Programme: MA Brand Development Department of Media and Communications MA option course: After new media MC71113A Course leader:

: Dr. Sarah Kember

'To live is to be photographed' (Sontag, 2004). Does photography have a special role in the mediation of our lives, and how, according to Sontag, is this role changing?

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Photography has since its birth in the 1820s evolved from a criticized art form into a contemporary omnipresent digital medium. Technological changes have increased its role as both a professional and amature 'recorder' to capture the world, its objects and its people. This latter raises questions on the objectivity of these representations. In other words, to what extent is photography as a medium adapting reality in the act of capturing it? It is this question Sontag seeks to answer by scrutinizing the relationship between an event and its mediation in her prominent work On photography (1977), and more recently, in her essay Regarding the torture of others (2004). These works furthermore focus on the interconnectivity between life and photography, thereby questioning the social and epistemological consequences of our mediated culture: 'instead of just recording reality, photographs have become the norm for the way things appear to us, thereby changing the very idea of reality, and of realism' (Sontag, 1977: 87). While focusing on the events in Abu Ghraib, Sontag (2004) acknowledges changes in the medium's purpose and effects in a digital era, in which photography as a medium gains more and more authority over textual narrative forms. Modern events and daily life seem to need photography in order to be perceived as 'real'. Firstly, this essay will briefly examine the relationship between an event and its mediation. From a realist point of view, a medium is an objective intermediary between reality and how we perceive it. Theorists as Barad, Baudrillard and Bolter and Grusin have questioned this claim by taking notions of performativity into account. In fact, according to Baudrillard (1981), mass media produce simulacra that transform the authenticity of reality into a meaningless hyperreality that is merely based on Platonic reproductions. We will then analyze the relationship between an event and its photographic mediation, starting by wondering whether it is possible to divide photography as art from photography as documentation, which serves scientific, military and industrial purposes. Bergson (1911) argues it lays within photography's nature to transmute reality as it turns the dynamic process of reality into static spatialized stills. Additionally, according to Barthes' semiotic-based critique on representation (1977), photography serves a perfomative role because of elements such as the pose, objects of signification, trick effects, exposure and composition, thereby doubting photography's claim as a neutral medium (Barthes, 1977). As Sontag suggests, photography trades 'simultaneously on the prestige of art and the magic of the real' (Sontag, 1977: 69). Sontag's statement 'to live is to be photographed' (2004) raises ontological questions on the division between photography and life and between life and its mediation: how are aspects such as the pose, context and photographic matter altering our personal

representation? Why do we desire to capture our everyday lives? Lastly, we will focus on Regarding the torture of others (2004) which reports notions of photography's changed role in the mediation of our lives. It is relevant to question the influence of technological changes e.g. rise of the digital camera and social media on the medium, its function and its performativity. By placing in a broader historical context, we avoid technological determinism and false divisions when looking at the suggested higher performativity, infinite digital circulation and photography as tool for social bonding. Mediation of events and life The media claims to offer an objective access to reality by providing a transparent layer between events and their mediation, as two separate entities. Opposing this realist paradigm on events and their mediation, numerous theorists as Barthes, McLuhan, Baudrillard, Barad and Butler have questioned mediation as a form of representation, thereby considering notions of a performative role. This constructionist point of view ascribes media and mediation the role of contributing to altering the original meaning and effect of events. In addition, as argued by Barad (2007), representationalism is based on the 'taken-for-granted ontological gap' (2007: 47) between distinct static entities, while it is impossible to divide media from mediation, and furthermore, mediation from ourselves. The latter is intensifying as new media and technologies are ascending and becoming increasingly entangled with our lives and events. Mediation should therefore be regarded as a hybrid dynamic process (Bolter and Grusin, 2000), in which separate media are in permanent intra-activity as undivisible objects (Barad, 2007) since 'the content of any medium is always another medium' (Mcluhan in Lister et al, 2003: 77). Put succinctly, media are unseparable of both each other and the event they mediate. In a constructionist fashion, Baudrillard maintains that the mass media that rose in the 70s, its messages and its meaning imploded into inadequate impressions of reality: 'the medium and the real are now in a single nebula whose truth is indecipherable' (Baudrillard, 1981: 83). Baudrillard thereby extends the critique of representation by stating media as 'simulation machines', which modify the face of reality and transform it into a hyperreality (Baudrillard, 1981). He claims this is a threatening Platonic 'universe of reproduction' that is filled with copies of reality, the so-called simulacra. Moreover, Baudrillard argues, simulacra are based on a reality that is already a reproduction of the truth (Baudrillard, 1981). Hence, Baudrillard (1981) suggests that in the act of mediating events, postmodern media deprive all meaning of the original genuine content where the event is replaced by its mediation. This, for Sontag

