Section 3: Digital Manipulation and Fair Use

Digital manipulation of images is rooted in the art of photo manipulation, and photo manipulation is nearly as old as the advent of printed photographs. Nicéphore Niépce created one of the earliest known photographs in 1825 and then produced the infamous View from the Window at Le Gras photograph (made with a camera obscura) sometime between 1825 and 1827 (FIGURE S3.1). The 1830s through 1850s were a time of advancement in photographic and printing technologies, including the daguerreotype process (1837), which made possible the fixed development of printed images; Alexander Wolcott’s first American patent for a camera (1840); William Henry Fox Talbot’s calotype process (1841), which permitted multiple prints to be made from one negative; and Frederick Scott Archer’s collodion process (1851), which lessened the time of image exposure to just two to three seconds. While the technology of the art form grew, artists and experimenters also pushed the boundaries of photography’s aesthetic possibilities.

FIGURE S3.1 Nicéphore Niépce, View from the Window at Le Gras, 1825–27. This printed photograph, taken with a camera obscura, shows a view of the roof and surrounding area of Niépce’s estate during an eight-hour exposure. Unless it is traveling, you can view the original image at the Harry Ransom Center on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.

In the 1830s, Talbot and Anna Atkins made cyanotype prints of found objects on paper (refer back to Figure 5.2). In her book Photomontage, Dawn Ades considers these a type of photographic manipulation that predates and inspires the photogram (or Rayogram or Schadograph) works by Man Ray, Christian Schad, and László Moholy-Nagy in the 1920s. By the 1850s, Hippolyte Bayard, Henry Peach Robinson, and Oscar Gustav Rejlander had developed combination printing as a pictorial approach to photography in which the medium was used for storytelling, as opposed to documenting. Bayard relied primarily on the combination technique to create separate exposures for different parts of the image. (Ansel Adams’s zone system had not yet been conceived.) Robinson and Rejlander created combination prints to bring multiple images into one frame, expanding the narrative of the photograph by way of juxtaposition (FIGURE S3.2). Many thought these images were deceitful, as photography was considered to be a scientific process that captured the truth of a moment. Ades writes, “The members of the Photographic Society in France were banned from exhibiting composite works” [1]. In the age of Adobe Photoshop, I probably don’t have to convince you that the photographic image can tell multiple truths, and it can create a deceptive illusion at the whim of the photographer. Photographic hoaxes brought nor’easter storm clouds both to Henry Peach Robinson’s 1890 photograph (Nor’Easter) and the viral image of the Statue of Liberty following Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 [2].

FIGURE S3.2 Henry Peach Robinson, Fading Away, 1858. The artist used five different negatives to create this combination albumen print.

While photographs were manipulated throughout the late 1800s, the Russian Constructivists (the Soviet group of photo collage artists) and Dadaists of the 1920s assembled works of photomontage that are remembered today for their political and disruptive anti-art aesthetics.

Photomontage and Collage

During the 1910s and 1920s, there were multiple ways of conceptualizing the collage or photomontage. Soviet Russian architect El Lissitzky “renounced self-expression in art, along with easel painting” [3]. His use of photography and collage demonstrated his belief that artists should be grounded in the technological processes relating to industry. His contemporary Aleksander Aleksandr supported the concept of faktura. In relationship to photography and collage, faktura was a theoretical belief in discovering a “medium’s distinctive capabilities by experimenting with its inherent qualities” [4]. Rodchenko, Lissitzky, and other Russian Constructivists used the manipulation of photographs through juxtaposition to experiment with the medium and combine images of man, science, industry, and the future with typography, lines, and basic shapes. These works were largely utilized for political propaganda.

During the same time period, the Dada art movement spread throughout Europe and to New York. Dada artists also utilized collage and juxtaposition to create works of anti-art. Though factions of the Dadaists had their differences, the work of the avant-garde was largely created in reaction to the political interests leading to World War I and the art historical subjectivism inherent to the Expressionist movement. While the Dadaists rejected logic, capitalism, and rules, they embraced the technology that the Expressionists were responding to with their moody, human, nonrealistic paintings. The anti-logic of Dada is articulated in one of Tristan Tzara’s Dada Manifesto of 1918 [5]:

I am writing a manifesto and there’s nothing I want, and yet I’m saying certain things, and in principle I am against manifestos, as I am against principles.

