Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History The Cold War In A

CSPAN3 Lectures In History The Cold War In American Photography July 13, 2024

War. Of course, nuclear dread and Nuclear Anxiety sort of hovered over the conflict in the 1950s and 1960s and even up through the 1980s to the end of the conflict. So its a fitting image to begin our class today. And today, we are thinking a lot about photography during the cold war. And specifically american photography during the cold war. And this is a massive topic one could imagine a week or two, even an entire course of this subject. General themes as well as case studies, and also in the meantime, along the way, talk about some advances in Media Technology and how newspapers were printing photographs during these years. Before we kind of get into photography, we should make sure we understand what the cold war is. As we get further and further removed from it, it becomes a little more fuzzy in the collective unconscious. But of course, the cold war was the idealogical battle between the United States and the soviet union. Which began after world war ii around 1945 and goes all the way until 1989. And of course, the allies were involved as well. So American Allies and soviet allies were also involved in this conflict. Really, it turned upon a central question. Whose ideology, whose world view should be the primary sort of the primary sort of factor in postworld war ii development. Should it be capitalism and democracy with an emphasis on individual liberty or communism with its interest, fascination and desire for sort of an economic and social equality . And this sort of conflict between the two world views really did dominate some of the global scene during the cold war. And, you know, we call it a cold war in that there was no direct military conflict between the soviets and americans. But to call it cold is not quite accurate because there are many proxy wars, whether in korea where American Forces were battling north Korean Forces and Chinese Forces but with soviet support, or in vietnam where american soldiers were fighting the north vietnamese with soviet support. There were lots of casualties, lots of sort of brutal regimes that emerge from the cold war. There wasnt sort of technically cold. Cold perhaps for americans and soviets, but not cold overall. It ended in 1989 in november 1989 when the berlin wall suddenly came down. And then a couple years later, the soviet union itself dissolved in 1991. Sort of putting the nails in the coffin of the cold war. Of course, now were talking about a new cold war, but thats a different class and a different topic. And this is a really good image to start a discussion today. I think its we have seen an aerial photograph, and if you already kind of recognize where im going with this, keep those ideas on the side and just look at the image. And lets try to see what we actually can recognize concretely. What are some sort of features of this landscape that we can see . Anyone . Yeah, noah. Craters. Kind of seeing the righthand part of the picture. You see a landscape certainly right here, like maybe some topography right here. Anything else . Caroline. Trees. We see trees right here. We see roads and such right here. So we see sort of, you know, basic things. Trees, roads, topography, and also some ambiguous objects here and there. We might even say this photograph is boring or doesnt really have any excitement or not very consequential. But we reveal and think about what this photograph, how it functions and what it actually depicts, it becomes one of the most consequential photographs in the history of photography or at least in the 20th century. This was taken by the american spy plane, the u2, high above communistcontrolled cuba in october 1962. And the accurate interpretation of this photograph in many ways led to bringing the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. The world in some ways could have ended because of the correct interpretation of this photograph, because what you see here is that when analysts sort of took the film from the u2 spy camera, and there was miles of film. Photographed like much of the cuban landscape and these analysts would go through with magnifying glasses and lenses and other visual aids to try to identify the signatures of soviet missile systems. They found sort of, you know, the signatures of medium range Ballistic Missiles in this photograph, and you see elector launcher equipment, tent areas, and more elerector launch equipment. This proved that the soviets were introduced offensive weapons to cuba 90 miles off the coast of florida, which gave them a really sort of ativ advantageous first strike capability. When president kennedy was looking at these images in the oval office, they did not have captions on them. Imagine this image without these textual guides right here. And kennedy was bewildered. Number one, he didnt really recognize missiles. He didnt recognize offensive weapons there. Secondly, he was concerned when the photographs would be presented to the American People, the photographs themselves wouldnt justify bringing america to the brink of destruction, the threat of world war iii. So he was really sort of bewildered and worried about these photographs. And so what happened was people put these captions inside, and all of a sudden you can begin to recognize these sort of identifying the offending objects here. You know, these do look like, you know, erector launching equipments. They look like missiles now that we have the text assigned to them. And this is how they were released to the public, whether on newspapers or on television, this is the images the American People saw. And for me, its a really fitting introduction to understanding photography during the cold war. Its an extreme example, of course, but i think we can see how there is a desire or a necessity for clarity and for ideas of quote unquote truth during the conflict. Also at the same time, were fighting against ideas of photographys inherent ambiguity which we have been discussing all semester. Photographs can mislead, they can misdirect, and those ideas of truth and ambiguity are battling against each other. And really we can see how a photograph like this, how ones ideology, ones belief system can make certain images seem