(2004), indicates that war events are increasingly hard to separate from their mediation, as the latter is often mistaken for the event. This matter is exemplified by Baudrillard who describes the First Gulf War as a pseudo-event that never took place (as it was represented) owing to its transformative mediation. In The gulf war did not take place he argues that mass media converted the public perception: '[...] so war, when it has been turned into information, ceases to be a realistic war and becomes a virtual war' (Baudrillard, 1995: 41). Moreover, the use of for instance, radars, maps and long-distance assaults altered the method of combat into warfare based on imagery (Baudrillard, 1995). Although an event is unseparable from its performative mediation, it is significant, as argumented by Kember, to observe the mediation of events as containing both notions of representationalism and performativity (in press, 2011). As Sontag defines in the beginning of On photography, photographs are 'miniatures of reality' (Sontag, 1977: 4), genuine reproductions of the world out there, brought to us by an 'honest medium' (Weston in Sontag, 1977: 186). This is to be perceived as a McLuhanian approach, as this regards photography as an extension of the human body, more particularly the human eye and brain. Think of Eadweard Muybridge's memorable imagery of galloping horses in the 1880s and scientific close-ups of natural textures, which are not to be perceived by the human eye and consequently, clear up former misconceptions. The camera works as an extension of the human brain since it helps preserving memories, hence filling the mental gap between present and past (Sontag, 1977). Besides, as Sontag (1977; 2004) points out, photography counts as official proof in criminal cases. For Barthes (1980: 80), a photograph of a slave market is evidential for it acknowledges a past event as real. Both Barthes (1980) and Sontag (1977) hereby shift the question of reality into one of exactitude. In this sense, while recognizing photographs as partly accurate representations, Sontag highlights photography's performative role numerous times: Whatever the limitations (through amateurism) or pretensions (through artistry) of the individual photographer, a photograph - any photograph - seems to have a more innocent, and therefore more accurate, relation to visible reality than do other mimetic objects. (Sontag, 1977: 5-6) Photographs are, of course, artifacts. But their appeal is that they also seem, in a world littered with photographic relics, to have the satus of found objects unpremeditated slices of the world. Thus, they trade simultaneously on the prestige of art and the magic of the real. (Sontag, 1977: 69)

In multiple ways, according to Sontag, Barthes and Bergson, it lays within photography's nature to affect reality. As argued by Sontag, the aestheticizing of photography for art's sake is generally accepted, while a performative role of documentary photography is rejected (Sontag, 1977). Photojournalism is expected to provide an unaltered reality, while at the same time, paradoxically, one demands a beautificiation (even when the object itself is one of destruction or horror). Firstly, as argued by Bergson and Barthes, photography as a medium spatializes a dynamic temporal reality into a still in same ways as our Cartesian intellect cuts processes up (Barad, 2006) - thereby forcing a power of performativity on its subject (Bergson, 1911). By doing so, Sontag insists, photography ceases to represent reality, it only acknowledges it (Sontag, 1977). As suggested by Barthes in Camera Lucida, photographers are 'agents of Death', since images 'produce Death while trying to preserve life' (1980: 92) by reducing vivacious movement to lifeless stills, and as Sontag argues, to a 'fixed forever' (Sontag, 1977: 81). Stimulated by the death of his mother, Barthes examines the link between life and death and argues the aspect of mortality is present in all imagery since the underlying message of all photographs is 'That has been' (1980: 96). Photographs of the deceased ones remind us of their absence, and ultimately, of our own future inexorable demise, of 'the vulnerability of lives heading their own destruction' (Sontag, 1977: 70). Secondly, a photograph adds a sentimental, romanticist and dramatizing dimension to the captured reality by the turning the now into the past (Sontag, 1977). By comparing her emotions during the observation of a surgical operation to the feelings she experienced while perceiving the imagery of that surgery, she accepts the reality captured by photography as 'narrower but more dramatic than the one perceived by natural vision' (1977: 52). To summarise, Bergson, Sontag and Barthes define performativity as inherent in the process of image making. Barthes (1977) extends this critique on representationalism by adding that it is crucial to apply a semiotic-based examination of photographs by recognizing them as entities that consist of different communicational layers: denotation, connotation and myth. The objective slice of reality that is represented in a photograph is the literal 'denoted message' of the photograph (Barthes, 1977: 17), an obvious recognition of the different elements within the frame. The denotation appears to be the first meaning, as a presumed equality between signifier and signified. This denotation is ought to be unrelated to culture and society, and therefore to be perceived equally by all viewers. We may argue that it is impossible for a referent to be apprehended uniformly by all its possible addressees. There might be too many different elements that contribute to one's apprehension, such as age, sex, class, political