You can easily find this and other manifestos online.

The Berlin Dadaists agreed that the term photomontage best described their efforts, as the word “monteur” translates from German to “mechanic” and from French to “assembly.” Much of the photomontage or collage work created in this time period has an edgy, aesthetic quality: words and images overlap, chaos is preferred to logic, and dynamic movements are prevalent. Photographs are cut and pasted together from preprinted or found source materials, such as newspapers and magazines. Instead of painting a blank canvas, the role of the artist was transformed into that of a collector of raw data and an assembler of new messages using materials of mass communication. These images are not meant to deceive the viewer into believing an alternate reality. Instead, they’re meant to demonstrate a quality of rebellion or disobedience and co-optive authorship. The edges of the cut-and-pasted images are apparent. Outlines around separate images are unworthy of blending, as their separateness is central to understanding the politicized message.

---

Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain

In 1917, French artist Marcel Duchamp (who was affiliated with the New York Dadaists) entered his Fountain, a urinal he had signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt, in the Society of Independent Artists exhibition (FIGURE S3.3). The work was rejected from the show, but it had far-reaching implications for generations of artists that followed. Duchamp challenged the role of the artist: he selected an everyday object (what he called a “readymade”), positioned it as a work of art (by entering it into a fine arts exhibition), and treated it as the maker of an art piece would by adding his signature. While the Society of Independent Artists did not appreciate Duchamp’s mind game in 1917, Fountain would go on to become one of the most celebrated works of conceptual art of the 20th century.

FIGURE S3.3 Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz for The Blind Man No. 2, edited by Henri-Pierre Roche, Beatrice Wood, and Marcel Duchamp (New York, May 1917). pg. 4.

---

Of course, the collage style seen in Dadaist works has been used by artists and designers throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The opening title of Monty Python’s Flying Circus showcases Terry Gilliam’s detailed animation collages that draw visual parallels to works by Hannah Höch [6]. The deconstruction movement in typographical layout of the 1990s also takes its cue from the perspective of Dada disorder.

Surrealism

The first of two Surrealist manifestos was written in 1924 by French artist André Breton. The Surrealists were less politically charged than the Dadaists and more interested in exploring the unconscious. If the Dadaists wanted to instigate social change of the outer world, the Surrealists aimed to develop human consciousness through an examination of perception in the inner mind. The movement spread through diverse forms of production to include photography, painting, film, acting, musical composition, and writing.

Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) was written and directed by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí in 1929 [7]. The silent film is more of a dreamscape than a narrative, often demonstrating a double-exposure where film clips are montaged.

During the same time period, Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein developed montage-editing techniques that he wrote about in articles and books. Dubbed the “father of montage,” Eisenstein used repetition, symbolism, juxtaposition, rhythm, and double-exposure in his films. Similar to the Constructivists who used photo collage for propaganda purposes, Eisenstein was a Bolshevik artist who utilized new filmmaking techniques for political purposes [8].

Of course, just as photo manipulations occurred long before the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, A Trip to the Moon (1902) by Georges Méliès predates the Surrealists and films by the Soviet father of montage by more than 20 years. The silent 14-minute science fiction fantasy is loosely based on Jules Verne’s novel From the Earth to the Moon and H. G. Wells’s The First Men in the Moon.

Digital Manipulation

Of course, manipulation doesn’t start and end with the Dadaists and the Surrealists. The advent of the networked society calls for new tools for interacting with our various linked screens. User interface (UI) designs for interactive media can be created with pixels or with vector art (see Section 1, Bits, Pixels, Vectors, and Design). For this reason, many UI designs are developed in Photoshop. Over the years, Photoshop has expanded its primary function as a bitmap application to include a strong collection of vector shape tools. These tools are often used for digital creation and image manipulation (by way of juxtaposition and/or masking). In Chapter 9, Blended Realities, you’ll learn the basic ideas to keep in mind while developing an application (“app”) for an iPad or other touch-screen device.

