Nagasaki in 1945. It marked the end of world war ii but marks the beginning of the cold war. Nuclear dread, Nuclear Anxiety hovered over the conflict during the 1950s and 1960s and even up to the 1980s to the end of the conflict. A fitting image to begin our class today. Today we think a lot about photography during the cold war, specifically american photography during the cold war. Imagine a week or two or even course of the subject think about general themes as well as case studies and in the meantime talk about some advances in Media Technology and how newspapers were printing photographs during these years. Before we get into photography, should make sure we understand what the cold war is. As we get further and further removed from it becomes more fuzzy and the collective unconscious. Of course the cold war was the ideological battle between the United States and the soviet union. Which began after world war ii, around 1945 and goes all the way to 1989. Then, of course, the allies were involved as well. American allies and soviet allies were also involved in this conflict. It turn on a central question whats ideology, whose world view should be the primary sort of factor in postwar world war ii development. Should it be capitalism and democracy with emphasis on individual liberty or communism with interest and desire for economic and social equality . This conflict between these two world views did dominate the global scene during the cold war. And, you know, we call at any time cold war and theres no direct military conflict between the soviets and americans but calling it cold isnt accurate. There are many proxy wars whether in korea where American Forces were battling north korean force and Chinese Force but with soviet support or in vietnam where american soldiers were fighting the north vietnamese with soviet support. There were lots of casualties and brutal regimes that emerged during the cold war. So technically not cold. Cold for american and soviets but not cold overall. It ended in 1989. In november 1989 when the berlin wall suddenly came down and a couple of years later the soviet union dissolved in 1991. Putting the nails in the coffin of the cold war. Of course now talking about a new cold war, different class and different topic. This is a really good image to start our discussion today. Aerial photograph. If you already recognize where im going with this, keep those ideas to the side and look at the image. Lets try to see what we actually can reckon creately. What are some sort of features of this landscape we can see. Anyone . Yeah. Noah. [ inaudible ] we see landscape certainly right here. Maybe some topography right here. Anybody else . Karen . [ inaudible ] we see trees right here, we see roads and such right here. We see sort of basic things, trees, roads, topography and am biggous objects here and there. This photograph is boring or doesnt have any excitement or not very consequential. When we think about what this photograph, how it functioned and what it depicts it becomes one of the most consequential photographs in the 20th century. It was taken by the american spy plane high above communist controlled cuba in october 1962. And be accurate interpretation of this photograph led to bringing the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. What you see here when analysts that took the film from the u2 spy camera and miles of film, a photograph that is much of the cuban landscape and analysts go through it with armagnifying glasses. This paragraph proved to american analysts soviets were introducing offense weapons to cuba 90 miles off the coast of florida which gave them advantageous first strike capability. When president kennedy was looking at these images in the oval office they dont have captions on them. Imagine this image without the guides right here. And kennedy was bewildered. Number one he didnt see, recognize missiles, didnt recognize offensive weapons there. Secondly he was concerned when these photographs would be presented to the American People, that the photographs themselves wouldnt justify bringing the americans to the brink of destruction, the threat of world war iii. So he was really sort of bewildered and worried about these photographs. So what happened of that people put these captions inside and all of a sudden you can begin to recognize these sort of identifying, the offending objects here. Like launching equipment. Looked like missiles now that we have the texts assigned the home. This is how they were presented to the public whether on newspapers or television, this is the images the American People saw. And for me its a fitting introduction to understanding photography during the cold war. I think we can see theres a desire or necessity for clarity and political truth during the conflict. But also at the same time were fighting against ideas of photography inherent ambiguity. Photographs can misdirect. Heres these two ideas of truth and photographing ambiguity or dialing against each other. Really we can see how, you know, a photograph like this, how ones ideology, ones belief system can make certain images true or seem like facts. And perhaps a strange comparison or a fitting one for this idea, think of the rorschach ink test. You see these in movies and therapy sessions where we begin to show the workings of ones personal mind. Wlu see an manual or a rug here. You know its up to the individual viewer. In some ways a photograph like this, you know, you see right here your ideology, again your world view will determine how you see it. If you were a soviet viewer of this image you might be skeptical. This could be doctored or forged. So my suggestion is there were missiles in cuba. Thats fact. This photograph doesnt necessarily communicate that idea to the untrained eye is my larger point here. This idea of sort of slippery images, images meaning one thing or another at the same time was captured by the cold war historian john lewis in thinking about the conflict as a whole. The cold war as itself as a whole, john gattis saw it as a slipper aand eper and ambiguou. So its suggesting between illusion and reality was not always obvious. Theres confusion between