background, religion and geographical location. Therefore, in addition to the denoted message, a photograph possesses an implicit 'connoted message, which is the manner in which the society to a certain extent communicates what it thinks of it' (Barthes, 1977: 17). Hence, the connoted meaning is predisposed by the existing conventions and ideology of the viewer's cultural environment. Consequently, both photographer and receivers of imagery, contribute to the represented reality/event. On one hand, by applying 'professional, aesthetic or ideological norms' (Barthes, 1977: 19), a photographer deprives a photograph of its objective meaning. On the other hand, when received by the public, the photograph is subject to a personal cultural understanding of the signifiers and their signifieds. In addition, Barthes suggests there are six 'connotation procedures' (20), which determine the signifieds of the connotation, thus contributing to photography's notions of performativity: trick effects, the pose, photogenia, aestheticism, objects of signification and syntax (Barthes, 1977). A seemingly denoted message is connotated when the photograph is staged, or even postprocessed afterwards. The credibility of the obvious first-order message of the image is utilized, almost abused, by the photographer to bring about an artificial reality (Barthes, 1977). For instance, in the work of Diane Arbus, the subject is placed within a pre-organized setting to accentuate its deviative characteristics (Sontag, 1977). Sontag argues 'today everything exists to end in a photograph' (1977: 24) by which she implies the essential presence of cameras for events to take place: a non-photographed event is regarded as one that did not take place. Taking these notions further, Sontag (2004) argues that some events are merely taking place for the imagery they entail. Consequently, events and their mediation are intensely entangled since the mediation was the exclusive condition for the event to take place (Sontag, 2004). In the case of post-production, the photographer alters the original image by adding or removing signifiers, for the sake of transforming its connotated message. This invention in the 1840s merely ten years after photography's birth - was early proof of photography's ability to shape a nonexistent reality (Sontag, 1977). Besides to trick effects, the pose of the photographed subject may add signifieds to the connoted message (Barthes, 1977). As Barthes argues in Camera Lucida, 'what founds the nature of photography is the pose' (1980: 78): Once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of "posing", I instantaneously make another body for myself, I transform

myself in advance into an image. (Barthes, 1980: 12) Sontag acknowledges the latter by stating 'to live is to be photographed, [...] But to live is also to pose' (2004). This pose is intentionally created in front of the lens as an almost natural response to the 'camera's nonstop attentions' (2004). Moreover, 'the grin is a grin for the camera' (Sontag, 2004). This notion is even taken further when Sontag (1977) suggests that not allowing one to pose is to steal one's personal right to be beautified. At the same time, the subject forces itself into 'the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am [...]' (Barthes, 1980: 13). This means, paradoxically, that the object while posing - aims at the same time for alienation (a self-conscious aestheticization of 'the one I want others to think I am') and self-affirmation (taking possession of 'the one I think I am') (Ertem, 2010). According to Barthes, the former is related to the experience of Death, since one loses the Self in the photographic act of being turned into an embellished object. The latter then, as claimed by Richard Brilliant (in Ertem, 2010: 69) derives from the photograph's 'window opening to our 'self' through the other'. Hence, it is crucial to question portrait and family photography's role in the mediation of our lives: are we not performing an unnatural version of reality and of ourselves? Instead of reality being represented, a moment is staged and mediated, which contributes to an ambiguous memory. In the series of New York subway photographs by Walker Evans, the subjects are unaware of the camera's presence, and are therefore not posing: 'their expressions are private ones, not those they would offer to the camera' (Sontag, 1977: 37). We may argue that in this case, the ontological gap between the event and its mediation is partly diminished. Nevertheless, Barthes (1977) alleges extra connotation procedures, which affect the representation of reality: Aestheticism, Objects, Photogenia and Syntax. Whereas Sontag (1977) describes moving images as dramatized by the choice of layout and montage, photographs dramatize reality and its events by aesthetic choices, such as composition and perspective: Contrary to what is suggested by the humanist claims made for photography, the cameras ability to transform reality into something beautiful derives from its relative weakness as a means of conveying truth. (Sontag, 1977: 112) Photographers mediate life whilst applying a sense of 'rightness' to the process of photographic selection, in order to obtain 'the perfect shot'. Indeed, even in atrocity imagery,