Fair Use and Appropriation

Not all visual works are protected by copyright laws. In your collages and photo manipulations, you’re free to use images that are in the public domain. These include official media created by the U.S. government, much of the content in the Library of Congress (LOC), and works that have an expired copyright (the death of the author plus 70 years for U.S. authors). Online collections including the LOC website and its Flickr stream, NASA’s image gallery, as well as Wikimedia Commons are excellent resources for finding and downloading these types of images or media, although it is always your responsibility to determine the copyright.

In addition to the public domain and expired copyrights, some artists actively contribute to a growing collection of media licensed with alternative mechanisms to the traditional U.S. copyright. GNU and Creative Commons licenses allow artists to set specific guidelines in regard to how their work can be shared, transformed, or redistributed, both commercially and noncommercially.

Fair Use

The fair use doctrine is important for media makers because it’s the part of the U.S. copyright law that permits the use of previously published materials, provided that a particular set of conditions are met. When you use previously published work in your new creation, it’s considered to be a derivative of the original. Here are the four criteria that a judge or jury would use to determine if your use is legitimately fair:

1. The purpose of the derivative work. For instance, a collage made by an instructor that will not be sold or distributed beyond the classroom is probably fair, while one inserted into a commercial publication is likely to be ruled in violation.

2. The nature of the content of the original. Factual content can legitimately be reused, whereas creative content is considered to be intellectual property.

3. How much of the original work is used in the derivative. For visual works, there is no set guideline for how much you are allowed to use. But, if the transformative quality (not quantity) of the new work is hard to recognize, your work may be so similar to the original that it seems to use “too much” of it.

4. The effect of the new work on the actual or potential market value of the original. If the new work defames the original or lessens the value of the original work, the use would not be considered fair.

Commercial artists and designers must be very careful in regard to using prior published works. As a general rule, you should always seek permission from the author, even if the work is licensed in a way that suggests redistribution is permissible. Some of the images you will use in the following chapters may appear to be licensed relatively freely. Nonetheless, I contacted all authors to ensure that we have permission to use the media included in this text.

Appropriation

Appropriation is a conceptually rich practice of borrowing, reclaiming, and transforming an original work of culture that informs and inspires artists who express their ideas in a variety of media formats. Though appropriation can be found in visual culture throughout recorded history, many artists learn of the concept through early 20th century art: Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque’s mixed-media Cubist collages and Marcel Duchamp’s readymades (see the sidebar on Duchamp’s Fountain), or mid-century works such as Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. The intentional act of appropriation as a means of creating transformative visual culture has become even more prevalent in the age of digital media.

Artists and designers often borrow images, media, formats, or ideas from prior recognizable works in visual culture. The word “appropriation,” however, means more than just the simple action of borrowing. To appropriate is to borrow and to transform. In this way, appropriation (when successful or obvious) will help your work meet the third criterion in the fair use test.

Verisimilitude

Verisimilitude is a scientific, theoretical term that is generally used in the arts to allude to a quality of truthlikeness. If your aesthetic intent is to trick a viewer into believing in an alternate reality, then the quality of verisimilitude is present. Layering, blending, and matching lighting sources and tonal differences will be key aesthetic players in your process of assembling the image. Almost any advertisement in any medium—print, web, video, and so on—relies on these techniques. Dove created a campaign deconstructing this process in their series of Evolution of Beauty commercials [9]. The Dove campaign deconstructed the advertising industry’s use of verisimilitude to sell a particular “truthfulness of beauty” to their female demographic. In 2006, Simon Willows’s parody, Slob Evolution, was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award [10]. Willows’s work appropriates Dove’s style and format while inverting the message. This YouTube video is an example of verisimilitude (the truthlikeness of the video as an advertising campaign with a production quality similar to Dove’s original) and appropriation (the act of both borrowing the visual culture reference and transforming the message to invert the meaning).