1. Mitchell mentions how visual processing helps doctors to “see” things like different layers of muscle, or different parts of the brain. In some cases, these pictures stand in for something the doctor might actually see. For instance, some pictures in books depict muscles on the human body. Perhaps if the doctor were able to cut into a cadaver, he could actually look at the muscles in an arm. The picture just lets the doctor see these muscles without having to harm his patient. In other cases, the pictures do not correspond to anything the naked eye can sense. For instance, in colored representation of brain synapses firing. If the doctor were to actually cut into his patient’s brain and look at it, he would not see areas with lots of brain activity glowing red or orange. This orange or red coloring represents data that has nothing to do with what the naked eye can see. In this way, digital imaging can radically depart from photography’s limitations of image creation. Does this make digital imaging a more complete representation of reality? Or instead is digital imaging fundamentally a product of fabrication?


Digital imaging is definitely more flexible in the kind of data it can represent. This could lead one to conclude that digital imaging is a more complete representation of reality or truth. Digital imaging can represent all kinds of data that corresponds directly with reality, whereas photography can only represent the effect of visible light. Digital images aren’t forced to correspond to images produced from the effects of visible light. In fact, digital images aren’t forced to correspond to any kind of image that actually exists and can be seen by the eye. This doesn’t, however, rule out the possibility that digital images correspond to data that is securely grounded in fact. Maybe a digital image represents the probability density of an electron orbital in some molecule. This probability density can’t be “seen,” but it does exist, and the data can be represented in a visual image. This image still very closely corresponds to reality, and thus shows the potential for digital imaging to be complete representation of reality.

On the other hand, digital imaging is a manipulation of data to serve some purpose. Even if the data is real, we alter it so that it can be represented in a visual form that is easy to understand and interpret. This could arguably indicate the fabrication that must occur for a digital image to be useful. Even if a digital representation in some cases has to do with data that is grounded in “Truth,” in other cases digital imaging can depict an entirely imagined (or fabricated) picture. Digital imaging can be used, or manipulated, to represent reality, and can also be manipulated to fabricate pictures. Photography doesn’t have this freedom. The process is consistent, and always represents the effects of light in a way that is grounded in reality. In this sense, digital imaging is more grounded in fabrication and artistic invention than photography.




2. Mitchell states that, “the photograph demonstrated that for many artists truth had really been another word for convention.” It is easy to see how painting could have led artists to mix these two things up (such as conventional two-dimensional depictions of the cube). How has photography led artists to a more clear distinction between truth and convention? Or, is photography just as susceptible to confusing convention with truth?