Last time we were talking about world war ii photography and the ways photographers interacted with the war. And we ended last time by looking at this image right here the Mushroom Cloud that emerged after dropping the atomic bomb in 1945. In many ways this image marks the end of world war ii, but in many ways it marks the beginning of the cold war. Course new clear tread, new clearing society had hovered over the conflict of the 19 fifties and sixties even up to the 19 eighties to the end of the conflict. It is a fitting emit to begin our class today. Today rethinking a lot about photography during the cold war. Particular lee american photography. You imagine a week or two or even an entire course of the subject, you start thinking about general themes as well as case studies, but also in the meantime along the way talk about about some events and how newspapers were printing photographs during these years. He thought fdrs new deal was too big, but what fdr did well was beyond social of course the allies were involved as well so American Allies and soviet allies were involved in the conflict will turn upon an essential question whose ideology whose world you should be the primary sort of factor in postworld war Ii Development . Should it be capitalism and democracy. Should be communism with the sort of interest to the fascination and desire for economic and social equality. And the sort of conflict between these two world views ready to dominate the global scene during the cold war. We call it a cold war in that theres not direct military conflicts between the soviets and the americans but calling it cold is not quite accurate. Because there are many proxy wars whether in korea weather americans who are battling Chinese Forces with soviet support of course in vietnam where american soldiers there were lots of casualty tees lots of brutal regimes that emerged in the cold war. It was not cold. It was called for the soviets, but not cold overall. It ended in 1989, in november when the program suddenly came down. A couple years later the soviet union dissolved in 1991. Putting the nails in the coffin of the cold war. We are now talking about a new cold war. We have a different class in different topic. This is a good image to start the discussion. We see an aerial photograph. If you recognize where i am going, to keep those ideas to the side and look at the image. Lets see what we can recognize concretely. What are some features of this landscape that we can see . Anyone can see . Anyone . Noah. The righthand part of the picture. We see a landscape right here. Anything else . Good. We see trees. Roads and such right here. With the basic things. Trees, roads, and some ambiguous looking objects here and there. We might even say this picture is boring, or does not have any excitement or is not consequential. When we think about how this photograph functions and what it depicts, it becomes one of the most consequential photographs in the history of photography, or at least in the 20th century. It was taken by the american spy plane, the u2. In october 1962. The accurate interpretation of this photograph led to bringing the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. The world couldve ended the interpretation of the photograph. What you see is that when analysts took the film from the spy camera, and there is miles of film that photograph much of this cuban landscape and analysts would go through this with visual aid to try to identify the signatures of signature soviet systems. They found the signatures of mediumrange. You see this launching equipment, tent areas. This proves that soviets were entering weapons to cuba 90 miles off the coast of florida. That gave them an advantageous for strike capability. When president kennedy was looking at the images in the oval office, they did not have captions. Imagine these images without the textual guides. Kennedy was bewildered. He did not recognize offensive weapons there. He was concerned that when these photographs would be presented, that they would not justify bringing america to the brink of destruction. The threat of world war iii. He was really bewildered and worried about these photographs. What happened was, people put these captions inside, then you can begin to recognize these identifying the offending objects. These do look like in director want your equipments. They look like missiles now that we have the text assigned to them. This is how they were released to the public. Whether on newspapers or television, this is the images the American People saw. For me this is a fitting introduction to understand the topography during the cold war. It is an extreme example, but we can see how there is a desire or necessity for clarity, and for ideas of truth during the conflict. But also we are fighting against ideas of photographys inherent ambiguity. Which we have been discussing all semester. Photographs can misdirect. Here are two ideas of truth, and photograph ambiguity is battling against each other. We can see how photographs like this, how ones ideologies, how ones belief system could make certain images seem like fact. A strange comparison, or a fitting one for this idea is warshaws ink test. Pcbs in therapy you see these in therapy. Whether you see an animal or a rug, it is up to the individual viewer. You see right here, your ideology, your worldview would determine how you would see it. If you had a soviet view, you might be skeptical. This could easily be doctored or forged. The war missiles in cuba is a fact. This photograph does not necessarily communicate that idea to the untrained eye of my larger point. This idea of slippery images. Images meaning one thing or another at the same time was captured by the cold war historian john lewis, and thinking about it as a whole. Digging about the cold war as a whole with the slippery, ambiguous thing. In which illusions and reality were not always obvious. Distinctions between illusion and reality were not always reality. There was faction fictions and the cold war. Think of nuclear terms. In some ways what is more important, it is as important as the actual number of warheads, once arsenal is projecting the illusion of having as long as the soviets believed we had lots of missiles, it created a deterrent. Strange ideas about the illusion versus actual fact