the photographer assigns, often unconsciously, a personal photographic taste by including or excluding specific elements in the frame. The presence or absence of specific signifying objects might transfigure the connoted message. We might nevertheless argue that often the aesthetical aspect of a photograph strengthens its informational persuasiveness. Photogenia is the term Barthes uses to refer to the photographer's personal employment of 'techniques of lighting, exposure and printing' (1977: 23). Technological determinists as Mcluhan argue that 'the medium is the message' (cited in Elkins, 2006), thereby ascribing photographic matter and process responsibility for affecting the photographic mediation of an event. For instance, preferring Polaroid film over Daguerrotypes for portrait photography may impinge the photograph's affectivity. Sontag argues that when losing its original texture and tones, a photograph loses its 'aura' (1977: 140). Therefore, as described by Sontag, Ansel Adams points out we should not speak of 'taking pictures', but of 'making pictures', as the photographer is shaping and forming the world into a personal one by applying personal aesthetic standards (Sontag, 1977: 123). The final connotation procedure 'Syntax' refers to the photograph's context. For Barthes (1977), this means the influence of the sequence of imagery of which a photograph is part. While trying to represent one's life, a series of photographs containing various postures, perspectives and compositions will impact upon the individual connotation of the portraits reciprocally. In addition to the definition of Syntax offered by Barthes in Image-Music-Text, we may consider 'context' in a broader sense. According to Sontag, imagery 'its moral and emotional weight depends on where it is inserted' (1977: 105). A small portrait in one's salon may mediate completely different when isolated and enlarged in an art gallery. Furthermore, the visual and textual environment the caption, or even a complete article - will guide the viewer's perception. But foremost, as Levin argues, the context of the public as a heterogeneous audience of individuals, each containing their own values and culture, should not be disregarded (Levin, 2009). Photography and (our) life In representing our lives, photography is less appropriated as art but rather as 'a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power' (Sontag, 1977: 8). As discussed above when describing 'the pose' as one of the connotation procedures (Barthes, 1977), we seek to represent a perfect social image of the Self by staging performances, poses and contexts. Moreover, Sontag argues, in the process of being photographed, we experience a 'deep satisfaction' (2004) as we are turned into celebrities (1977). Since we photograph what matters to us, to photograph someone means to acknowledge that person as significant.

In addition to social purposes, the process of image making serves as a tool of power since it puts 'oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge - and, therefore, like power' (Sontag, 1977: 4). It provides us availability; as an open window to the entire world and its numerous dimensions. Furthermore, imagery is often ascribed to document important moments in our lives, e.g. family gatherings, ceremonies and holidays. As a defense against the threatening elusiveness of reality, we capture what we think might disappear, from experiences, to places and people. It provides us a 'recorder' to cope with and take control over the complex and dynamic process of life: 'one can't posses reality, one can posses (and be possessed by) images' (Sontag, 1977: 163). Or atleast, we are provided the feeling of being able to 'hold the world in our heads - as an anthology of images' (1977: 3). Photoalbums work to remind us of our personal history and can metaphorically be seen as 'reservoirs which hold our past experiences and knowledge for future use' (Van Dijck, 2007: 2). Van Dijck (2007) furthermore alludes that photography, for self-reflecting purposes, then creates a sense of being a coherent person. Nevertheless, we manage our own album's order and content, and consequently create idealized memories of our past since we neglect specific past life events. Moreover, we previously acknowledged, that both the photographer and the photographed contribute to performativity. While the object poses, the image-maker frames, selects and neglects; hence, both transforming reality into a personalized one. This ofcourse raises questions on the exactitude of mediated memories. According to Kuhn (1995), an image works merely as a clue, always pointing somewhere else by the ongoing 'shift between past and present, spectator and image, and between all these and cultural contexts, historical moments' (Kuhn, 1995: 14). Furthermore, the photographical object itself dramatizes the memory and its meaning, values and atmosphere. Owing to the unbridgeable temporal distance between the now and the past, the objectification of the moment into a photograph leads to an amplified reminiscence, since the photograph is victim of the 'generalized pathos of looking at time past' (Sontag, 1977: 71). In similar ways, unattainable spaces become desired when turned into imagery. Nonetheless, in the context of atrocity imagery, Sontag (1977) alludes that whilst enhancing desirability, this spatiality simultaneously forms 'a comforting pathos safe without fear that we will be called upon to affect the lives of those pictured' (Parsons, 2009: 293). This increasingly present feeling by the viewer is intensified in a visually saturated society where spatial and temporal distant images thrive, which more and more gives rise to notions of passivity. Ultimately, according to Sontag, it is not the experienced moment that is remembered, but merely the photograph. Also Barthes disapproves of photography as a tool to record

