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there are two unrelated stories linked in the op.
it is baffling that this would have confused folk.
there is an interesting subtext tho--the pseudo-objectivity of photographs-- the meanings assigned to particular decoration schemes are situationally driven----what of that situation do you see reproduced in a photo?
anything?
if nothing of the situation that drives interpretation is present in the photographs, then how are the photographs accurate depictions of what is happening in either of these places?
and if they are not accurate because they do not and cannot reproduce the environment that shapes meaning-assignment, then they are pretty worthless as a basis for arriving at judgments about that situation.
the only way that the photos can function is as evidence of a most fragmentary nature: they show that at a particular instant, the arrangement of objects within and around the frame was this way.
meanings do not reside in objects. meanings are made by framing objects, linking them to other phenomena. that process--which is basically how we live in the world--does not photograph.
but you know this, if you think about it.
passivity with respect to information is not pretty: it is not smart, it is not interesting----it is abject.
but maybe at some unwitting level, making of this stupid thread an exercise in abjection is a good thing.
i really cant imagine anything more abject than the argument--which persists--that the problem with racism in america and its history is that it makes you feel maybe self-conscious about costume and decor choices for halloween.
this just makes the abjection explicit.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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