true or seem like facts. And kind of perhaps a strange comparison but a fitting one i think for this idea is to consider rorschach ink tests. You see these in movies and therapy selgzs where you can see the workings of ones personal mind, where you see an animal or a rug here, its up to the individual viewer. And in some ways, a photograph like this, you know, you see right here, your idelology, your world view would determine how you would see it. If youre a soviet viewer of this image, you might be skeptical because youre like, this could easily be doctored or be sort of forged. And so im not suggesting, there were missiles in cuba, that is a fact, but the photograph, that doesnt necessarily communicate that idea to the untrained idea, is my larger point here. And this idea sort of slippery images, images meaning one thing and another at the same time, was captured by the cold war historian John Lewis Gattis in thinking about the conflict as a whole. Not just photography but the cold war itself as a whole, john gattis sort of saw it as a slippery ambiguous thing. You want to read the quote out lewd on the screen for me. Thanks, cleo. The world was a kind of theater in which distinctions between illusions and reality were not always obvious. Theres a confusion between ideas of fact and fiction during the cold war. So think about nuclear deterrents. In some ways, whats more important, whats as important as the actual number of warheads one has in ones arsenal is projecting the illusion of having many. As long as the soviets believe we have lots of missiles that created the deterrent. Strange ideas about the illusion versus actual fact is crucial during the cold war. And also, too, i mentioned it was largely a cold war between the americans and soviets. Of course, there are hot wars elsewhere. But the idea of a cold war facilitates a battle of images, of information, you know, not so much military forces. And in a battle of information and images, of course, photography is a crucial battlefield during the cold war. And this is what well be talking about today. And we see this battle even in Something Like senator Joseph Mccarthys sort of actions in the early 1950s in america. You might know senator mccarthy from wisconsin, he famously charged there were literally thousands of communists who had infiltrated the highest levels of American Government and to do so, as you see in the 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 actually using photographs for evidence in one of these hearings. But i want to turn our attention to this photograph right here, and i have put the identifying sort of identified the figures at the bottom of the image. Because mccarthys aides, his assistants distributed a copy of this photograph widely in maryland in 1950. It purportedly shows a maryland senator right here talking really closely and in depthly with the leader of the american communist party, earl brouder. So mccarthy distributed this photograph as a way to discredit this maryland senator to suggest he had communist ties and communist sympathies, and many argued this photograph costed him his senate seat. People saw this photograph and said oh, yeah, he must be a communist. Hes talking to this important american communist. Actually, this photograph is an utter and sheer fake. A composite photograph. As you see here in the sort of feature from life magazine in 1951 that exposes the ruse behind this photograph. You have miller listening intently to the radio right here. You have earl browder talking to someone, and they basically collage these photographs, and voila, get rid of the radio and you have sort of an image that appears, that creates the illusion, this fictional illusion that the two figures were in some kind of deep conversation. Again, we can see how under the guise of quote unquote fract, a photograph sort of satisfies its a truth and fact, sort of crafty editors, and sort of crafty politicians can weave a brandnew reality through these sort of techniques of photo montage. And of course, these issues are much more sort of prevalent today with photo shop and other web technologies, where we see composite photographs wreaking havoc back in the early 1950s. Also, you know, you can even see how certain photographs can be used as propaganda by both sides. The same photograph could be used as propaganda by the communists as well as the capitalists. The photograph im going to show you is a little graphic but i want to use it to prove this point because its a realty interesting case study. I apologize for the graphic nature of the photograph, but here we see a corpse hanging from a tree in the aftermath of the uprising there when sort of prodemocracy protesters were fighting against the sort of communist government and communist forces in 1956. That sort of protest was brutally put down with many, many deaths. But basically, we dont know whos hanging. Is this a communist hanging from the tree or a prodemocracy sort of prodemocracy protester . So we dont know who committed the atrocity. But both sides use this photograph as evidence of the sort of brutality, the barbarity of the other side. So the same photograph can serve two masters. It can be communist propaganda or soviet propaganda as well as american propaganda. So already, we can see a great example of the ways a photograph, the same factual image can be used to prove two Different Things and this contentious sort of battle of information, of images that is the cold war. So questions to this point . Yeah, will. Just a reflection about the photo we just saw. It kind of reminds me of the the sharp shooter we see during the american revolution, the civil war. A great point. The alex gardener photograph we looked at, the same body was dragged from one location to another location, was a confederate in one picture and a Union Soldier in another. A great point. These issues are not old, but they take on new relevance in the cold war. Other questions or comments . Now im going to turn to roland bard as the lengthy theoretical you did today, well touch on the big points of this important sort of essay. Of course, you have read roland bart already this semester, and his discussions of photography and memory and family and those sorts of issues, but back in 1961, he was one of the first thinkers to really try to examine