memories in Camera Lucida by stating: 'Not only is the Photograph never, in essence, a memory [...] but it actually blocks memory, quickly becomes a counter-memory' (Barthes, 1980: 91). The sole presence of sight and the absence of taste, touch, smell and sound means for Barthes that a photograph is never capable of fully grasping a past moment. Since reality is increasingly represented to us by photographic material, modern concerns rise whether the ontological distinction between 'photography' and 'reality' is still intact. The presumed distinction between reality and copy as two separate entities is opposed by the thought of photography as an extension of reality, as something real, taking control over its subject, experience and connection to it (Sontag, 1977). Sontag suggests that photographs have become more real than anyone ever presumed, hence: The powers of photography have in effect de-Platonized our understanding of reality, making it less and less plausible to reflect upon our experience according to the distinction between images and things, between copies and originals. (Sontag, 1977: 179) As famously highlighted by Ren Magritte in his painting 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe', we might mistake the reference (the photograph) for the referent (the signified). This is why, according to Sontag (2004), the American government claimed to be 'disgusted by the photographs as if the fault of horror lay in the images, not in what they depict'. Sontag implied similar discourse before throughout her entire book, but analyzed them more concretely in her chapter The Image-World. Feuerbach in The essence of Christianity (1843, cited in Sontag, 1977: 153 ) argued, recently after the birth of photography, that the public 'prefers the image to the thing, the copy to the original, the representation to the reality, appearance to being.' Moreover, for Frederick Sommer, 'life itself is not the real' (in Sontag, 1977: 190). In the process of being photographed; persons, objects and events are being made 'real', as if non-photographed events are non-events that never took place. Weissberg emphasizes that photography instead of representing life, it now 'rather signals it, reveals it, makes it exist' (Weissberg in Robins, 1996: 156). When we describe something as 'it seemed like a photograph/movie', we accept the medium as more real than reality. Based on similar discourses, Baudrillard's theory on photography as a 'simulation machine' suggests the existence of a hyperreality that reproduces the first-order reality (Baudrillard, 1981).

Changed role of photography?

Throughout Regarding the torture of others, Sontag ascribes numerous changes to the appropriation, social signification and technological context of the photographical medium and its mediation. The beginning of the 20th century brought new technologies to life for lightweight photography equipment e.g. Leica, 35mm film and higher photosensitivity -, thereby enabling mass-produced photography (Elkins, 2006). In similar ways, recent technology and media changes e.g. the rise of online media, manipulation software and inexpensive devices are affecting the role of contemporary image-making. More particularly, since the 60s (with the arrival of instant and automated photography), prices heavily declined, bringing us to a contemporary state of a visual society armed with smart devices, compact cameras and amature DSLR devices to personally capture reality. Camera usage evolved from a professional activity into an almost enslaving occupation: people record all aspects of their daily lives and share it to the world, thereby breaking photography's previously domestic spheres (Sontag, 2004). The recording of all aspects of our existence symbiotically operates with the augmented presence of death-related and sex-related imagery. Yet, the addictive element of photography is inherent to its nature, as Sontag recognized: 'needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted' (Sontag, 1977: 24). For Robins moreover, the recording of reality seems to gain importance, detrimental to the apprehension of a genuine vital experience of life (Robins, 1996). By referring to Kodak's list of what (not) to photograph at cultural locations, also Sontag (1977) indicated a heightened urge to photographically capture reality, instead of experiencing it. Sontag argues that the purpose of photographs is less and less 'to be saved' in photoalbums as trophies and memories; instead, they have become 'messages to be disseminated, circulated' (Sontag, 2004). Sontag accedes this circulation is infinite: In our digital hall of mirrors, the pictures aren't going to go away. Yes, it seems that one picture is worth a thousand words. And even if our leaders choose not to look at them, there will be thousands more snapshots and videos. Unstoppable. (Sontag, 2004) In online environments, digital streams are abundant with user-generated photographic material of everyday life practices. Whereas personal memories were safely kept inside a diary, they now become part of social collective property of the online community (Wagner, 2011). In these hypermediated environments, photographs are affected by their visual and

