,” in Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 29-108. 31 Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, translated by Christopher S. Wood (New York: Zone Books, 1991). 32 Ibid., 34. 33 While it may be possible to posit a similarity between these images and certain examples of modernist art photographs, I contend that a crucial distinction lay in the fact that everyday people are imaging their experiences of the world without pretensions to art photography. In other words, there is not the conscious effort to produce the image as such. Even the intentionality that might be attributed to the “Identify Game” images is substantially different than the pretenses belonging to modernist photographs. 34 Ito uses the term to distinguish camera phones from traditional cameras. Mizuko Ito, “Camera Phones Changing the Definition of Picture-worthy,” Japan Media Review, August 29, 2003, http://www.ojr.org/japan/wireless/ 1062208524p.php (14 September 2003). 35 Ibid. 36 Quoted in Ito, “Camera Phones Changing the Definition of Picture-worthy.” 37 Of course, it matters who has access to this alternative mode of seeing and under what circumstances, as well as how this mode of seeing is deployed by those who have access—and to what extent access is synonymous with power. Unfortunately, it is not within the scope of this article to attend to these issues more directly. 38 Trent, “Identify Game,” 20 January 2004, http://identify.textamerica.com/?r=313380 (13 March 2004). 39 Reiter, “Why Camera Phones Will Be Revolutionary,” 31 October 2003, http://www.wirelessmoment.com/value_ proposition_camera_phones/index.html (14 March 2004). Note that this number does not include images produced by PDAs. 40 Rheingold, “Moblogs Seen as Crystal Ball for a New Era in Online Journalism.” He also discusses a related concept, “a new literacy of cooperation,” in Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2002).

RETHINKING THE AMATEUR 79