is crucial in the cold war. And also to, i mentioned it was a cold war between the americans in the soviets. Of course there were hot wars elsewhere, but the idea of a cold war facilitates a battle of images of information, not so much military forces. In the battle of Information Images of, course photography is a crucial battlefield during the cold war. This is what we will be talking about now today. We see this battle even and something like, senator Joseph Mccarthys actions in the early 19 fifties of america, we might know senator mccarthy from his literally thousands of communists who had interest infiltrated the highest levels of american government. To do so, as youve seen this photograph taken in the u. S. Congress gives you using photographs to prove relationships between someone and a communist. Using photographs for evidence and one of these hearings. I want to turn our attention to this photograph right here and i put the identifying figures at the bottom of the image because mccarthys age and assistance a copy of this photograph widely in maryland in the 1950. It partly shows a maryland senator talking really closely and indepth with the leader of the american communist party. Mr. Mccarthy used this photograph to discredit the senator that he had communist ties and sympathies. This photograph caused his candidacy. Everybody said he must be a communist. Actually this photograph is an utter and sheer fake. It is a composite photograph. As you can see from the feature in life magazine that exposes the ruse behind this photograph. You have miller listening to the radio right, here earl brighter talking to someone, and they collapsed these photographs of someone listening and someone talking. You get rid of the radio and you have an image that appears that creates the illusion this fictional illusion that these two figures were in some kind of deep conversation. So again we can see how we are under the guise of political fact photograph signifies truth and fact sort of crafty editors, sort of crafty politicians can weave a brand new reality through these techniques of photo montage. These issues are much more prevalent today with photo shop and other Web Technologies that we see. Composite photographs wreaking havoc even back in the early early 19 fifties. Also, you can even see how certain photographs can be used as propaganda by both sides. The same photograph can be used as propaganda by the communist as well as the capitalist. The photograph of going to show you is graphic but i want to use it to prove this point, because it is a really interesting case study. I apologize for the graphic content in the photograph. We see a corpse hanging from a tree in hungary in 1956 after the aftermath the uprising democracy protests were fighting against the, communist government communist forces in 1956. That sort of protest was brutally put down by many deaths. Basically we do not know who is hanging. Is this a communist hanging from a tree or a pro democracy sort of prodemocracy protesters . We do not know who committed the atrocity. But both sides uses this photograph as evidence of the brutality and the barbaric acts of the other side. Same photograph, two masters. Could be a communist propaganda or soviet propaganda as well as american propaganda. Already, we can see is a great example of the ways how photographs of the same factual image can be used to prove to different things, sort of this contentious battle of information of images in the cold war. The question to this point. We will turn now to yes well . It kind of reminds me of the sharpshooter that. We see during the american civil war. That is a great point. You look at the photograph, same body was dragged from one location to another location. It was confederate and when picture union social in another. These issues are not old, but they sort of take on you relevance during the cold war. Any other questions or comments . I want to turn to roland darts in the lengthy sort of theoretical we will touch on the big points of this important sort of essay of course you have read this the semester discussions of photography and memory and family and those sorts of issues. Back in 1961 roland bart was sort of the first thinkers to try and examine precip photography from the single in his essay of the photographic message. Usually what we can begin to understand the ways in which newspapers used photography in the way that newspapers could mislead or try to influence its readers through sort of subtle twisting of photographic. Meaning this is the very first line first two sentences of the essay i think it is important to get us in the mood of what role barred is up to. Who wants to be disallowed for us . Glenn thank you. This photographic message the photograph this form by the force of admission and a point of reception. He is saying it resembles a design product by the map petition and the father of information theory. What you see in the diagram is an information source any destination. In between you have the transmitter and receiver. This is the crucial part. In any transmitted message there is some kind of distortion that drops that message. Even if it is a little on the other side. Think about that game you played in kindergarten, the telephone game. You whisper something in the ear of the first child, then it goes down the line to the last child. Lets say you say, billy takes a bath. In the end its like, billy fakes a laugh. From the first child to the last child, we have this noise source and the way that the message becomes deteriorated and changes in the active transmission. Roland shows his interest in this idea about information and how it is corrupted between the source and the destination. This gets into a larger general point that it is not straightforward. It is a complex symbiotic object. We can begin to think about the complicated ways it signifies and produces meaning for the reader. Then, this is another important quote from the essay. Can i get a volunteer to read the short quote . The photographic paradox can be seen as the coexistence of two messages, one without a code and the other with a code. I think it is kind of confusing, but i want to harp on the fact of without a code. Photography is an image without a code. What he means by this is that the image itself is without inherent