ideas of fact and fiction. Think of nuclear deterrence. In some ways whats more important, whats as important as the actual number of war heads one has in ones arsenal is project the illusion of having many. So as long as the soviets believe we had many missiles that secret ad deterrent. So the illusion versus actual fact is important. And cold war between the americans and soviet. Hot wars elsewhere. Idea of a cold war facilitates a battle of images, of information, not so much military force. In the battle of information images, photography is a crucial battlefield during the cold war and this is what well be talking about today. We see this battle even in something like, you know, senator Joseph Mccarthys actions in the early 1950s in america. You might know senator mccarthy became charging thousands of communists who had infiltrated the highest levels of american government. And to do so you see this photograph taken in the u. S. Congress. He is literally using photographs to prove some kind of relationship between someone and a communist. And so hes using photographs for evidence in one of these hearings. But lets turn our attention to this photograph right here. I put the identifying figures at the bottom of the image because mccarthys aides, his assistants distributed a copy of this photograph widely in maryland in 1950. And it shows a maryland senator, miller tightings right here talking closely and in depth with the leader of the American Communist Party earl broward. Mccarthy introduced this photograph to discredit the senator. It cost the senator his senate seat. Oh, yeah he must be a communist sympathizer hes talking to this important american communist. Actually this photograph is a fake, a composite photograph. As you see here this featured from life magazine that exposes the radius. You have tighting listening to the radio right here. Earl broward talking to someone. They collide these fravgs listening, someone talk and then get rid of the radio and you have an image that appears, creates the illusion, fictional illusion that these two figures were in some kind of deep conversation. So, again you can see how under the guise of clinical fact, a photograph signifies these are truth and fact. Crafty politicians with bring a brandnew reality through these techniques of photo montage. They are more prevalent today with photo shop and photographs are wreaking havoc back in the early 1950s. Also you can see how certain photographs can be used as propaganda by both sides, same photograph to be used as propaganda by the communist as well a capitalists. The photograph ill show you a little bit graphic. I want to prove this point. Its an interesting case study. I apologize for the graphic nature of the photograph. Here we see a corps ranging from a tree in hungary. Pro democracy protesters were fighting against the communist government and forces in 1956. That sort of protest is brutally put down with many, many deaths. But basically we dont know who is hang. Said communist happening from tree or a pro democracy, sort of pro democracy protester . We dont know who committed the atrocity. Both sides use this photograph as evidence of sort of the brutality and the barbaricness of the other side. The same photograph can serve two masters. Can be communist propaganda, soviet propaganda as well as american propaganda. So already you can see a great example of the ways a photograph, same factual image can be used to prove two Different Things and this continue the tenacious, battle of information of images thats the cold war. So a question at this point. Yeah, will. A reflex of the photo that we just saw. Kind of reminds me of the image, of the sharpshooter we see during the American Revolution of the civil war. Great point. Alice gardner photograph, the rebel sharpshooter the same body was dragged from one location to another. It was a confederate in one picture and a Union Soldier in another. Issues are not old but sort of take on new relevance during the cold war. Any other questions or comments. So now i want to turn to the reading we did for today. Well touch on the big points of this important essay. Of course you read already this semester and talk about photography and memory and those sorts of issues. Back in 1961, roland bart was a thinker to examine press photography from this angle. His essay of the photographic message. We can understand newspapers use photography in the way newspapers could mislead or try to influence its readers through sort of subtle twisting of photographic measures. This is the first line, two sentences of the essay. Its an important one to get us in the mood of what roland bart up to. Can we get a volunteer to read it out loud for us . The photograph is a image formed by sources [ inaudible ] thank you. What hes saying here resembles what is a shadow diagram. Design or thought up by the map technician. What you see here in this diagram we have an information source and have a destination. And in between you have the transmitter of receiver but this the crucial part, the noise source. Any message, any transmitted message or some kind of distortion corrupts that message even just a little bit on the other side. So think about that game you played in kindergarten, i did. The telephone game. You whisper something in the ear of the first child and goes all the way down the line to the last child. Just say you say billy takes a bath. First one in the end its like billy takes a laugh. In that transmission from the first child to the last child we have this noise source, the way the message itself deteriorates somewhat and changes through the act of transmission. So bart in this opening quote shows his interest in the ideas about information and how its corrupted between the source and destination. And this gets to sort of a larger, more general point. The press photograph from bart is not straightforward. Its a complex object. We can begin to think about the complicated ways it signifies and produces meaning to the reader. Then another important quote from the essay. I want to talk about this idea, i need a volunteer to read this short quote. Thanks. The photograph can be seen as the could exists of