textual contexts. We may recognize a loss of control over its mediation since other users of digital and interactive media are free to share and comment on our photographic representation. These notions of an intensified perfomative role of photography are extended when regarding possible manipulative software. We may although speak of merely a difference in degree, as we previously acknowledged that the original photograph has been psysically manipulated and contextually affected (by its Syntax) since the medium's very start (Sontag, 1977; Barthes, 1977). By defining modern photographs as 'messages', Sontag (2004) accepts them as tools of communication. This means, as Van Dijck observes, that 'photographs increasingly seem to be used for live communication instead of for storing moments of life for later recall' (Van Dijck, 2007: 99). In other words, as social creatures we advance photography for social bonding and self-affirmation whereas formerly, photography was appropriated as a carrier of memories (Van Dijck, 2007). By the act of 'selecting' representative moments, one is devoted to attain the socially most appealing self-image. As Wagner (2011) illustrates, mobile blogging smart device applications such as Instagram and Hipstamatic is ascribed on one hand as means for representation and therefore, for social recognition. Also, on the other hand, it is attributed for an inquisitive observation of the other. Though, as Sontag in On Photography pointed out, we have always been fascinated by the life and oddities of others in a voyeurist sense, exemplified by the popularity of Arbus's photographs (Sontag, 1977). Robins argues that the cited changes are 'generally being interpreted in terms of technological revolution, and of revolutionary implications for those who produce and consume images' (Robins, 1996: 149). This 'technological revolution' then regards older forms of photography and digital photography as distinctive entities, while, as Bolter and Grusin (2000) argue, it is crucial not to speak of a revolution, but rather of a process of remediation. Recent tendencies within digital photography are continuously refashioning analog photography, more particularly, its 'handmade quality and aura'. Quite literally, applications on smart devices such as Instagram and Hipstamatic utilize the distinguishing characteristics of instant photography; in Hipstamatic's own words: 'Digital photography never looked so analog'. Furthermore, a Mcluhanian point-of-view ascribes the new technologies and media the responsibility for the vanishing of the ontological distinction between reality and copy. According to Sontag (2004), the American government mistakes the mediation for the event and therefore incriminates the photographs, instead of the events of horror. By scrutinizing what Sontag stated more than three decades ago and comparing it with a Bergsonian approach, to what is cited nowadays, it is relevant not to consider these

phenomenons as differences in kind, but as differences in degree. Conclusion Throughout this essay we have focused on photography's role in the mediation of events and more specifically, in the mediation of our personal lives. The realist view on mediation -representationalism - is repeatedly countered by constructionist discourses of perfomativity. We have argued that, following Sontag's On Photography and Regarding the torture of others, the photographical medium, while preserving and recognizing elements of what is real, also contributes to a perfomative mediation of our lives. By following Barthes' semiotic-based critique of representation, we have illuminated numerous performative elements that are inherent to photography's nature: from the materialization, to the framing and aestheticization. We have taken these notions of performativity into account and then consequently questioned photography's credibility in representing events and our social lives, and also, in carrying memories. This essay argued that photographs dramatize our reality into one that is expedient for both the self and the other: 'to live is to be photographed, [...] But to live is also to pose' (2004). Moreover, inn Regarding the torture of others, Sontag argues that imagery is increasingly becoming a tool for social bonding and communication. In addition to social purposes, image-making is appropriated to grasp and manage the dynamic equivocal process of reality and moreover to represent it to the world. This has since the medium's birth initiated ontological questions on the distinction between life and photography, and furthermore, between reality and copy. Theorists as Baudrillard suggest that photography and the other postmodern media are creating a reproduced hyperreality that is based on simulations and replaces the authentic reality. We concluded that the mediation of events and life is increasingly difficult to disentangle from reality as we naturally seem to mistake the reference for the referent. What is remembered of an event if often merely its photographic objectification. Nevertheless, when describing the issues that surface in Sontag's Regarding the torture of others, we have avoided technological determinism and creating false divisions by referring to (the more than three decades ago written) On photography and the topics it arose. We summarized that ontological concerns are not to be regarded as new consequences of developments in technology and media (more particularly, digital photography), though rather as a remediation and intensification of concerns that was already in place.

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