meaning. In some ways the photograph needs to be coded through captions through the article next to it. There are many other ideas, like the readers on political persuasion. The image becomes meaningless until it becomes coded by the surrounding ideas. The image needs its code, the context to understand the meaning. He talks of the paradox of photography and press photography and the ways that you can construct it intentionally and the opinions and political leanings. It conceives a photography. What does it mean . Thinking back to our photograph right here. We know that there was a person hanging from a tree. White reflects off that body onto film. We know it was there. That is actual quality. It in some ways makes the constructive meaning seem natural. He is really trying to think about this in terms of press trying to think about this in terms of press photography. Here is the cuban photograph we referenced earlier. Taken by the u2 spy plane. Here is a different shot taken by the spy plane. You see the landscape with identifying missiles. What might Roland Barthes say about the publication in this newspaper . The fact that it has the captions on it, it gives more meaning to the photograph. The captions tell us what to look for. The caption identifies what is in here, as well as internal captions. Anyone else . Kind of adding to that it gives a context we are supposed to look for like the photo on the left, you can sort of tell what is going on. But in the context of a newspaper article, you get more indepth of what we are supposed to be looking for and why it is a big deal. More background on why people should be afraid of this photograph. Going off of that, more so what they want you to look for. You talked about how the text can unload this cultural and political ideas. Kind of that propaganda and corruption, what they want to get at. That is exactly right. Great points. It says very little to the reader, but the captions that are internally here, the article over here, the political persuasion of the reader, and the scientific quality of this photograph. It looks like a document. It looks like evidence. All these aspects lead us to think about the photograph and its meaning. We read it as truth and fact. But it is a very ambiguous image. Of course there were missiles in cuba, but to the untrained eye of the american public, it tells you very little. If you are trained in interpreting aerial photographs, you could see something. But americans could not these ideas of missiles and so on. I want to talk about how the beyond Roland Barthes. Images as are published in newspapers. The material print production of these photographs also leaves them to be even more ambiguous. The halftone. Remember the halftone process we discussed many weeks ago around the turn of the 20th century, how photographs could be converted and could be mass printed by newspapers. The mass publication of photographs. Major watershed moment. We have not discussed the wire photo. And the wire photo basically allows photographs to be transmitted via a radio wire. Im going to reproduce this caption that is larger. This is a copy of a photo made public by the u. S. Embassy in london and radioed to the u. S. They first got access to this image, it is a long story, but this is the first photograph that emerged. They had to wire the photograph from london to new york to print it quickly in the next days paper. They had a new process for this. Just a reminder, before the wire photo was introduced, and we will talk about its history in a moment, photographs had to be literally transported from the site of their production newspaper. Remember the earthquake in San Francisco in 1906 . It took 45 days to get the photo from San Francisco to new york. That is the delay from showing these images from San Francisco on the east coast. The film had to be put on a train to go across the country. The wire photo changes all of this. It was invented back in 1907 as you see this cover of Scientific American magazine, but not made practical for widespread uses in the 1930s. It did not come into common use until the 1940s. It really becomes entrenched in our national and International Press during the cold war in the 1960s and 1970s. All the way up into the 1980s. I want to redo the caption right here for this picture. This has a photograph of the german crown prince. Electrically transmitted to a distance of nearly 1100 miles. The small picture from which it was made is the actual result obtained with a new method. The cover demonstrates this wire photo process. You see the results right here. We are going to watch a short video. This is a short excerpt from a longer clip for a newsreel available on youtube. It is from 1937. It gives a sense of how the wire photoworks. Have a look. [video clip] although it took years to perfect, the tech of sending pictures by wires is simple. It is not a matter of sending the whole picture at once, but of separating the picture into fine lines. Sending those lines over a wire, and assembling them at the other end. Lets suppose we have a picture or pattern which we want to send to another location. The only way to send it is through a small tube. We will make this picture on closely wound string. If we start at one end of the picture, taking it line by line, or string by string in proper order, we can run the sharing through the tube and assemble it at the other end, line by line, until we again have the original pattern. That is exactly what we do in wired photo transition. But we now take the picture apart electrically and translat it into units that we can send over a wire. The units are lines, all of the same with but different tones of gray. [end of video clip] this machine uses the lens a light to break the photo into lines that internal levels and then those lines are transmitted over a phone line electronic pulse so they will get the tunnel values of these lines get a pulse and then that polls could be reconverted back into ideas of total value from the other side in the newsroom and voila you have a photograph transferred over long distances and able to be printed a newspaper quickly. Another way to think about this is you go from an image into a code, the pulses on the telephone line and back into image. This will bring back our shedded diagrams which will remind us the im