two messages. One without a code and the other with a code. Its kind of confusing. This idea of without a code. Press photography is an image without a code. What he means by this i suggest on the screen here, bart is saying untilage itse jaag jaaga is not code but needs to be code through captions, articles next to it. Through many other ideas like the readers own political persuasion. Untilage becomes largely meaningless until it becomes coded by these surrounding ideas. In some ways the image without a code needs a code, the context to understand its meaning. So, bart talks of this paradox of photography, constructed intentional meaning. Opinions or, you know, political maengs can see natural and pregiven things. This reminds me, thinking back to our photograph right here. Like we know there was a corpse hanging from a tree. Light reflects off that body on to a photographic film. That was there. That truth value, in some ways makes the constructed meaning seem natural and pregiven. So bart trying though i about this in terms of photography. So, you know, heres the photograph we referenced earlier. Heres another different shot taken by a spy plane. Same idea, cuban landscape. What did roland bart say about the publication of this image in the newspaper . That it has the captions on it. Its like take this warning in the photograph and makes it seem scarier which it means. Captions here tell us what to look for here. You know we see caption here identifies whats in here as well as these internal cappings. Tells us what were looking at. Kind of adding to that gives continue the text of like you said what were supposed to look for and kind of the photo on the left, sort of tell whats going on but in the context of a whole newspaper article you get more in depth what were supposed to be looking for and why this is a big deal and more background why people should be afraid of this photograph. More so like they are watching, for you to look for. How the text unloads this cultural and political ideas on to the photograph that isnt there when you first see it. That propaganda and corruption, what they want to you get out of that. Great. Exactly right. Great point. So this image says nothing, says very little, communicates very little to the reader but the caption, whether here, here, article over here, the political persuasion of the reader, as well as the va scientific looking quality of this photograph. It looks like a document. Looks like evidence. These all aspects lead us to think about the photograph and its meaning. It is very am b ambigous image. The fast majority of americans this was not communicating these ideas of missiles and so on. But also i want to talk too a little bit about how beyond bart, his analysis of photographs, images as they are published in newspapers. Material print production of these photographs also leads them to be even more ambiguous. We talked about the half tone. The half tone process we discussed many weeks ago around the turn of the 20th century, photographs can be converted to a screen of dots that can then be mass printed by newspapers. So dehe is my nation. Then the wire photo. The wire photo basically allows photographs to be transmitted via telephone or via a radio wire. So im going to briefly make this caption larger. Missile sight in cuba. 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. Its a long story. Thats basically the first time this graph emerged so they wired 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 well talk about its history in just a moment that photographs had to be literally transported from the site of their production to the newspaper. Remember the photograph, the earthquake in San Francisco in 1906 and it took four to five days to get the film from San Francisco to new york. So theres a significant delay in actually showing these images from San Francisco on the east coast. The film had to be put on a train to go all the way across the country. Of course the wire photo changes all of this. And it was invented back in 1907 as you see in this cover of Scientific American magazine. But not really made practical for widespread usage in the 1930s and didnt come in to common use until the 1940s. Really becomes entrenched in our national and International Press during the cold war in the 1950s and 1960s and up to the 1980s. Ill read the caption right here for this picture. This says a photograph of a german crown prince. You see it right here. Electrically transmitted to a distance of 1100 miles. The small picture is the actual result with a new method. The cover of Scientific American describes this me showed and you see the results here. We watch a short video. Short of short ecertain from a longer clip from a news reel available on youtube available from 1937. Gives a sense of how the wire photo works. So have a look. Although it took years to perfect the technique of send being pictures by wire is simple. Its not a matter of sending the whole picture at once but separating the picture into fine lines. Sending those lines over wire and assembling them at the other end. Lets suppose we have a picture or a pattern, which we want to send to another location. The only way to scene it is through a small tube. For our purpose well make this picture on closely wound string. Now 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 string through the tube and assemble it at the other end. Thats exactly what we do in wired photo transmission. We now take the picture apart electrically and translate it into units we can send over the wire. The units are lined all the same width but different tones of gray. Long drawn lines. If youre interested, but we see here how it worked. This machine uses a lens, a light to break the photo down to lines of varying tonal levels and then notice the lines are transmitted over a phone line via electronic pulse. The ideas the lines, the total value of these lines are converted to a pulse and then that pulse is reconverted back to ideas of tonal values on the other side and newsroom and you have a photograph transferred over long distances and to be printed on the newspaper quickly. So think about this as you go from an image into a co