press photography from precisely sort of this angle, and his essay, the photographic message. And using bart, we can begin to understand the ways that newspapers use photography and the ways that newspapers could mislead or try to influence its readers through sort of subtle sort of twisting of photographic meaning. And this is the very first line, first two sentences of the essay. I think its important to get us in the mood of what hes up to. So anyone want to volunteer to read it out loud for us. Thank you. The photograph is a message considered overall this message is formed by a source of emission, a channel of transmission and a point of reception. Designed or thought up by the mathematician and the father of information theory, claude shannon, and what you see here in the diagram, you have an information source, and you have the destination. And in between, you have a transmitter and receiver, but this is sort of the crucial part here, the noise source. Any transmitted message, theres some sort of distortion, even just a little bit on the other side. Think about that game you maybe played in kindergarten, the telephone game, where you whisper something in the ear of the first child, and then it goes all the way down the line into the last child. So just say you say, you know, billy takes a bath. You know, the first one, and the end its like, billy fakes a laugh. And so in that transmission from the first child to that last child, we have this sort of noise source, the way the message itself becomes deteriorates somewhat in the act of transmission. So roland shows his interest in the ideas about information and how its corrupted between the source and the destination. And this gets to a sort of larger more general point, that the press photograph is not straightforward. Its a complex symbiotic object, we can think about the complicated ways it signifies and produces meaning for the reader. Then, another important quote from the essay, and i want to talk about this, sort of this idea. Volunteer to read the quote. Thanks. The photographic paradox can then be seen as the coexistence of two messages. The one without a code and the other with a code. Thank you, and i think its kind of confusing, but i want to harp on this fact of, you know, the idea of without a code. Because elsewhere, it says that press photography is an image without a code. What he means by this is barthe is saying the image itself in some ways is without inherent meaning. In some ways the photograph itself needs to be coded through captions, through the sort of articles next to it, through many other ideas like the readers own political persuasion. So the image itself becomes largely meaningless until it becomes coded by the surrounding ideas. So in some ways the image without a code needs its code, the context for understanding its meaning. And so when he talks about the paradox of photography, particularly press photography, the ways constructed intentionally sort of things that have sort of opinions or sort of clinical leanings can seem natural and pregiven thanks to the indexicality of photography. And just a reminder of indexicality means. Of course, thinking back to our photograph right here, like, we know there was a corporatise ha from a tree. Light reflects off that onto photographic film and we know it was twlrb that idea of truth value, the indexicality in some ways makes the constructed meaning seem natural and pregiven. And so hes really trying to think about this in terms of press photography. And so here is the cuba photograph we referenced earlier. Taken by the u2 spy plane. Heres another sort of different shot taken by a spy plane, but same idea. Cuban landscape with sort of the identifying missiles. So what might Roland Barthe say about the publication of this image in a newspaper . Yeah, lynn. Well, the fact that it has the kacaptions on t it gives mo meaning to the photograph and makes it seem scarier than it would be if you just saw it without the captions. The captions here tell us what to look for here. You know, we see the caption here identifies whats in here as well as these intern al captions telling us what were looking at. Anyone else . Kind of adding to that, it gives context of kind of like you said, what were supposed to look for and kind of like the photo on the left kind of you sort of tell whats going on, but in the context of a whole newspaper article, you get more in depth of what were supposed to be looking for and why this is such a big deal and a little more back fwrnd ground on why p should be afraid of the photograph. Going after that, more so what they want you to look for. I know when we talked about how the text unloads all this cultural and political ideas onto the photograph that isnt really there when you first see it, so kind of that propaganda and corruption, like what they want you to get. Great. Exactly right. Great points. You know, this image perhaps it says nothing or says very little, communicates very little specifically to the reader, but the captions whether internally here, here, the article here, the political persuasion of the reader as well as the scientific looking quality of the photograph. It looks like a document, like evidence. And all these sort of aspects lead us to think about the photograph and its meaning. We read it as truth and fact. But of course, it is a very ambiguous image. So im not arguing, of course, there were not of course, there were missiles in cuba. But to the untrained eye of the american public, this photograph tells you very little. If youre trained in sort of interpreting aerial photographs, you could maybe see something, but the vast, vast majority of americans like this cannot communicate these ideas of missiles and so on. I also want to talk, too, about beyond rolen barthe his symbiotic analysis of photographs, images as theyre published in newspapers, they also lead them to be even more ambiguous. And for two reasons. One we have already talked about, the half tone. Remember the half tone process we discussed, you know, many weeks ago around the turn of the 20th century, how photographs could be converted to a screen of dots that could then be mass printed by newspapers. So to allow for the mass dissemination, the mass publication of photographs

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